MYST V: END OF AGES, Format: PC. Publisher: Ubisoft. Price: £34.99 Family friendly? 7+: HARDCORE gamers may have scoffed at the lack of true interactivity but more than 14 million people have taken up the Myst challenge to date.

In fact, the original puzzler reigned supreme as the best selling video game of all time for several years. It was only deposed by EA's phenomenally successful Sims franchise.

According to publisher Ubisoft, this fifth instalment is the last one. Cynics may wish to know that the company recently made all the developer's employees bar two redundant so it looks as though they could be telling the truth.

Developed by Rand Miller, the original creator of Myst, the final chapter tasks you with saving civilisation on an epic journey into the heart of a shattered empire. Alternatively, you can destroy the lot by making the wrong decisions.

Critics of this series will tell you that Myst is all about style over substance. The original looked fantastic because it resolutely used two dimensional static backdrops that could only be interacted with via a floating hand. This final game returns to those point 'n' click roots but the huge increase in computer power has allowed Miller and his designers to create a 3-D world for exploration. Now things actually move and the weather changes as you watch, but it's as gob-smackingly photorealistic as ever.

The interface has also been updated to allow for more environmental change and direct communication with in-game characters.

These characters are also brought to life with a new skinning technique that gives them extra emotional depth (but hey, let's not get carried away here. It's still a video game - Robert De Niro can rest easy polishing his Oscars). There's a character driven help system to help you when (not if) you get stuck.

Is it a fitting send off for a legendary series?

If you liked Myst I reckon you'll enjoy this. Puzzle lovers will also find lots of brain teasers for them to figure out.

Gamers brought up on fast moving action titles like Medal of Honor will wonder what all the fuss is about.

FAR CRY: INSTINCTS, Format: Xbox. Publisher: Ubisoft. Price: £39.99. Family friendly? 16+: A GAME like Far Cry: Instincts is the reason why Myst V with its languid narrative and cerebral puzzling elements now looks almost quaint.

Originally a smash hit on the PC, it has taken almost a year to export the game over to a console and only the most powerful one at that.

Even with the Xbox's muscle, it wouldn't be fair to expect a pixel perfect conversion - PCs are just too far ahead of the game nowadays. You can see where the corners have been cut. The atmospheric backdrops of the original have been replaced with jungle trees that often resemble nothing more than a green mush.

But when things move from outdoors to indoors, things certainly start to look up, and the developers pull every trick in the Xbox special effects book to convince us that this is a worthy new version. You play Jack Carver, a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, dumped on a tropical island that's about as far from a paradise as it's possible to get. You see, joining Jack on his holiday haven is a band of ruthless mercenaries with orders to track him down and not to bring him back alive.

Only Jack is more adaptable than anyone thinks...

You can take cover in the undergrowth, set traps, kill by stealth, pick 'em off from long range or go in at close quarters when you earn the Feral Attack - a particularly brutal special move.

When you knock off a bad guy, Jack also gets to help himself to his weapons. Soon you'll be a tooled up terminator with an itchy trigger finger.

And when you've played through the single player adventure, there's a multiplayer element and even a level editor that allows you to create your own game worlds. These can be uploaded via the Xbox broadband connection for competition with online buddies.

Far Cry on Xbox is sufficiently different for fans of the original to go out and buy the new version. Console owners who have never played it before are in for a treat.

Published: 14/10/2005