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Do Not Buy!!

If you are like me -- if you are someone who really does not get into computer games much because they rarely engage you beyond the first couple of hours -- Myst is a very pleasant surprise. Like many people, I am disgusted by the grotesque or mind-numbing nature of most of the games you see for computers and in arcades. Myst is a game that I think is attractive to readers and gamers who like more contemplative entertainment, and (this is just a guess) it probably attracts those of us who enjoy playing games like chess or Scrabble on a computer. This game takes more patience, it requires you to really use your reasoning abilities, even to get out a pad and pencil to sketch courses of action. It is not about instant gratification (blowing away your enemy) but rather, it is about entering a sort of fantasy world and trying to figure out why things look and act the way they do, then acting on your hypotheses. Each time you do uncover one of the answers (and I don't want to give any of them away here) you are rewarded by gaining access to a whole new realm of mysteries that is more complex than the previous one. Along the way, the music and the images border on the edge of mystery, and sometimes even horror. But it is an implied horror, something you sense rather than something thrown at you, and the game never crosses the line into tastelessness. It's one of the very few games I have ever tried where, hours after I shut down the computer, I got an insight into how to go about a particular strategy, and then I wanted to get back into it and see if my idea worked. How often do video games cause that reaction in players?

Once you have "won" the game, there is nothing new to experience. However, it will take you a good while to get there. If you compare this to other entertainments, for example, going out to movies, you realize that the hours you'll spend on the game, even if it does have an "ending," are well worth the price. Even after "winning," it is interesting once in a while to go back into the game just to take a look at the images again.