Myst: Masterpiece Edition

So intellectually I get why Myst is such an important work in the history of videogames and emotionally I get why it was such a big deal in the mid-90s, and also it has killer atmosphere, but damn is it a pain to play at times. There are so many things I really didn't enjoy, I could turn this review into a real gen-u-ine screed, but instead here's just one: Too many puzzles are designed less for satisfying solutions and more against brute-forcing. (Honourable mention: the agonisingly-long unskippable startup and shutdown on the Fortress Rotation Simulator in Mechanical, which is annoyingly easy to click accidentally.)

What the designers really achieved is dropping you in the middle of a strange place, giving you environmental clues and sparse actual text and otherwise letting you figure out the rules for yourself. Oh, and the eerie contrast between the living worlds described in Atrus' library and the charnel houses and windswept ruins they've become by the time you arrive is one of the best things about the game.