Myst (DS)

Touch-screen controls maul a classic adventure.
6/1/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

You can't go home again. The cliché about ceaseless change frequently and regrettably applies to videogames. We inevitably mature, gaining experience and perspective, and those places we seek to revisit, whether they be our childhood homes or fantastic videogame worlds, succumb to age, especially when their caretakers allow them to fall into disrepair. Playing Myst DS is like visiting a Disney World faded by weather and wear, or, even worse, suffering from half-assed bits of maintenance that ruin the intention of the geniuses who made the place. So, actually, playing Myst DS is just like going to Disney World: a nostalgic bummer.

Oddly enough there were once plans for the world of Myst to be made real on Walt Disney World property. The plan was to convert Tom Sawyer's Island into a live-in puzzle. Potential explorers would pay a fee to be stranded on the isle with a handful of other tourists. That's how wide Myst's appeal once was. Until The Sims came along, Myst was the best-selling PC game of all time and with good reason. The spare, lovely game transported players to a mysterious place, an island linked to a handful of other worlds by magical books. Millions were drawn into this lonely place, frustrated and fascinated by the game's puzzling world, engaged by its unassuming story about the power of the imagination and very real consequences of power.

The game, created by brothers Robyn and Rand Miller, was originally released in 1993 for the Macintosh and has since been ported to nearly every console known to man. Myst, with its rudimentary visuals, is a low-fidelity relic, a piece of history just as dusty and dated as the objects it sets out to create. And yet its impact still feels diminished when played on the tiny screen of the Nintendo DS.

My first trip to Myst was soon after the game was released. I played on an expensive PC bought with my first college loan. Though my monitor was small and my speakers crappy, I still felt transported to another place when I booted up. At the time the game's static snapshots represented the height of computer-generated art. To explore, the game players clicked on each image and, depending where they touched the picture, they'd rotate to view the scene from another fixed angle or move to a spot somewhere down a path or passageway.

Navigating like this today feels like watching a slideshow, like the stuttering frames of the experimental French film "La Jetée." But the Rand brothers cleverly made the best of their limitations. Gorgeous audio clips added an atmospheric ambiance to each image. Another layer of sound, an ominous soundtrack, further pulled players into the world. Even today these techniques are enough to engulf any gamer with the least willingness to suspend disbelief.

Sadly, Myst DS manages to squander this magic. The game's audio is surprisingly raggedy and some clips load at inappropriate moments. The sound of wind whipping an outdoor microphone, for instance, loops when the player is trapped in a sealed submersible. This clip works well when you're standing on Myst's high ground surrounded by sea, but it feels misplaced indoors or underground.