Riven
I thought about calling this entry "You have two cows", in honor of receiving an updated copy of the government-described-through-cow-ownership joke. My favorite is Surrealism: "You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons." Jokes are always funnier when they involve surrealism.
Fish.
I tended to go through cycles in MYST of getting stuck for a bit, than figuring things out. I'm not great at these games, probably because I don't often play them. I made some substantial progress on Riven tonight, but I eventually stopped because I'd been playing for four hours and was bumping into some obstacles.
The graphics in Riven sure look spiffy, and I like how they've worked the sounds and animation in much more seamlessly. The wonders of more computing power! Now the water is animated, and you can sometimes see mosquitoes and other bugs - and the occasional bird - flitting about the scenery.
So far, I'm disappointed in two things: First, that I haven't encountered much music yet. The music was one of the selling points of MYST, as it set up much of the atmosphere. Second, that there's relatively little evidence so far of people having actually lived in the fantasy world of Riven. Again, one of the neat things about MYST was that there was some clear evidence of the sons of Atrus having been busy in the various worlds you can explore. Although technically Riven is no more static a setting, it doesn't feel quite as real.
Well, not yet, anyway. It's hard to judge how extensive the game is (it comes on 5 CD-ROMs), so it's likely I've only scratched the surface. It takes place on islands, like MYST, but in this case it seems to be an archipelago rather than spread out over several dimensions. Well, we'll see how it works out.
No doubt it will suck up most of my free time over the next several days (if not weeks!).
But it's fun.
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