GamerGlutton: Riven is just as captivating as Myst was from a gameplay perspective.
There are little things that set it apart from its predecessor, mainly that there is just one huge world rather than many small worlds, which is what @hedwards basically noted as a flaw.
He is right with the
wander around-part, but if your father plays the game for the immersion through the beautifully crafted landscapes he will
not be disappointed!
Also, Riven is a lot longer than Myst because the puzzles are just that much harder!
Right, the main reason I posted that was to point out that it's not necessarily going to be well received by some folks, even if they loved Myst. I remember the reviews being less than stellar. I played a bit because it was bundled with my first DVD ROM, but I lost interest quickly because it wasn't laid out with the same meticulous care that Myst had been.
I just kind of felt like some of the puzzles required leaps which weren't particularly intuitive, and one couldn't always be sure whether there was another part of the puzzle somewhere else. Plus, I could never figure out how to keep track of my progress in various puzzles.
Thankfully, the GOG version frees the player from having to do that hideous disc swap that many people had to endure with the CDROM version.
OTOH, I'm sure that it is a great game for some people, I just didn't like that sometimes failing to point exactly at a spot would render a puzzle unsolvable until discovering the point.
