strategy

When I first bought this game, I could not get it to run, in spite of the fact that I had the high end of the system requirements listed on the box. I went to ATI.com and downloaded new drivers for free. The game ran beautifully after that.

Things I liked about this game:
1. The graphics. Incredible. I especially loved the 3-D environment that allows you to spin around and look at everything, and gives you more freedom of movement than previous Myst games.

2. The sound. Wonderful, rich sounds that fit perfectly into the game.

3. The story. Apparently, this a matter of taste, as I see most reviewers here on Amazon really disliked the story. Personally, I found the story at least as engrossing as Myst: Riven, although not on the same level as Myst: Exile. I enjoyed learning more about the D'ni people featured in the Myst games. The main story revolves around Yeesha asking you to restore four pillars in order to make things right for a new group of people, called The Least. I found the story very satisfactory.

4. The end. Again, this appears to be a matter of taste. Most people don't seem to have cared for the ending at all, but I loved it. I didn't feel like it was just a prelude for the online game, which I have no intention of playing.

5. The puzzles. They are definitely challenging. If you don't like a challenge, or you don't want to use a good walkthrough to finish, this may not be the game for you. I loved the puzzles (with a few exceptions), and as usual, found them to blend seamlessly into the game.

Things I didn't like:
1. Camera angles. They were pretty good most of the time, but often I would find myself watching my avatar walking somewhere on a path I couldn't see to an area I couldn't see. You can change the camera to first person, but the game will pull you out of it for puzzles, which interrupts the flow of the game.

2. Load times. It takes about a full minute sometimes for a new area to load. Granted, that isn't long, but considering how frequently you have to enter new areas, it can get annoying. This is probably an unavoidable drawback of having such lush graphics in 3-D game.

3. Jump, die, reload. Isn't that what most experienced gamers really hate about some adventure games? To be fair, you don't die, you're simply transported back to a central start point. Which has to load. Then you have to click to go back to the age you were in, and wait for that age to load. Then, depending how far you were from your last save point, you get to go find where you were when you fell. This can get tedious, especially when you factor in load times. One puzzle requires you to do quite a bit of difficult jumping, and I must have had to go through the above sequence 30 times. For that, I knocked a star off my review.

4. You can't save wherever you want. Jumping and falling would not be so frustrating if you didn't have to sit through the constant reloading of areas. You would not have to sit through the constant reloading of areas if you could save right before you jumped in the same area. However, this is not allowed. You never save in this game at all, except by finding and pressing jouney clothes. These save your place in each age. (Puzzles save themselves automatically once completed.) This isn't a huge problem, but can be inconvenient, especially if you're doing a lot of jumping and falling.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game, but there are definitely some flaws.

URU brings outstanding graphics, amazing storyline and entertaining puzzles to the Myst series, by far surpassing its predecessor games.

Granted, the game requires a strong video card-but with the right system, URU's graphics are fluid and photorealistic with reasonable loading times. Nothing is static in URU. Tree's sway in the wind, creatures roam the environments, water moves, things break, weather and time change. The water effects are especially astounding! It's hard to believe that URU is in real-time 3D. The visual effects will blow you away.

URU introduces another member of Atrus' family, Yeesha, to modern-day explorers. Yeesha was able to alter the D'ni art of "Age writing" which allowed her civilization to create portals to other worlds and universes. Yeesha has an agenda for restoration of D'ni...but not everyone is in agreement with her on how the restoration should take place. She's left holographic messages for players and sends them on a journey to learn about the ways of the D'ni...

Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an outstanding game with exceptional images, sounds and puzzles ... so why four stars and not five?

Uru has two significant flaws:

1) You can't save your game.

Your save points are set by touching each Age's seven Journey Cloths. It's the game designers - not the gamer - who determines save points.

Good save points make it easy for the gamer to explore alternate endings, and more importantly, to avoid having to solve the same puzzle repeatedly.

But unless you play Uru perfectly, some Journey Cloths are placed so that you must solve several puzzles multiple times.

2) Your avatar can walk, run, climb and jump.

Unlike Myst, Riven and Exile, Uru is no longer restricted to point-and-click movement from one scene to the next.

But there's a problem.

Your avatar is keyboard and mouse controlled, not joystick enabled. Its third person perspective is occasionally sloppy. Moreover, it can't use its hands when moving objects; that's a ridiculous constraint.

Uru's minimum hardware requirements are...

800 MHz Pentium/AMD Athlon
250 MB RAM
32 MB nVidia GForce 1 - 4 or FX/ATI Radeon 7000 - 9800 or better

Assuming you don't want long delays between Age loads, I strongly recommend, "or better."

My guess, Uru really wants a 2 GHz CPU with 1 GB of RAM and a 128 MB video card. Uru is designed for higher end hardware.

Uru also has hardware requirement gotchas. Here are some of them...

* 98SE is specific; no allowance is made for Windows 98.

* The video card requirement is precise: it's either a 32 MB nVidia GForce 1 - 4 or FX, or an ATI Radeon 7000 - 9800 or better.

No other video card will work, including lower end versions of nVidia or ATI Radeon.

* The "CD-ROM: 4x or better (not recommended for use with CD-RWs)" requirement is imprecise. Didn't fully appreciate it until I bought the expansion pack, which clearly states, "This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disk and virtual drives."

Uru will not work properly in either a CD-R or CD-RW.

Finally, here's an Uru synopsis:

You begin in the Desert.

After touching seven Journey Cloths, you are given access to a linking book, which takes you to Relto (Island in the Clouds). Relto is your refuge and starting point between game sessions.

To solve Uru, you must transfer pillars from Teledahn (Mushroom Age), Gahreesen (Fortresses Age), Kadish Tolesa (Mechanical Age) and Eder Gira/Eder Kemo (Volcano and Garden Ages) from the Bahro (Pillar Cave) to Relto.

When all four pillars reside in Relto, you transfer them back to the Bahro and return to the Desert to solve its remaining puzzles.