What happens when you create one of the biggest-selling computer games of all time? You get a lot of fans, and a lot of detractors. Since its release in 1993, Myst and its sequel, Riven, have sold approximately 10 million copies worldwide. Published just when the CD-ROM format was gaining widespread acceptance, Myst took advantage of the CD’s huge storage capacity to create a gaming experience quite unlike any other. Through a nearly transparent point-and-click interface, you navigated a surrealistic fantasy island created from beautiful static scenes rendered in high resolution. Playing Myst was like wandering into an enchanted art gallery, and the gameplay was paced like a leisurely stroll. The learning curve was flat–the difficulty came only in solving the adventure’s challenging puzzles. You couldn’t die in the game, and there was no combat of any kind. It was refreshingly different. Now the Myst colossus is striding back on the gaming scene with Myst III: Exile, a game that builds on the legacy of the series and provides an almost magical sense of wonder.
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