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Schizm: Mysterious Journey

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: December 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because of the Myst and Rivenlike quality of the screenshots on the box. After installing all 5 discs I was disappointed to see the poor quality of the graphics on the monitor.A few days later A friend of mine showed me how sharp the game looked on his monitor and suggested I RAISE THE REFRESH RATE FROM 60 HZ TO 85 HZ ON MY MONITOR.This is what he told me:
Go to the control panel and click on display. Inside the display folder click on settings.Inside settings click on advanced. Inside advanced click on refresh rate and raise the refresh rate to 85. Make sure it stays put and doesn't revert back. It worked! All my 3d games now look great!

Schizm DVD please.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 22 / 38
Date: July 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is being released primarily on DVD-ROM. In fact it was MADE for DVD-ROM. The CD-ROM version offered here for pre-order is very scaled down and not equal in quality. I am eagerly awaiting this game to come out...I would love to pre-order the DVD version of this game--if it were offered.

Don't Purchase

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: December 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I agree wholeheartedly with reviewer Stebbins19. After a nice start, this game becomes furiously tedious. Shoveling discs around to get back to some island to ... I don't know, look at the shape of a sun? Or maybe not? The games are characterized by an arbitrariness (not clear logic) that destroys the possibility of satisfaction. I just spent an afternoon trying to work backwards from an answer (found in a walkthrough) to the clues or *instruction* provided in the game. I could find no link (the triangle puzzle). The sound (voice) puzzle is poor. I like the guys who made this game about as much as I like telemarketers.

Nearly impossible to play unless you're psychic

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: June 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is a game with beautiful graphics and a really creative vision of another world. Good thing I enjoyed looking around as much as I did or I probably would have quit playing by Day 5, when I finally had to go search out a walkthrough because I couldn't move my characters out of their original locales.

The puzzles in this game are ridiculously hard, but it's more than that. Half the time you don't even know if you have what it takes to complete the puzzle or not (like information, items, a solid grasp of math), and it is SO easy to miss an important clue or item that you'll need later on and will end up having to come back and find. No hints, nothing to tell you if you're completely on the wrong track. It's literally as if the game expects you to read its mind sometimes -- there are points where you have to do something a certain way just because that's how the game wants it, even if there appear to be other equally good options, and even if there's no real logic to it and no hints to send you down that path. If anyone could get through this thing without help in under six months, I'd be amazed.

The acting is so-so, but it seems that a lot of the actors aren't native English speakers so that may explain some of it (the game was created by a Polish firm). The amount of running around you have to do at certain points in the game is way too much, and it's annoying that you can't skip through the video portions. Also, the resolution of the game is... well... sudden, I guess. I wanted more than I got at the end, and a clearer explanation of what had been going on.

Overall, I actually enjoyed it -- largely because the world itself was interesting to look at. But the puzzles are crazy hard -- they make sense once you figure them out, but I didn't even know where to start for all but a few of them.

Don't buy the CD version

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: November 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I returned the CD version and bought the DVD version from DreamCatcher Interactive. The graphic is really better.
I don't know why Amazon.com offers only the CD version.

Yuck

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This might have been a great game: if it had been released about six years ago. This game is a Myst clone that came out about five years too late. "Clone" is a bit too much of a compliment. ... is a slightly better phrase, because this game falls short of the excellent series that it aspires to be.

The graphics for the game are simply awful. The screen looks like a drenched comic book that just got pulled out of the gutter. Perhaps it is because the game is fixed at 640X480 resolution when most computers can go way higher. It looks like some effort was put into the artwork for the game, but it is spoiled by the smeared-out, grainy look that occupies every screen. "Riven" is much older and looks better. So does "Grim Fandango". The voice acting is abominable, and so is the acting for the game's in-game movies. I thought that we got rid of those years ago when everyone realized how cheesy they were.

If the game had a good premise, then the poor production values wouldn't matter very much, but it doesn't. It's another "abandoned world full of weird machines" game. This time, it's an alien world. A good puzzle game has to have puzzles that fit into the virtual world. Unfortunately, "Schizm" has lots of contrived puzzles that don't make sense. Want to walk across a bridge? Figure out how to push a series of 20 buttons in the right order. Don't expect to just push one button. Apparently, aliens are extremely bored geniuses who have nothing better to do than build complicated contraptions that confuse Earthling scientists. I wonder if aliens have to push a series of color-coded buttons in a special order to operate a toothbrush.

