That being said, Myst, in many gamers' minds, is one of the most challenging and frustrating games ever created. It killed me playing through a blocky 'Schizm', knowing that it should have looked gorgeous. Anyone seeking an incredible playing experience or wanting to share in a piece of gaming history would be well minded to give Myst a shot. The one consolation we have is that at least there were so many of these types of games made in the wake of Msyt that there's a big back catalogue still to play! On the down side, they usually don't play too well on modern computers and the higher resolution kills the graphics. The solving puzzles and deciphering clues can be a great challenge.

I agree with the mention of Outcry above - a fantastic game that I would reccommend to any fans of the sub-genre. You are allowed to roam freely and discover things as you go. What a shame, considerign that their last release 'Dracula: Path of the Dragon' was probably their best to date. And there is no news of any proper adventure games coming out from them.

They seem to have gone 'casual' now and even then haven't been releasing much. It does seem like the developers who focused on the 1st person, puzzle driven games are sadly abandoning them: Kheops, Frogwares. This game takes place in a colorful and surreal world, one that is brimming with imagination. In My Brother Rabbit, you play through an emotional tale of one family's way to deal with their daughter's illness. And even when they were, as you say, 'just lying around' there was usually some reasonable justification for them, unlike 7th Guest (a very poor game in my opinion, and I love both 1st person puzzlers and horror games). My Brother Rabbit is a departure from something like Myst but still retains the puzzle adventure influences. In other Myst games they were more contrived, although still generally excellent compared to most games. Riven has the most perfectly integrated puzzles i've seen in an adventure game. Return to this strange and wondrous universe, where books become portals into worlds, and where the lessons of the past may. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the logic puzzles in Myst and 7th Guest also weren't an integral part of the gameworld (with some exceptions in the case of Myst) - mostly they were random challenges and locks the player was discovering 'just lying around'.

Puzzles in myst 3