Product Description

Enter a deceptively beautiful world torn apart by age-old conflicts, where secrets lie hidden at every turn, and nothing is as it seems. You must search, you must explore, you must learn the truth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7960 in Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Model: 18221
• Published on: 1900
• Released on: 1998-09-25
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platforms: Mac, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95
• Format: CD-ROM

Amazon.com Product Description
Prepare to enter a world "torn asunder" by timeless, unresolved conflicts--a world of incomparable beauty, intrigue, and betrayal. Prepare to go to Riven. Journey through vast, awe-inspiring landscapes, where clouds sit nestled in a deep blue sky and the rolling sea waters shimmer from bright morning sunlight. But be forewarned: nothing is quite as it seems. Reclusive beings and mysterious creatures populate the land. Deep, dark secrets lay hidden at every turn. Your utmost powers of observation and reason are required to complete a most elusive task. You must let Riven become your world. Only then may the truth be discovered and a world be saved. Riven stands as a story for all time, a story that evokes a sense of awe, wonder, and profound purpose. Prepare to go to Riven --a world unlike any you've ever known.

GameSpot Review
Myst, at more than 3.5 million units sold, is the world's most popular PC entertainment title, and after four years is still riding the top of the charts. This fact remains, despite a significant number of players who never get past the game's first tough puzzle: the rotating lighthouse.

For whatever reasons that Myst was such a success, Riven has a lot of the same. You'll see the same click/move/slide-show interface, along with similar mechanical and navigational puzzles and the now familiar wander and wonder gameplay. Riven's markedly improved graphics and sound further enhance the ambiance and make Riven even more immersive than its predecessor. The puzzles and problems are more cohesive, and there is more of a storyline, but in the end, Riven is only an evolutionary improvement over Myst.

You begin where Myst left off. Atrus (played once again by Rand Miller), the father of the two feuding sons in Myst, has another task for you: Rescue his wife from the evil clutches of Atrus's father Gehn, then permanently imprison Gehn in one of those "trap" books from Myst.

Your quest takes place in Riven, a fanciful world created by Gehn in the tradition of his ancestors - by simply imagining it and writing about it. Riven (from the ancient English word "rive," which means "to rip apart") is a collection of small islands connected with catwalks, aerial trams, and a minisubmarine. You will expend much of your effort just figuring out how to get around. In many instances you'll find a switch in an obscure location, then take a circuitous route to the gate it opens.

Unlike Myst, these islands have human inhabitants, although you'll be hard-pressed to actually see any. There are plenty of spherical, earthen huts and occasional fleeting human encounters, but there is no interaction or dialogue. The oblique storyline is played out in the islands' objects and the implications you can draw from them, such as a disturbing kid's toy, a Wizard of Oz-like throne, and a frog trap. And if these are too obtuse you can always arduously pore through the voluminous journals you'll acquire.

Riven's two major puzzles require solving several miniproblems that in turn require close observation of Riven's denizens, colors, and unique numbering system. Gathering those elements becomes routine but just as you get comfortable with the concept there is a clever extra challenge tossed in - a missing color, a broken device, an obtusely revealed animal. Much of Riven's prerelease PR emphasized the environment as a source of clues and puzzle solutions. It is, but not to the large extent and subtle degree you may expect.

There are no technological breakthroughs but plenty of high-quality production values. The QuickTime animations - doors opening, levers moving, drawbridges dropping - are larger and blend well with the backgrounds, but that's principally a reflection of improvements in that display method. The sound effects are perfect and worth the price of high-end speakers, but there is no support of newer 3D audio technology. The graphics are superbly, even fanatically, detailed but that's more an aesthetic decision than a technical achievement.

For a game that has low-tech system demands, it consumes an inordinate amount of hard drive space - 140MB. Plus, if you play it for an extended period of time, you may encounter audio lapses. I missed a critical end-game aural clue, but after rebooting, and replaying that scene, it played just fine. Riven ships on five discs, but you can start saved games with only one of them and must click slowly through four animations before you can load a game [editor's note: This is not the only way to restore games - but it is the only intuitive way].

With a walk-through in hand, Riven took only about four hours. Without it, I'd still be at it, doing a lot of wandering, mapping, and recording of my observations. And just like Myst, that's what Riven is all about: exploring a new world full of unique beings, organic machines, and family intrigue. There is no inventory, no need to combine mysterious potions, and no board game puzzles with little connection to Riven's world. Rather, it's a leisurely paced, all-encompassing, mentally challenging experience. If you enjoyed Myst, you'll thoroughly enjoy Riven. -- Jeff Sengstack
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Manufacturer Description
The most anticipated sequel ever comes to the PC. Join Atrus in his search for Catherine in Riven: The Sequel to Myst. It features all-new locations, bigger environments, deeper character interaction, and amazingly real textures and graphics.

