I have managed to almost finish the first game (year and years ago), but I never got around to it (school heavily interfered with my video playing for the past 5 years).
Can anyone give me the highlights of the first myst game just so I know the background if decide to play the 2nd, 3rd, and now 4th version?
Thanks
You mean the plot?
The Nameless Protagonist (you) appears on a small island known as Myst. You come across two books, red and blue, which each seeming to hold a man captive inside them. At first they’re all static, but as you continue finding pages and putting the books together the “reception” becomes clearer and the blue guy explains that when you’ve finished putting his book together he’ll be released (the red one is gibbering mad but also tells you to get the last red pages).
Of course, should you put the last page into either of the books you switch places with the captive, who laughs at you then shuts the book forever. Bummer. Instead, you’ll discover a white book which goes to a man named Atrus (the guy in the fountain at the beginning), who is in a land called D’ni (Dunny) but can’t get back to Myst because his linking book has a page torn from it. If you go into the D’ni book without getting a white page, Atrus calls you an idiot and you have to sit there watching him write until the end of time. If you bring him the white page, he briefly goes back to Myst, reappears in D’ni, and gives you free reign over the worlds. If you go back to the library on Myst, the red and blue books are gone.
The men in the red and blue books were Atrus’s sons. They were both abusing the powers of the world-creating abilities, and because Atrus didn’t know which of his sons to suspect he laid a trap to capture to capture the abusive one - turns out it was both. Unfortunately Atrus couldn’t get back to Myst to check his trap because somebody stole a page from his D’ni->Myst book, which you kindly returned. Catherine (mentioned in the beginning, at the fountain) is his wife and mother of the two prisoners.
I recommend the Myst series (Book of Atrus, Book of Ti’ana, Book of D’ni), which details who the heck Atrus is, where Dn’i came from, what happened to D’ni, what the deal with all the books is, and why Atrus is messing with all the books there. They also introduce Ghen, Atrus’s domineering and dusturbed father, who was trapped on Riven at the end of the first book (Catherine is from Riven, which was a book Ghen wrote), and who I hear appears in one of the sequels.
The Book of Atrus is about Atrus’s childhood right up to the soliliquy at the start of Myst. The Book of Ti’ana is about the fall of D’ni some seventy years before, and the Book of D’ni is about Atrus and Catherine’s attempts to reunite survivors of the D’ni from the worlds they fled to during the actions of the Book of Ti’ana.
Gehn does indeed appear in the sequel to Myst, called “Riven.” At the start of that game, Atrus asks you to go to Riven (the linking book to that world is what he’s been working on) to free his wife, who is being held prisoner by Gehn. Atrus also gives you a book intended to imprison Gehn a la Sirrus and Achenar. (Atrus’ sons) You show up in Riven, but your books are stolen from you, save for Atrus’ journal. Like in Myst, you have to solve all sorts of puzzles and travel around the five islands of Riven (instead of linking between worlds) to get Atrus’ books back, free Catherine, and imprison Gehn.
That game was followed by another game, called “Exile.” In the beginning of that game, you’re in Atrus’ new home, on a friendly visit, I suppose. How you get there in the first place is a mystery to me. Anyhoo, some weird guy shows up and steals the linking book to a new world Atrus is creating, and it’s your job to follow him to five new worlds to get the book back. The weird guy is connected to Atrus in a very important way that I won’t give away without spoiler requests.
One thing puzzles me about that game…are the protagonist (you) and Atrus casual friends now? Do you link to Atrus and visit every now and again like the beginning of the game implies?
It might help if you read the books. They give plot and background the games don’t. I believe there are only 3 in the series, but I’m not certain, it’s been a while since I’ve read them.
I’ll add that while playing Myst before Riven helps a lot with understanding what the hell is going on, in Exile it’s almost as though Riven never happened. You can skip right from Myst to Exile without feeling lost at all. There are many, many references to Myst in Exile, though.
I think the identity of the protagonist is intentionally left open so that anyone playing can feel that it’s them. However, wasn’t there something, maybe in Myst about you stumbling accidentally into Myst?
Am I the only one who found Myst one of the worst games to play of all time? 
I liked the Myst games but almost entirely for their athmosphere. Riven was particularly good at that - maybe the best ever use of sound in a computer game. The panoramic view in Exile made me sea sick, though. I agree that as games they’re not as good as they could have been. The game play is very irregular some puzzles are way too difficult and some too easy. You spend way too much time going back to places where you’ve already been 32 times. One of the most boring moments in any computer game I’ve played had to be the mine tunnel part in the first game.
Yes.
I loved Myst, but one thing I didn’t understand is this …
Who tore the pages out of the books? At the start of the game, Sirrus, Achenar and Atrus are all trapped in books with missing pages … OK, Sirrus and Achenar trapped Atrus, then they found the red and blue books and got stuck in them … so, when were the pages torn out of the red and blue books, and who did it?
I think they tore a page out of the linking book, then were trapped, then Atrus went to another Age, taking the faulty linking book with him, and was trapped. I think that’s how it happened. Remember, he had “Master” books that you could use to get to the various Ages, and you had to bring a linking book to get back to the island.
Exile was made by a different company (not Cyan) and so there were, I think, limits on what they could, or wanted to, portray in reference to the original Myst. Really it’s just like a game set in the Myst universe rather than anything too consequential in Myst lore. It is still fun and visually stunning, though, and has a kick-ass performance by Wormtongue, I mean Brad Dourif.
Exile has a sequel too, coming out very soon, called Myst IV: Revelation. Meanwhile, Cyan made a game called Uru, set in Myst’s far future (more or less present day) which uses a fully realised 3D engine using the latest graphics technology to finally let you roam freely in an almost photorealistic environment. It’s really cool, but the latest (and last?) expansion pack is a bit crap.
I just finished Uru (the second xpack). I enjoyed it, but yeah, the whole thing was rushed and screwed up – it was supposed to be an online community thing, which failed – so while it’s an OK game, it’s not as good as the other ones. A bit buggy, too. And the interface will give you carpal tunnel right quick. But, the visuals are very cool, fun to explore, and so on.
The story is that Atrus’ (hitherto unknown) daughter Yeesha is trying to rebuild D’ni in her own way. She goes on a lot about the slaves the D’ni kept. Meanwhile, D’ni itself has been discovered; it’s underneath our very own world, and archaeologists are trying to restore it as a museum-y thing, which is Bad. So you go around ‘helping’ Yeesha give power to the slaves and bringing life back to D’ni. She sounds a bit power-crazed by the end. 
I’m about 2/3 of the way through URU, and I really like it, because it’s pretty.
The interface doesn’t bother me, but I play in first person (the 3rd person is crap) and use the buttons to move, rather than moving the mouse.
I liked Exile (PS2) but I beat it in about four days. Brad Dourif is always a draw for me, though. I never played Riven, but I played Myst right after it came out.
Go You Big Red Fire Engine, some people don’t like the way Myst type games play. I happen to. You’re not alone.