Myst III Exile, the long awaited third instalment in the series, was launched in May 2001 (at least in the US, the European launch was delayed until September 2001). As someone who has played both Myst and Riven, I was keen to get my sweaty fingers on Myst III. Having read plenty of hype about it on the web, I must confess that I was rather pessimistic about Exile, not least because it no longer came from the "Masters" at Cyan (who'd produced the first two games), but a relatively unknown company called Presto.

I needn't have worried. It just goes to show again what a quantum leap 4 years progress in the computer game business can produce. The graphics, probably the most important element in all this, were breathtaking right from the start, and their beauty didn't in any way wear off towards the end of the game. Quite an achievement! The puzzles, as they're affectionately known, ie the problems you need to solve to get through the game, were fairly well paced, that is they start off fairly simple and get a little harder towards the finish. Myst III is not exactly the Rubiks Cube of the computer games, but some problems do take quite a bit of lateral thinking (at least for my pea-sized brain) to solve.

The characters of the few participants in the game were reasonably credible - I have to say that for games such as Myst III, I find them not terribly important anyway since one is still effectively on ones own most of the time, anyway. However, the animal population has prospered, and to good effect.
The only downside to Exile for me is the music. Despite the high production overheads (real orchestra, choir etc.), it somehow just didn't seem to gel with many of the scenes in the game. I also found it quite samey, and the timing of it was, to my humble ears, not well chosen. Don't get me wrong, the pieces on their own are fine (I have the Myst III album), they just didn't complement the game as well as previous scores.
 

That did not detract from Myst III being a hugely enjoyable experience. I felt like calling up Presto to congratulate them on their achievement - couldn't find their number, so I emailed them. I took my time with the game, and it took me close to a month to finish it. And a happy month it was. So it's a big wave and Farewell to Myst III Exile, and Hello to hopefully a worthy successor already taking shape on someone's computer screen.