/vr/ - Retro Games

I played both when they were new. I feel like enough has been said about Doom, and if you want to know why people like it just visit the Doom thread.

It's hard to describe why Myst was so impactful without having any context for what games could do at the time. CD-Rom was a brand new technology, high resolution graphics were just entering computers, and sound cards became widespread enough to get adapted. So yes, there was the pure technological wow factor of Myst. It's scenes looked stunning for the time, and it played video and had real recorded voices and music. I don't think that's why it was so successful; games like 7th Guest had the same things months earlier and are now mostly forgotten.

Where Myst really pushed gaming forward was how much it committed to the idea that the ages were real places. The technology was used tastefully to present everything from your own POV, trying to ground you in the game world. Audio wasn't just game sound effects, instead they used the sound of waves hitting a dock, or wind blowing through trees to add a sense of place. Music was incredibly restrained, coming in only when there was some emotional layer to where you were. The places themselves were filled with details; things on shelves, in dressers, on tables that was just there to look at -- and the furniture had screws and nails and woodgrain there just because that's what the furniture would have had.

It sounds quaint now, but the level of immersion for the time was unreal. In fact, even though its means were so limited, I think the original game does a better job at it than most modern ones do. Just climbing up to the telescope in Stoneship, or looking back from the far island in Mechanical... stopping to take it all in really makes you appreciate the artistry behind everything.

To sum it up, everything you think is immersive in games now was pioneered in Myst.

>>7027353

Original Mac edition: Came out in 1993. Runs on a hypercard stack, has 8-bit color and the original quicktime videos.

Original windows release: Mostly the same as the Mac, except screen transitions aren't as nice, and some looping sounds and music is a bit shorter to save on memory.

Masterpiece edition: 24-bit color, some slightly higher bitrate on the videos, so there's no banding and dithering. Sound is slightly better outside of dialogue.

Realmyst: It's the whole game but in real time 3D. Has lighting and weather changes in some ages, which can change the mood quite a bit. Also has a "bonus" age when you beat the game, with some easter eggs. There's an updated version called Realmyst Masterpiece Edition that changes the engine to Unity and retextures a lot of it.

In my opinion, the best version to play is probably the original masterpiece edition. The vibe of the original mac or windows versions is unreal for me, but setting up an old PC or configuring the emulator would be a total pain. Realmyst changes too much, and loses the atmosphere -- the stillness of the original game adds to the surreal and lonely feeling the game has.

I'm not really sold on the VR versions graphics. It looks nice, but all the detail and realistic shaders makes it harder for me to suspend disbelief.