Perdido Street Station

I finished reading Perdido Street Station. Now, I know at least one of my friends has read this book, quite some time ago. At the time, I think they recommended it, or at least said that it was chock full of fascinating stuff. I'm reasonably certain, however, that they didn't tell me two particular things that appeared in it, or I would have read it long before now.

( Cut tag for minor spoilers )

Myst IV

I finished Myst IV: Revelation on Friday. I bought it back in March when I got my first DVD drive for my computer. I installed it to make sure it worked, but never actually played it, since I had no time for such things. As GenCon approached, it was ever more important to work on art, and Myst would definitely get in the way of that. Once I got back from GenCon, I figured I deserved a break from the mad rush to make art so I could finally play it.

Alas, it was rather disappointing. I became frustrated from time to time and sought assistance from the built-in help. Unfortunately, as often happens with the built-in help, I learned things that I didn't want to. I wanted gentle hints about specific areas or puzzles. Clicking on the wrong part of the map because I was lost and getting hints about places I hadn't reached yet was really upsetting. Reading in a hint that "you'll need to solve this to help you with puzzle Z later on" was also annoying. I didn't want to know about puzzle Z, damnit! The most disappointing parts were those puzzles for which I needed major hints, and realized upon reading the hints that I would never have solved said puzzles on my own. One of them refers to a note on a piece of paper you're supposed to find that I swear isn't really in the game at all. Second most disappointing were those puzzles that I had figured out correctly, but the way you implement the solution was so tricky or badly implemented that I thought I had it wrong. Auditory puzzles drive me nuts. "Oh, I did have the sequence right...I just didn't hold the notes for long enough." Grr.

Maybe I have inaccurate memories of the previous games, but I remember the acting in the video sequences being way, way better in the other games. I remember the ones in Riven being pretty good. I recall Exile being a little cheesy at times, but I don't think it was as bad as the stuff in Revelation.

I gather that there's a Myst V, but it seems to have almost universally bad reviews, many of which cite specific flaws that make it sound very unappealing. I think when I get some free time I'll just replay Riven and Exile instead. Oh, well.