Amiga MYST Demo - The Review: By Guy Nathan. (C) 1996. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------- When recently, the demo of the game MYST was uploaded to Aminet this stirred up alot of things, including the fact it was not an official release either. Bunderbound, the one time Amiga Developers, and owners of the PC/Mac version of the same game, when it was released denied its existance at first, and then went on to say the whole thing was a hoax and they would be taking legal action against the person who 'leaked' this version. Intrestingly enough how can a hoax (ie. it's a fake), but at the same time leaked (ie. it existed but wasn't supposed to be released (yet))? What ever the case may be a short time after this demo was uploaded to Aminet (all 19 LhA's), it was promptly deleted based on Bunderbound's requests. To add to this story, it is coded by Cyan software according to the program when run, and the supplied documentation says it is by Bunderbound (well, them being the publishers of the title). This documentation caused alot of email to be sent to Bunderbound before this whole story was known, where people asked when the full version of the game would be out, and where they could buy it. Well to end the story so far, Bunderbound said no Amiga version exists, and neither do they plan to release any such a thing in the future. Further down the line through them being sent hundreds of email requests for an Amiga version and after direct contact with VIScorp they were at the time of writing considering the viability of an Amiga version. (They have just released a PlayStation version of Myst). Forgetting all the story above, I shall review what the demo actually IS like. While it may be an unofficial release, or a leaked one for that matter, it is NOT a fake/hoax, in the fact that it works in every bit identically to the PC/Mac Demo version of the game. Requirements: ------------- AGA Machine, or a machine with a Picasso/CyberVision Graphics board. 030 or better. 4mb's of RAM atleast, 20MB HD space. The better the spec your Amiga, the better it runs. Availability: ------------- Not Available. Contact Cyan (info@cyan.com) if you wish to see such a thing existing. The Demo: --------- Once you've installed all 19 lha's in to a directory of your choice. You should allow 20 MB's of space for this installation though, if you do have a copy of this demo. This is a game which IS system resource heavy without a doubt, but you can't expect it not to be considering all factors. Well, whats it like? The Graphics - This IS the WOW factor Amiga games have been lacking for ages as far as in-game graphics go. Those with 24bit Graphic Boards which it supports will be treated (and it IS a treat!) to a game with in-game 24bit graphics, those with AGA will get an almost equally amazing quality in the graphics in the game. At points through-out the demo are animations which all contribute to the game itself, and are actually IFF-ANIMs of the Quicktime Anims used in the Mac/PC version of the same demo. The ending credits of the game, when you quit unfortunately is a very jerky animation when it scrolls the credit, but had this game (and if it ever does) get properly released im sure this jerkyness would not exist and would be very smooth. All the graphics in the game are rendered. The Sound - Well, it has a good variety of digitized speech included with it, definately not the best quality sound i've heard, but I'm not about to complain about it either! :-). Sound is used for everything from the opening Intro Anim for telling the story behind MYST, to the movement of objects in the game itself. Unfortunately no soundtrack (music) going in the background, so turn on the Radio/CD/Cassette/etc instead ;). Addictiveness/Gameplay - Here you may stop getting excited about this game if you had ;). The demo, like the PC/Mac demo is EXTREMELY limited, and you are limited to a small area called the library, just when your about to get into the game you get told with a nice requester which pops up in the Demo version of the game you can not go any further. It leaves you almost crying for more, well not quite!, but it certainly would entise alot of people to buy the whole game on CD-ROM if such a thing was to be released. You can in the demo interact with different things in the library, read books which contain useful information, see video clues, and more. The Size - It's 20MB you say, and all that for JUST one Demo room of a game! So is it justified? Well the answer is yes, it is! Most of the 20MB which occupies the HD space is actually just animations, pictures, and IFF-8SVX/ADPCM sound samples, where as the executable itself is 250k or so. This is why it takes up a whole CD-ROM as a full game. Conclusion: ----------- The coders of this demo version did it to proove that such games could be run on the Amiga and be very good too! I believe they have succeeded somewhat in getting this message across. Being only a demo of a game which never may see a full version on the Amiga its hard to know how to rate it. While it IS a great demo, it is only just a demo, but on the same note it is also a game engine which shows the potential of an Amiga game like this. If a full version ever does come into existance then BUY IT!! Based on the Mac version of this game I ran via ShapeShifter :), it is a great game filled with puzzles, great scenery, intresting visuals, is well designed, and is something which is worthy of a sequal (which the PC/Mac is getting). On a closing note, I'd like to say that Cyan, PLEASE release an Amiga version, your guarenteed atleast 50,000 sales if not more!