Topic: Misc.
I completed URU: Ages beyond Myst this morning. It's a puzzle game based on the idea of exploring an ancient but extinct civilisation. Actually, I say I completed it, but I needed a lot of assistance. In fact without the hints I found online, I don't think I would have ever done it given a million years.
Spoiler:
Take the final scene for instance. In order to know that it exists at all, you have to realise that a comment you hear from a recording of a woman's voice talking about giving back what you have taken, means that you should return to all four levels that you've visited and undo the last thing you did while there.
Doing this takes you to another place, where you are supposed to note down the symbols drawn on the floor. You then return to the place where you started, from which you're meant to go back to the room where you first encountered a hologram and select those symbols on the .... Oh sorry am I losing you?
My point is that I'm struggling to believe that ANYONE could have completed this game without going online for hints. So many times I got half-way through a puzzle, having done the hard part of sketching out diagrams of stained-glass windows or hieroglyphics before coming to a dead end. Sometimes consulting the hints led to a reaction of 'but of course!', but on most occasions, it was 'how the hell was I supposed to figure that out?'.
Spoiler:
A case in point - in one level, you find that you can't access an area of a cave because it's pitch black. You're supposed to realise that you have to go to a different area of the same level and walk into a swarm of fireflies, some of whom will follow you.
Except it's not that simple. The fireflies only cluster around you if you walk. As soon as you run, they vanish. They also don't like rain, so if it starts raining you have to get under a covered passageway until it stops. In the least logical bit of all, you have to somehow figure out that the flies will follow you if you cross water ONCE but not a second time. This is supposed to drive you to devise a river crossing using some discarded barrels.
I honestly don't think that a team of Stephen Hawkins, Alan Turing and Albert Einstein could have worked all that out. In my case, I never even noticed the fireflies in the first place. I thought they were spores from the nearby plants.
Having said that, I did have fun with the game. The landscapes and the soundtrack are amazing and when you do figure something out and advance to the next level, there is a real sense of accomplishment and excitement at the coming revelations.
But no more jumping in puzzles games ... EVER, please.
_ DY
at 5:07 PM GMT