Customer Reviews

Creative and beautiful, but difficult.
Riven is a visual masterpiece. Set in a beautifully rendered world of still images and animated cut scenes, Riven takes you through an intriguing story and wonderfully creative places. Riven isn't just a pretty game though... it is composed of challenging (and often frustrating) interactive puzzles that must be solved to complete the game.

If you've played games like the 7th Guest, or Myst, you'll find Riven challenging. If you've never played any puzzle-based games before, you'll find Riven insanely hard. If you are not familiar with interactive puzzles, I would highly recommend starting with Myst. Not only is it easier and almost as beautifully rendered as Riven, but it'll do a great job priming you for the more difficult puzzles you'll encounter in this game.

While I cannot praise the creators of Riven enough for the depth of their creativity, I cannot recommend this game to just anyone. Riven is perfect for the avid puzzle solver, but much too difficult for the casual game player. Younger children (and most teens) may lose interest in this game very quickly, as the puzzles will often stop a player dead in their tracks until they can muster up the brainpower to figure them out. If you're looking for action, this isn't the place you'll find it.

On the other hand, Riven contains no violence, and is definitely a game that will make you think. You can't say that about many games these days, which is one of the reasons why this game is perfectly suited for a more cognitive crowd.

Riven gets four out of five stars because I believe that some puzzles may be out of the reach of most people without the use of a hint book. Regardless of this drawback, it's one of the best games in it's class... and I highly recommend it.

Simply the Best
Pros:

1. Graphics that are fantastically detailed, intricate, and achingly beautiful. Some astonishing joy rides. Sound effects and music approach perfection.

2. Gameplay is wonderfully balanced. You are never bored, and only occasionally frustrated by the harder puzzles. All the puzzles are logical, and give you a great feeling of accomplishment when you solve them. There is a vast area to explore while you are figuring things out. You turn a corner, and startle mysterious creatures who are sunning themselves on a rock. You climb up another path, turn, and the view makes you gasp.

3. Riven creates a fantasy world that is alien; yet it evokes a sense of reality that is, in my experience, unparalleled in computer gaming. I wish I could find a way to live in Riven.

Cons:

1. If you like exploring new worlds by dashing through them and shooting things, you may find that the pace of this particular game is too slow.

2. While the storyline is intriguing, it is possible to nearly finish Riven before discovering the diaries that further explain the plot. I wish I had known more of the background of the story a little sooner in the game.

3. Riven is so immersive that you forget the everyday world. Your children will wonder why you haven't cooked dinner. Your friends will speculate as to why you have stopped answering the phone. Your spouse will become jealous of your relationship with a computer game (easiest solution: play it together).

Bottom Line: IMHO, this game is IT, the Numero Uno, the King. Nobody's made one better.

At first I hated it...
... I had no clue what I was doing, was hopelessly stuck, and was in general LOST. But then the other day it started coming together for me. I started figuring out what I needed to do and what the nature of the puzzles were. They're not all in one place as in you have to pass one to get to another.

Yes, the graphics are lovely, the sound effects are dead-on REAL, the music (when it appears) is fitting. But it's how different this is from everything else I've ever played! Though I was sooo lost at first, now I'm having a blast and don't want it to end.

To play Riven you have to be OBSERVANT, patient, and tireless. Don't be in a hurry to finish or you'll just get frustrated like I did and will give up before even getting into it. If that sounds like you then this game is IT. It works on your mind like few other computer games do and you really really have to think to get it.

If you like being around other characters, violence, and fast action, or archade style games, don't even spend a dime on Riven. If you like being able to completely explore a world without barriers save logistic ones, puzzle-solving, using your powers of observation then RUN and get this cuz you'll love it!

For those out there playing it or thinking of playing it, I recommend taking notes (you'll know when) and making several copies of games as you go. As in use your "Save as" command. Not like you'll get stuck irrevocably as in other games but it makes it easier to go back and look at something you missed as you proceed.

Minuses are that I wish there was more constant music in the background since it's lovely music. It seems to come and go when you enter certain area. And that the transitions from screen to screen were a bit smoother in places. But that's it. Reason I didn't give it 5 stars is cuz I'm not done yet :)