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Schizm DVD release

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 21
Date: September 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've just started to play. As far the game seems to be an excellent Myst-like adventure. Stunning graphic (despite 640x480 resolution), 360 degree view, 4-point 3D sound and good storyline make it a real time-thief. Only thing that really annoys me is the quality of cut-scenes. Acting (wooden indeed) and animations (especially the first one!) should be better.

Not even close to Riven or Myst III

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: March 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'm not a "hard core" gamer and am pretty picky about what I want to spend my time on. I wanted a game like Riven or Myst III, both of which I enjoyed a great deal. I've played this game for only a few minutes and will be returning it immediately.

First of all, just because I haven't purchased a DVD-ROM yet doesn't mean I should be punished with jumps, crappy graphics, and (from what I hear) less of a game. I have a nice system, far above the PII300 that they recommend. Myst III looks fabulous on my machine. ...

Even worse though is the navigation. It's completely non-intuitive. You have to force the mouse to turn you in the correct direction -- and often end up spinning too much, you can't look up and down, you move in strange increments. Worse are the obvious game-plot-forced movement. In the very first location there are tons of cool things I want to look at and try, but can't get to them. This isn't exploring a mysterious new world... it's being told what to do by the system! I don't like being told what to do.

I can't comment on the value, difficulty, or logic of the puzzles. I got so annoyed just walking around that I'm not even going to bother.

save your money unless you're a masochist

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Like many before me, I give mixed reviews because this is both good and bad. The bad outweighs the good overall because the bad is so, well, BAD! I thought the music and graphics were gorgeous. I found the cursor was difficult to use. It took me two or three tries and reinstalls to realise the problem was you needed to swing the cursor left and right to get a response. Bizarre. I found the puzzles had no relation to the environment, and that really put me off. I spent a few hours and solved the first two puzzles by guesswork. That is not what I want the game for; I want to use the old noodle, but not merely guess. It almost seemed random, but since I didn't go through it all, I cannot say for certain if that were the case or not. Overall, any of the Myst games would be preferable.

I hated it. Nowhere near the quality of the Myst series.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: May 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I felt compelled to buy Schizm a few days ago. I wanted my money back after a few minutes of playing. It's simply awful. First of all, the voice acting is terrible. I decided I could live with bad voice acting from other characters. Then I realized that my OWN character which I am supposed to be controlling is talking and make comments about the things infront of me. This is very annoying. It makes me feel like I have a very stupid sidekick with me at all times, and it really pulls me out of the game.
Also, none of the levels were designed with the Myst-node movement style in mind. There are very large areas, and you naturally want to be able to walk around freely and explore everything upclose. You can't. This doesn't sound annoying, but trust me, it is. VERY. I never appreciated how much effort went in to making Myst, Riven, and Exile playable until I met this game. Myst games never have wide open spaces. You're always on a path, so you never feel like there's somewhere you want to go but can't. Schizm has many wide-open spaces, and nodes which are placed almost randomly, and don't allow you to enjoy the area around you. It's like they're encouraging you to zip past everything and progress as quickly as possible. In Schizm, I found myself clicking at things over and over before realizing I couldn't walk to that strange decoration on the wall or that door.
Another thing that pulls you out of the game is the skipping of long animations. If I get into a maglev in Riven, it shows the entire ride from one island to another. In Schizm, it shows you departing, it does a crossfade to you going along, then another cross-fade of your landing (all in first person) and then you can get out. Note to developers: crossfades and cutting out parts of sequences to save time is anything BUT immersive. Perhaps one of the worst things of all in this game is the live-motion characters. It's not only they can't speak like a human, can't act, and can't even show up at sensical points in the game, they don't even LOOK like they things they're supposed to be. I'm supposed to rescuing scientists. Scientists are old guys in lab coats. In Schizm, scientists are 20-year-old college students with long hair and leather jackets.
I could rant on for hours about how horrible this game is. Just don't waste your money like I did.

one of the better puzzle games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: January 22, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I read a few reviews for this game and it seems most of the people are wrong about the game. if you say it has bad graphics than you probably have a crappy computer. and it DOES offer 360 degree view of a highly detailed enviroment. i just recently beat the game and it has a failry interesting ending, not what i expected to happen. the puzzles are fun because they're so freakin' hard! it sounds like most of the reviewers are lazy gamers who dont like challeges and go for the run-in-and-shoot games. the graphics are like an old movie, very realistic for a game. just for the record, the game did NOT freeze or stall at all for the month it took me to beat. a very good game.

Schizm - Dreamcatcher Disappointment ZERO STARS

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Pass on this one. This game is ego-driven by the creator. It is not fun entertainment. This game has inane puzzles for the sake of puzzles. The puzzles do not follow any logical order. Parts of each puzzle are not in the same area so you must solve the puzzle part here and then go there to solve the puzzle to complete the whole puzzle! A lot of backtracking. You must "move" both characters separately - very repetitive. Huge mathematical equations that go on and on to complete a task. This game contains a puzzle in which you must beat the computer. Until you do (twice in a row) you are stuck and cannot go any further in the game. I feel that there are only two good things about this game (1) If you want to solve this game you can purchase the cheats for an additional $... from the company and (2) this was a gift - I did not waste my money on it.

ummm- does this make the slightest bit of sense

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

While the gameplay was enjoyable, and the puzzles may have been difficult- I needed help and I had gotten through Riven and Myst III in 2 days a piece, I found that I could not get into the fun. The tasks seemed more laborious than puzzles, and the graphics were absolutely terrible. I found it difficult and annoying to change characters and disliked the funky camera angles. At some points, you seem 5 feet off the ground and at others about 8. The storyline was also terrible- I still do not completely understand what the logic is behind what happened where and who the heck the gatekeeper and Matia are. There are also no ways to fail- failure is an option in real life.
The main purpose for buying this game was to see great graphics, piece together a great storyline, and to tackle mediocre to hard puzzles. This game provided none of the above. Yuck

On second thought, worth playing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

As good as other adventure games, just be sure you get a walkthrough because the puzzles and plot are in no way intuitive. Graphics could be better, but are still very original, and at times excellent, at times blurry. Still, IF you like adventure games, you will not be disappointed.

Buy the DVD version!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Do NOT buy the CD-ROM Version of this game! I made the mistake of buying the game on CD-ROM. The game was so butchered and chopped up just to get it to run in the CD-ROM drive that the game was impossible to play. I just got the DVD version. Its GREAT. The graphics flow. There are tiny animated sequences that are not in the CD-ROM version. There are many more clues and indicators that tell you that you are doing the right thing that are not available in the CD-ROM version. I have only played the DVD game for about an hour last night, but I am convinced!

So far I would give the DVD version a 4 star rating.

Schizm

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

It was fun, but like all of the games I've played which depict alien cultures the aliens look like humans of western European desent. If you can put the creators lack of imagination in that regard, it is interesting. The puzzles were challenging, a little too much so in some respects; I had to use Universal Hint System on the Net to cheat a little. The graphics are good, but a little grainy at a distance. There are no real problems I see with this game that is not indicative of most games (it is no MYST). I still recommend it. It was fun and challenging.

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