Cheap Uru: Ages Beyond Myst (Software) (Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows XP) Price

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Customer Reviews of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst

Things I liked about this game:
1. The graphics. Incredible. I especially loved the 3-D environment that allows you to spin around and look at everything, and gives you more freedom of movement than previous Myst games.

2. The sound. Wonderful, rich sounds that fit perfectly into the game.

3. The story. Apparently, this a matter of taste, as I see most reviewers here on Amazon really disliked the story. Personally, I found the story at least as engrossing as Myst: Riven, although not on the same level as Myst: Exile. I enjoyed learning more about the D'ni people featured in the Myst games. The main story revolves around Yeesha asking you to restore four pillars in order to make things right for a new group of people, called The Least. I found the story very satisfactory.

4. The end. Again, this appears to be a matter of taste. Most people don't seem to have cared for the ending at all, but I loved it. I didn't feel like it was just a prelude for the online game, which I have no intention of playing.

5. The puzzles. They are definitely challenging. If you don't like a challenge, or you don't want to use a good walkthrough to finish, this may not be the game for you. I loved the puzzles (with a few exceptions), and as usual, found them to blend seamlessly into the game.

Things I didn't like:
1. Camera angles. They were pretty good most of the time, but often I would find myself watching my avatar walking somewhere on a path I couldn't see to an area I couldn't see. You can change the camera to first person, but the game will pull you out of it for puzzles, which interrupts the flow of the game.

2. Load times. It takes about a full minute sometimes for a new area to load. Granted, that isn't long, but considering how frequently you have to enter new areas, it can get annoying. This is probably an unavoidable drawback of having such lush graphics in 3-D game.

3. Jump, die, reload. Isn't that what most experienced gamers really hate about some adventure games? To be fair, you don't die, you're simply transported back to a central start point. Which has to load. Then you have to click to go back to the age you were in, and wait for that age to load. Then, depending how far you were from your last save point, you get to go find where you were when you fell. This can get tedious, especially when you factor in load times. One puzzle requires you to do quite a bit of difficult jumping, and I must have had to go through the above sequence 30 times. For that, I knocked a star off my review.

4. You can't save wherever you want. Jumping and falling would not be so frustrating if you didn't have to sit through the constant reloading of areas. You would not have to sit through the constant reloading of areas if you could save right before you jumped in the same area. However, this is not allowed. You never save in this game at all, except by finding and pressing jouney clothes. These save your place in each age. (Puzzles save themselves automatically once completed.) This isn't a huge problem, but can be inconvenient, especially if you're doing a lot of jumping and falling.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game, but there are definitely some flaws.

On Gameplay and System Requirements
I was only able to play this game for a few days recently when my brother came to visit and brought his computer along. It played great on his system, but alas, could not work at all on my system. If you don't have a super computer, this is not the game for you. It has motivated me, however, to work on getting a better system...at the same time, it bothers me that computers in general are outdated witin six months of being built, my system was top-of-the-line only two years ago and I still can't play Uru on my system.

I did greatly enjoy playing on my brother's computer though. I'm a big fan of the Myst series, however they decided to sacrifice a lot on the imagery which was so incredibly clear and realistic on Riven and Exile to make it a single disk and to have 360 movement and direction. So, it looks and feels a lot like a typical first person view computer game. This was a dissapointment as one of the things I enjoyed so much about the previous games was the feeling of really being there.

Also unlike the previous games of Myst, you can fall off high places, however since you've got a linking book with you at all times you don't die when you miss the jump to a sheer cliff over molten lava, but you get transported back to the starting point and have to go around and start what you were trying to get to all over again. Speed, also, is of necissity in gameplay, also unlike the previous games.

I will be updating my system in the future so I can play this game...the puzzles are fun and there is mystery associated as you explore several worlds which at one time were quite advanced, but have fallen into ruin. Overall I'm glad there is another in the Myst universe, but dissapointed in the lower quality of gameplay and imagery.

Excellent but flawed game
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an outstanding game with exceptional images, sounds and puzzles ... so why four stars and not five?

Uru has two significant flaws:

1) You can't save your game.

Your save points are set by touching each Age's seven Journey Cloths. It's the game designers - not the gamer - who determines save points.

Good save points make it easy for the gamer to explore alternate endings, and more importantly, to avoid having to solve the same puzzle repeatedly.

But unless you play Uru perfectly, some Journey Cloths are placed so that you must solve several puzzles multiple times.

2) Your avatar can walk, run, climb and jump.

Unlike Myst, Riven and Exile, Uru is no longer restricted to point-and-click movement from one scene to the next.

But there's a problem.

Your avatar is keyboard and mouse controlled, not joystick enabled. Its third person perspective is occasionally sloppy. Moreover, it can't use its hands when moving objects; that's a ridiculous constraint.

Uru's minimum hardware requirements are...

800 MHz Pentium/AMD Athlon
250 MB RAM
32 MB nVidia GForce 1 - 4 or FX/ATI Radeon 7000 - 9800 or better

Assuming you don't want long delays between Age loads, I strongly recommend, "or better."

My guess, Uru really wants a 2 GHz CPU with 1 GB of RAM and a 128 MB video card. Uru is designed for higher end hardware.

Uru also has hardware requirement gotchas. Here are some of them...

* 98SE is specific; no allowance is made for Windows 98.

* The video card requirement is precise: it's either a 32 MB nVidia GForce 1 - 4 or FX, or an ATI Radeon 7000 - 9800 or better.

No other video card will work, including lower end versions of nVidia or ATI Radeon.

* The "CD-ROM: 4x or better (not recommended for use with CD-RWs)" requirement is imprecise. Didn't fully appreciate it until I bought the expansion pack, which clearly states, "This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disk and virtual drives."

Uru will not work properly in either a CD-R or CD-RW.

Finally, here's an Uru synopsis:

You begin in the Desert.

After touching seven Journey Cloths, you are given access to a linking book, which takes you to Relto (Island in the Clouds). Relto is your refuge and starting point between game sessions.

To solve Uru, you must transfer pillars from Teledahn (Mushroom Age), Gahreesen (Fortresses Age), Kadish Tolesa (Mechanical Age) and Eder Gira/Eder Kemo (Volcano and Garden Ages) from the Bahro (Pillar Cave) to Relto.

When all four pillars reside in Relto, you transfer them back to the Bahro and return to the Desert to solve its remaining puzzles.