Riven takes up the theme where Myst left off

A few years ago two evangelical Christian brothers Robyn and Rand Miller created a CD-ROM game that shook the world. Myst was an instant hit and success for many reasons. It was well designed, eerie, interesting and surprisingly non-violent.

So far the game has sold about 3.5 million copies and made for the Miller brothers more than US$20 million. For the past two years everyone who liked Myst has been waiting - dare I say 'anxiously' - for its sequel Riven.

Although basically the same kind of idea - you wander about the Riven world in much the same way you wandered about the island of Myst - Riven now takes advantage of the tremendous difference in computing power that most of us now enjoy.

This makes the graphics better, particularly if you can view the game on a Macintosh. This does not mean the game is bad on a PC, but the PC simply cannot match the Mac for colour space. The Mac version is darkly textured and moody, the PC version is simply dark.

Setting up the game is the normal point-and-click affair.

The ability of Riven to grab you will depend on your attitude to the unknown. Riven is a complex world of caves, bridges, transport devices, buttons, levers, and various creatures all inhabiting a vast area that is explorable at the click of a mouse. You point, you click, you go.

In Myst, there were no people and the textures were fairly simple. The music was evocative, but also somewhat repetitive. Riven is different. The textures are all special and the music is far more intricate. This accounts for the five CD-ROMs; Myst was one.