Best Computer Gaming Franchise Ever Retires

I remember one day talking to Bob, a local hobby store owner, back in 1980, and him showing me his first "personal" computer, an Atari 800. He introduced me to some game about spaceship attacks or close to it, and I was fascinated with the concept. I had never seen a home computer before, one you could use at home, and this was something brand new to me. Soon I was buying one and looking for software to load into it, and of course, the rest is history!

It has been years since those first computers, primitive yet fun, were introduced onto the scene. An explosion in video and audio equipment pushed the computer industry ahead even further and faster. My first real computer, if you get down to practicality, was a Hyundai. Imagine: a car company making computers, but that was in the earlier days. It had two disc drives, had to be booted up by commands, and ran only when you loaded everything up. After a couple of years, the computers got more sophisticated and I finally bought and ordered, by phone, my first Gateway 2000. It had a hard drive, some meg of RAM, and a CD drive as well. My wife wasn't real impressed, but I was! I immediately put it all together, carefully following the quick picture instructions, and turned it on. Windows 95! Bright and colorful it was. The sights and sounds were also stimulating. I scanned the "desktop" and checked out the software programs installed. I had ordered it with Microsoft Office 97 (because I was a teacher) and several other practical applications. My eyes spotted an icon that I did not recognize; one with a four-letter title called "MYST". For the first few days, I ignored it. Then one evening, curiosity got the best of me, like a cat, and I double-clicked on it. The screen got dark, the sound came on, and a kind of kid's sounding musical tune started. Soon a voice began telling me that something was amiss, that a fissure or crevice had swallowed up a linking book, and my journey was begun. That was the year 1995, and I had never been introduced to the "Myst" phenomenon, but I was hooked after only a few minutes. And have been hooked ever since. Alas, this past year I bought the "last" so-called chapter in a long tale, Myst V referred to "End of Ages", and I have become a bit depressed. It says that Cyan will not do any more "chapters" of Myst, and my enthusiasm of past years is gone. I admit my disappointment in reading this and, well, dream of a day a few years from now when someone will say, "Hey, why don't we go back and revisit 'Myst' and do another chapter?" I can still dream, can't I?

Myst was not really a "game", it was an experience. I had not played many "computer games" up to that time and I didn't know what to expect. Myst took you to a world where nothing was taken for granted. At first appearance, there wasn't much to it: it was a small island surrounded by water and sky, and even a person visiting it for the first time may have be mystified (no pun intended) at what to do there. You had to search, investigate, click around and find clues to whatever it was the game creators wanted you to find. Only later did you realize that you were completely "involved" in an experience that no one could explain or understand. The graphics were tremendously inviting, the sounds were unreal and different, and the time went by quickly. I found I was spending about an hour or two every night trying to find more clues, trying to dig my way through the plot, whatever kind it was, and I was moving ahead! Nothing in using a computer before or since has captured my complete and undivided attention like that. After about two and a half weeks of total focus on that monitor screen, I arrived at the end of the story, and found myself a bit depressed. I had reached the end, solved the puzzles and met Atrus, or Rand Miller, one of the creators of the game who was playing the role of Atrus, the father figure in the story. He hinted, though, that he would maybe need my help in the future, and suddenly my sadness was a bit removed, thinking of the possibility of a sequel to the story. And I waited. I waited a few years, in fact, and played Myst again. And again.

When the second chapter in the franchise was released, called "Riven", I was at a WalMart store the morning it came out. I had never done anything like that, had never been so enthusiastic about something that I had to be at the store on the first hour of the first day it came out to pick it up. Riven did not disappoint, and it took me a bit longer, about two months, to finish. The story was compelling, the graphics seemed even more advanced, and the feeling of complete satisfaction was overwhelming. I wanted more, and expected that more would come. A few years later, of course, Myst III came to us, and then Myst IV and finally Myst V, the last chapter, with an intermediate one somewhere in between called "Uru". All this in about an eleven year run, and the story was gratifying and complete. The original Myst had come a long way since the click and play days, and now the technology had taken us to even greater surroundings.

Since 2005, when the final game came out, there has been an on-line experience introduced for the Uru fans, and experience I have chosen not to enjoy only because of the financial obligation. It doesn't mean I have forgotten the franchise. The upgrades of Windows have made it more and more difficult to return and experience the original games: they just do not run, even in their compatibility modes. I have saved an old earlier version computer just for that reason, so every once in a while I can go back and visit Myst Island again, or Riven and beyond. I am not one to immerse myself in a fantasy world too long, or take a pc game too seriously. The exception to that has been and always will be Myst, and I don't know if a computer game will ever come along that did this to me. Not like this! If you have a computer that can run one of these games, especially the original one, I highly recommend "playing" it and sinking yourself into the total experience. I warn you, though, turn down the lights, grab a snack and beverage, and turn off your cell phone. You will probably feel rewarded afterwords!