Product Description
-------------------
Enter a deceptively beautiful world torn apart by age-old
conflicts, where secrets lie hidden at every turn, and nothing is
as it seems. You must search, you must explore, you must learn
the truth.
.com
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Prepare to enter a world "torn asunder" by timeless, unresolved
conflicts--a world of incomparable beauty, intrigue, and
betrayal. Prepare to go to Riven. Journey through vast,
awe-inspiring landscapes, where clouds sit nestled in a deep blue
sky and the rolling sea waters shimmer from bright morning
sunlight. But be forewarned: nothing is quite as it seems.
Reclusive beings and mysterious creatures populate the land.
Deep, dark secrets lay hidden at every turn. Your utmost powers
of observation and reason are required to complete a most elusive
task. You must let Riven become your world. Only then may the
truth be discovered and a world be saved. Riven stands as a story
for all time, a story that evokes a sense of awe, wonder, and
profound purpose. Prepare to go to Riven --a world unlike any
you've ever known.
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From the Manufacturer
---------------------
The most anticipated sequel ever comes to the PC. Join Atrus in
his search for Catherine in Riven: The Sequel to Myst. It
features all-new locations, bigger environments, deeper character
interaction, and amazingly real textures and graphics.
Review
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Myst, at more than 3.5 million units sold, is the world's most
popular PC entertainment title, and after four years is still
riding the top of the charts. This fact remains, despite a
significant number of players who never get past the game's first
tough puzzle: the rotating lighthouse.
For whatever reasons that Myst was such a success, Riven has a
lot of the same. You'll see the same click/move/slide-show
interface, along with similar mechanical and navigational puzzles
and the now familiar wander and wonder gameplay. Riven's markedly
improved graphics and sound further enhance the ambiance and make
Riven even more immersive than its predecessor. The puzzles and
problems are more cohesive, and there is more of a storyline, but
in the end, Riven is only an evolutionary improvement over Myst.
You begin where Myst left off. Atrus (played once again by Rand
Miller), the her of the two feuding sons in Myst, has another
task for you: Rescue his wife from the evil clutches of Atrus's
her Gehn, then permanently imprison Gehn in one of those
"trap" books from Myst.
Your quest takes place in Riven, a fanciful world created by Gehn
in the tradition of his ancestors - by simply imagining it and
writing about it. Riven (from the ancient English word "rive,"
which means "to rip apart") is a collection of small islands
connected with catwalks, aerial trams, and a minisubmarine. You
will expend much of your effort just figuring out how to get
around. In many instances you'll find a switch in an obscure
location, then take a circuitous route to the gate it opens.
Unlike Myst, these islands have human inhabitants, although
you'll be hard-pressed to actually see any. There are plenty of
spherical, earthen huts and occasional fleeting human encounters,
but there is no interaction or dialogue. The oblique storyline is
played out in the islands' objects and the implications you can
draw from them, such as a disturbing kid's toy, a Wizard of
Oz-like throne, and a frog trap. And if these are too obtuse you
can always arduously pore through the voluminous journals you'll
acquire.
Riven's two major puzzles require solving several miniproblems
that in turn require close observation of Riven's denizens,
colors, and unique numbering system. Gathering those elements
becomes routine but just as you get comfortable with the concept
there is a clever extra challenge tossed in - a missing color, a
broken device, an obtusely revealed animal. Much of Riven's
prerelease PR emphasized the environment as a source of clues and
puzzle solutions. It is, but not to the large extent and subtle
degree you may expect.
There are no technological breakthroughs but plenty of
high-quality production values. The QuickTime animations - doors
opening, levers moving, drawbridges dropping - are larger and
blend well with the backgrounds, but that's principally a
reflection of improvements in that display method. The sound
effects are perfect and worth the price of high-end speakers, but
there is no support of newer 3D audio technology. The graphics
are superbly, even fanatically, detailed but that's more an
aesthetic decision than a technical achievement.
For a game that has low-tech system demands, it consumes an
inordinate a of hard drive space - 140MB. Plus, if you play
it for an extended period of time, you may encounter audio
lapses. I missed a critical end-game aural clue, but after
rebooting, and replaying that scene, it played just fine. Riven
ships on five discs, but you can start saved games with only one
of them and must click slowly through four animations before you
can load a game [editor's note: This is not the only way to
restore games - but it is the only intuitive way].
With a walk-through in hand, Riven took only about four hours.
Without it, I'd still be at it, doing a lot of wandering,
ping, and of my observations. And just like Myst,
that's what Riven is all about: exploring a new world full of
unique beings, machines, and family intrigue. There is no
inventory, no need to combine mysterious potions, and no board
game puzzles with little connection to Riven's world. Rather,
it's a leisurely paced, all-encompassing, mentally challenging
experience. If you enjoyed Myst, you'll thoroughly enjoy Riven.
-- Jeff Sengstack
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review
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