>Talk to a good sampling of people and get their opinions before you decide.

Well, I figure that I'll just put in my thoughts about the game, since I own it (and passed it, but with internet help).

First, I'll have to agree with Stephen's analysis that some of the puzzles are WAY too nonsensical. If you read ALL the books (which aren't really that bad), then the puzzles do make more sense, but some of them are still pretty nonsensical and sort of stupid. Here are two example puzzles that you will find if you choose to do get the game (They are kinda spoilers, but I sincerly doubt that you'll get to them without going for internet help first.):
1) You have to get to the fifth island. To do this, you have to press 5 stones in the correct order. That parts okay. Here's the annoying part. In order to find out which stones to push, there are 5 balls scattered around the world (which is HUGE). When you turn each ball over, it has a number (written in Rivinese of course, you have to learn to read both numbers and letters in the Rivin script and it's not that easy) and makes a sound (which is very faint and I missed the sounds before I went for help). Somewhere else in the world there's an animal that makes the same sound. And, on the stones, there are really bad chalk pictures of the animals. There are absolutly no clues that this is the type of thing that you're supposed to do. I find that a puzzle like this can be quite frustrating -- even with internet help it was hard!
2) Here's a puzzle that's simply dumb. In order to enter a building, you have to do a complex series of things (about the amount of stuff above) so that the staircase to the building goes from ramp status to step status. I'm quite sure that I could climb the thing easier in ramp status then step status, but, well, whatever.

So, that being said, what are the good parts about Riven? Well, I guess it depends on what you're looking for in a game. Riven is less of a 'game' and more of a walk-around-in-a-big-world type thing. And, at the time, it was done very well. The scenery is nice and I think a lot of time was put into ambient noises. It's the type of game where the focus is pretty much only on exploration (because nothing else in the world really makes any sense...). It's also one of the only computer games that I know of that /requires/ you to learn how to read a second language (which can be either good or bad depending on what you like). In fact, there are some 20 page books inside the game written in Rivenese, and you have to decode it letter by letter. Riven is a game where if you don't know what you're doing (like pretty much everyone), you'll never be able to finish it. If you do know what you're doing, exactly, then it'll take a few days. The game is really that big.

So, the bottom line. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, I'd probably put Riven around 5. It's rather annoying if you're trying to play it as a game, but if you just want to explore a world via your computer, go for it.

Of course, there's one more really good thing about Riven, that isn't really related to the actual game. It comes with the demo of Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time. Once I played the demo, I bought the game about 2 days later. I'd say that it's the best adventure game that I've ever played. The graphics are better then Riven. The sounds are better then Riven. The puzzles actually make sense (partially due to the fact that the game has a logical plot). The only thing is that it's a bit on the easy side (I passed it fairly quickly without any help, including help from Arthur) and it seems quite short.

So, if you want a new world to explore (though one that doesn't make much sense), go for Riven. If you're looking for a good adventure game, DEFINATLY get Legacy of Time.

-Ka"Unfourtunatly, JP3's sound system doesn't work well on my new computer. The sound got fragged. I don't suppose anyone else had this problem, did they?"z!