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Atrus: Super Genius?
Much has been made of the astonishing intelligence and creativity of Atrus Nusbaum (yes, I am one of the few to be made privy to the family name). However, it must be noted that time and again, when things go ill, Atrus is forced to rely on the competence of a bumbling ignoramus who has no choice but to try to resolve vaguely-known crises by wandering around poking at things and trying to penetrate the obsessive secrecy of the Nusbaum family and their strange habits of paranoia. I can only credit the animals of Haven and the ladies of Serenia with uncommon kindness for not following me around and laughing as I wandered in circles trying to make sense of my surroundings.
By not following Atrus's ill-advised initial instructions, you can spend the rest of your life relaxing in Tomanha while Yeesha practices her flute in perfect safety. Perhaps in time Yeesha would grow up and fall in love with you. If you do obey Atrus you can count on spending many hours trying to clean up after his latest mess, if only to avoid having him sue you for being such a hapless failure as a babysitter.
You will find that Sirrus and Achenar have changed substantially since the original Myst. Sirrus, who was once so suave and sinister, has devolved into a petulant, pop-eyed whiner. This is nothing compared to the transformation undergone by Achenar. Once a drooling, fearful, truly disturbing figure, his time on Haven has left him an intrepid and initially enthusiastic survivalist, albeit a bloodthirsty one.
My 3-star overall rating is due solely to the installation problems produced by the game's copy protection. The game would not install on my G5 Mac, presumably because it has a DVD burner. The only way I could get past this idiotic limitation was to install game on an older G4 Mac which has only a basic DVD drive, then transfer the files to the G5 over the network. Even so, the game did crash occasionally. Otherwise it worked beautifully, displaying all the visual effects without difficulty.
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