(And I don't just mean by their publisher.) They're trying to create a single-player game which will join seamlessly with a multi-player world. In a way, I think that Cyan was forced into this position. Which is why, ultimately, I say this is not a satisfying game on its own. I rarely hear mystical fantasy dialogue which actually works the writing in Uru works.īut are you part of a story? Only barely. And (despite my irony) this is all pretty well done. You receive mysterious and elliptical instruction, which leads you to explore the worlds and find the things you are told to find, and these lead you to more mysterious and elliptical information, and then you realize you have to do other stuff, which gives you mysterious and elliptical praise and a complimentary t-shirt. And nothing else really holds the game together. But the single-player game is only the introduction to that story. The full multi-player Uru Live, I'm sure, will evolve a complete story arc for D'ni - which (I hope) I will take part in discovering. There isn't enough history here - not enough to be truly satisfying. It's something you explore, not something you do.Īnd I think I need something to do, in a game. or, if it is, it's the story of the D'ni people. Not as complex and layered as Riven, but then Riven had an entire game dedicated to it solely.īut - unlike in every previous Myst game - what links the worlds of Uru is not your story. They're far richer and more subtle than the Ages of Myst. (Even the Age which is a blatant string of arbitrary puzzles!) As you explore, you gradually come to understand them. Each Age of Uru has a logic to it, and background, and history. On the other hand, it did cough up some plot at the end, and you wind up being chased around the room by an axe-wielding maniac. It imitated the plot-token quest, without even the minimal integration of game and story that Myst had. (created by Presto Studios, not Cyan) was all exploration, almost no story. No question about your role there your actions drive the whole plot. Was an exploration of a single world (and then more), and a single story. Okay, that was rudimentary too - a classic plot-token quest, and for blank pieces of paper at that - but it was the truly interactive aspect of the story it was the part you were complicit in. Not the point here.) The exploration was motivated by a frame story, which was your story. (Okay, the stories were pretty rudimentary. Was an exploration of worlds, and the stories within those worlds. I felt good when I came to the end of the quest. I do not mean that the single-player Uru stops on a cliffhanger. It has the feel of a teaser - an introduction to a "real" game which (for me at least) is yet to come.īut now you have the wrong impression. Their hearts, perhaps, were on the larger vision, and not on the single-player offering. And the single-player portion of Uru is not that vision. Unfortunate: Cyan's original vision was of a large online world, evolving in real time. Encouraging: Cyan has, I think, preserved their original vision for Uru. The outcome, I would say, is both encouraging and unfortunate. How do you reverse course in the last year of a five-year development effort? What gives? When I heard that (apparently due to pressure from their publisher) Cyan was retargeting Uru as a single-player game with an optional multi-player extension, I worried. I wanted to see what Cyan would add to the discourse of the massively-multi-player online game. I was eager to play the multi-player Uru game. In retrospect, perhaps I should have moderated my attitude a bit. I installed a Microsoft operating system to play Uru. Which is good, I guess, because if I was playing that, I wouldn't be writing this.)Ĭould my expectations possibly have been any higher? No, they could not. So I know nothing about the online part of the game. As I write this, the multi-player Uru Live has begun accepting registrations from the general public - but they're doing it in small batches, and my account hasn't been enabled yet. (This is a review only of the single-player part of Uru. You can "die", but that just sends you home, and you can easily return to where you were.
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