thought I'd give you my impressions:

price: successfully pricematched best buy's 39.99 at EB without the ad. EB also has a 10 dollar mail in rebate for store credit.

installation: did the full install, was 2.2 GB, no problems, ran correctly the first time

manual: practically no documentation, but you probably don't need it.

gameplay: it has some of the best graphics I've ever seen, and it's pretty cool how the video of the actors runs on top of the prerendered backgrounds. it's a lot nicer now that you can look all around in a world rather than just the still views. the sound is really great, except it skips every now and then. so far it hasn't crashed, although I haven't played it that long. I think another nice improvement they made is when you move your cursor over something important, it changes to reflect that you can zoom in, or move it.

I'm very impressed with this game so far, it lives up to the other myst games as far as I can tell. if you have any questions, ask away....

BTW my system is a P3 450 with win ME, 128 ram, 32 mb video

Curious about the $10 credit rebate--do you get it at the store or online?

it's a form you mail in, and they mail you a 10 dollar GC.

here's a link:
http://www.ebholdings.com/rebates.asp

Cool! Thanks! I wonder if I can use that with the CE version... Worth a shot!



[Edited by JuryDuty on 05-08-01 at 06:56 PM]

i'm using a geforce2 mx, 32 mb, everything is very smooth....

Just got mine--pricematched EB with Best Buy--they didn't even blink an eye. Coupled with the $10 store credit, you can't beat it.

I'm using an Athlon 700mhz, 256mb, 16mb Voodoo3 2000.

I had some problems and here is some technical info some of you may want to know.

First, if your CD-ROM drive letter is assigned to a letter higher than H:, you have to set it lower. If you don't, the game will give you keep telling you to insert Disk 1.

Second, UbiSoft has confirmed that Exile does not yet support Voodoo3 cards. You can still play in software rendering mode, but as you can imagine, the graphics SERIOUSLY suffer. Everything is really pixelized. If anyone knows a work-around for this, post it here!!!

[Edited by JuryDuty on 05-08-01 at 06:54 PM]

JuryDuty,

Yes, the CE is also included in that $10 Gift Rebate. Now for my impressions. I think Myst 3 is a very good game, however I have one glaring disappointment.

Presto Studios had a line of games called the Journeyman Project and at least the last 2 actually had 360 degree navigation (granted it was with clicking on a turn icon at the bottom) along with an actual movement transition between screens. Why was this not implemented in Myst 3? I can understand making it a lot like Myst and Riven with going scene by scene, but I think they could have used the Journeyman Project transition mold in some way.

Other than that, the game is pretty cool. It's a very beautiful game even though it is only in 640x480 again. Oh well, can't have everything I guess. This game is highly recommended, it seems to be easier than Riven was.

Not sure you are aware of this but they actually tried to implement a first-person shooter-like engine for Myst and released it as "realMyst" In other words, you can move around as you please and look in any direction a la Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. However, the system requirements to run "realMyst" were high and thus it couldn't be run on many systems. Presto intentionally did not go this route because they wanted to open up their game to as many people as possible, so they aimed to keep the system requirements as low as possible so people wouldn't have to upgrade their computers. They probably could have put in real transitions from spot to spot a la "The 7th Guest" and the Journeyman series but I'm guessing that would have pushed the upper limit of 4 cds, thus forcing them to release it as 5 or even 6 discs.

Yes, I know of realMYST. realMYST was a bad idea. The non-transition thing in Myst 3 just bothered me, that's all. I'd have to pull out my Journeyman Project games when I get home and see how many CDs they are, but the 3rd one wasn't that large if I remember correctly. Guess I've been spoiled by Presto in the past .

The number of CD-ROMs doesn't bother me that much. I still remember the maxi-multiple CD releases of yesteryear, like Wing Commander 4 (was it 7 or 8 CDs?) and even Riven (5 CDs). And when you have an option to install the whole game like Myst 3 has, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I still like Myst 3 though, it is a cool game. I just wish transitions were more like Presto's proven JP games.

Unless they own Voodoo3 cards, in which case they do have to upgrade.

Could somebody post the computer system requirements? Thanks

from the box:
233 p2
win 95/98/me
64 mb ram
200 mb HD
4x cd
recommended 8mb video card

so far this game might be a lot shorter than i thought, the goal of the game is to get 3 symbols, I already have 2...