I'll give the game props for having good music and, yes, the puzzles are very difficult. If you are up for a challenge, they will definitely do that. It's hard to get interested in them though, since the game always constrains you along a tight path instead of letting you explore a 3D world. That's another big fault that this game has when you compare it to other adventure games. Here's a tip: skip this one unless you have played all other adventure games that you want to play first. I played "Myst", "Riven", "Sanitarium", and the "Syberia" demo, and they are all better than "Schizm".

Schizm first impressions

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 42
Date: April 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is going to be a great game! If you enjoyed Myst and Riven, you'll love this adventure. Be impressed by the graphics of the 2 avi files on www.p3int.com, as I did. 360º, 2 characters controlled by you, a great story... this is SCHIZM.

Beautiful, but maybe a dash too challenging?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: February 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If Einstein is on you cellphone's "friend" list, then you will have fun with this game. "Schizm" has a "I think I heard this one before" story plot. Alas! I do recall. Remember "Aliens", the movie, where the colony is mysteriously empty... The one where we send people to look for them, and they disappear too? So what do we do? SEND MORE! Yup, except for the excitement of aliens, you basically have the premise of "Schizm's" storyline. An empty planet-nobody around. "Schizm" IS beautiful. Remember when "Myst" came out and following it's success, every company released their own version of the game? Well, this is the latest. At least in "Myst's" defense, the puzzzles were well-thought through, made sense, and you got that great feeling in your tummy when you solved a major task. Forget it with this game. Only original concept: You actually play with two players..each landed at a different destination in the beginning storyline. You can switch back and forth between them. In order to solve many of the puzzles, you have to use the knowledge between the two players to complete each puzzle. If you are armed with a degree in Math and Engineering, you will work your way to the lousy ending. Not so fortunate? Join the other 90 percent of Schizm's players who admit they needed a walkthrough or a website with hints. Pass on this, unless you feel good about yourself incessantly cheating and feeling no reward for accomplishing a difficult game. I promise, there are better ones out there. A great anonymous quote I read online: "After playing this game, even the word "Schizm" gave me irritable goosebumps." To be fair, if I could, I would give it 2 1/2stars. I know there are people out there who love the ultimate challenge...If you are one of those people who never gets bored with impossible, countless, and meaningless puzzles...this could be the one for you.

If it is challenging--it is worth the effort

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: March 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I am a fan of the Myst series, and similar games that emphasize adventure and thoughtful exploration. I do not like mindlessly shooting pictures pictures of badguys and being shot at from behind a dark corner.
Schizm was extremely well thought out. Schizm involves solving a mystery, and in the process, figuring out an alien culture. There are very difficult situations, but all of them have solutions that are not hard if you let yourself understand the cultural setting. It teaches you to open your mind.
When you have finished Schizm, you will feel great and have learned to think better than before. It will be an amazing adventure along the way. Sure, this game requires some advanced thinking. We need games that are more difficult to go to afer we get the Myst, Riddle of the sphinx type games wired--otherwise, where is the challenge. If the game is not challenging, we stop getting better, and the game is just an exercise in pointing the cursor and clicking--just waiting for the graphics to stop so that we can click again---HOW BORING!!!
The acting in Schizm is definitly corny however, but rather than get stuck there, I enjoyed the remaining 98% of the show.

Interesting, but more frustrating than fun

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'm generally not a fan of Myst clones, but after playing RealMyst and Myst 3 I was beginning to come around. Unfortunately Schizm didn't do much to improve my feelings for the genre.

The world of Schizm is an imaginative and intriguing one, and by far the best thing going for the game. Unfortunately, incredibly difficult puzzles, a thin plot, and terrible graphics take most of the fun out of your exploration. I will note that I played the CD version of the game, and by many accounts the DVD version is much better.

As I said, the world of Schizm is an interesting one. Not well fleshed out, but full of interesting technology and places. Many of the puzzles revolve around the various machines you will find as you explore the world, and many of these are fascinating inventions. The other strong point of the game was the use of two characters, and puzzles that utilized this concept. The ability to switch back and forth between the two characters was anice outlet when presented with a particularly nasty puzzle.

Unfortunately the plot of Schizm is pretty weak, displayed through a series of video clips. However, several plot points didn't seem to happen at all, and those we did see were difficult to understand. Furthermore, the graphics in Schizm are TERRIBLE. As the DVD version seems to have much better graphics, I can only guess the development company dropped the ball with regards to compression techniques.

In addition, the puzzles in Schizm can be VERY difficult. I was forced to seek help online for numerous puzzles, many of which seemed to have rather arbitrary solutions. While the ability to use two characters to solve some puzzles was enjoyable, many puzzles where it was required to use both characters were difficult to identify as such.

I was hoping to enjoy this game, but in the end it was more pain than it was worth. Skip this one.

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