Rating

A

Specific Ratings

GameplayA
GraphicsA+
Learning CurveA+
Replay ValueA-
SoundA

Pros and Cons

Pros
  • Stunning graphics, absolutely amazing
  • Very interesting story
  • Unique Automaton characters
  • Gorgeous locations to experience
  • Really neat ways of traveling
  • Unique cell phone feature
  • Easy-to-use controls and interface
  • No headache-induced puzzles
Cons
  • Low replay value

Syberia (PC)

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Summary

Syberia is an amazing adventure game that will take Kate Walker, a New York attorney, and send her onto an adventure in which she will encounter wondrous places and people.

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Description

Syberia is an excellent point and click adventure game. The game is presented in 3D, and has some outstanding environments to explore. It has been a long time since I have played such a breathtaking, and engrossing adventure game. The graphics are amazing, the best I have seen in a game in quite awhile, and the story will captivate you and make you eager to find out what lies ahead next.

You play Kate Walker, a New York attorney, who has been sent by her company to a small Alpine village in France to buy out the Voralberg Toy Company. The game opens with a movie cut-scene of her arriving in this town and watching a group of Automatons (a.k.a. robots, but some very neat looking robots), marching towards a funeral. She makes it to the local hotel, and after securing her room, she finds out that the funeral that she just witnessed, is for the young lady that she was suppose to meet with in order to secure the rights to the toy company. So as you might guess, this presents her with an unexpected twist to her business plans, and sets her off onto a journey that she will soon not forget.

The Graphics in this game are superb. I will put it this way, if there was a score higher than A+ that I could assign to graphics, I would definitely do that with this particular game. It blows my mind how real and detailed some of these games can be nowadays, and Syberia certainly falls into that category. You will travel too and experience four beautifully rendered environments: Valadilene (The Alpine Village that you start the game in), Barrockstadt (The University City), Komkolzgrad (A forgotten mining complex), and Aralbad (A seaside resort). At certain points within the game, there would be movie cut-scenes, and it was hard to believe that the graphics could get even better, but I think they were even more amazing during these cut-scenes. Characters had shadows with them when they walked, and when the train raced along the tracks, smoke followed it, these are some of the things I noticed with the graphics of this game that really made it stand out in my opinion.

Gameplay in this game was excellent. Very easy to use interface, and movement was ALL mouse driven, which is how I like it. There were basically two different kinds of inventory items that Kate collected during her journey. The first was items of various kinds and sizes that would be used on puzzles throughout the game. I really did not even consider them "puzzles" per say, but instead just things you needed to take care of in order to progress further in the game. When you think of puzzles in an adventure game, the first thing that will probably come to mind is the Myst-type of mind benders that you typically have to deal with. It may have been nice to have a few of these type of puzzles in this game, but for the most part, it was actually quite nice to not have too experience a migraine in order to solve the puzzle. LOL! The other kind of inventory item that Kate Walker collected was documents or books. For the most part, these items were solely used to just gain more information about the sole heir to the toy company that she is in search of, but sometimes they were also needed to get through a door or such. Since Kate is a sophisticated woman, she does indeed have a cell phone. In my opinion, this was one of the neatest things you interacted with during the game (you don't get the chance to use a cell phone in a computer game that often). Most of the time the phone calls would be from Kate's friends and family back in New York, and the game would stop automatically and go into the phone conversation between her and whoever was calling. There are a few times during the game in which Kate must make a phone call, and the cell phone can be brought up with a simple mouse click from the inventory screen, and than you dial the numbers just like you would with a real phone. Very neat! It even had a memory feature, which stored the numbers of those annoying friends from New York. LOL! There was also a dialogue notebook that Kate kept on her, and it could be accessed through the inventory screen, or it would come up automatically during conversations with the interesting characters that Kate encounters. Kate will come in contact with many different and wondrous characters, including the astonishing wonder in technology that is known as the Automatons (human like robots). There is one in particular named Oscar, that will help Kate a great deal, and she will not be able to travel without him. Speaking of travel, Kate will travel by some amazing means, such as a wind-up train, and an airship (balloon).

The sound in this game was excellent. There were many unique voices for all the characters that Kate meets during her journey, and she also had a very soothing and pleasant voice. Each place that you will experience had many ambient and environmental sounds to them to make you feel like you are truly experiencing another reality. The birds sounded like real birds, the water gurgled and flowed like a stream should, the train clanked along the tracks as it raced to it's next destination, and you even heard footsteps when Kate walked.

The learning curve was superb in this game. Granted, there is no tutorial or anything like that in this game, but it was not really needed. The controls for movement, and how you bring up Kate's tools, can be figured out within the first seconds of playing, it is that easy to use. If you still need help, than you can always consult the manual, and it goes into fine detail on how to move Kate and how to use all the available screens. The only other thing that I would be aware of, which I think I may have already mentioned above, is that you can use documents on puzzles as well.

The replay value is good for this game. It is hard to assign a high replay value to ANY adventure game, because there are usually not many options you can choose from to make the game different the next time you play it. There is NOT a difficulty setting in this game, and once again, being an adventure game, there is NOT any combat to adjust. In defense of this game, I would say that the one thing that would encourage a gamer to want to play it again, is the over-all beauty of it, and the interesting story-line, it is worth experiencing again. In addition, I had to consult a walkthrough sometimes to find out what I needed to do next, and it would be worthwhile to play the game again sometime and see if I can make it through it without looking up the walkthrough so much.

In conclusion, I would say that this was one of the most enjoyable and graphically stunning adventure games I have played for some time. It is sure to take you away to places that you could only dream about, and introduce you to characters that are both interesting and a wonder in modern technology.

There is a Syberia 2, that is suppose to pick up exactly where this one ends, and as soon as I get that one and play it, I will write a review on it as well (another GTZ user has written a review on that one, if you want to check that out).

I would also like to mention that this first game, Syberia, also has a GOTY edition, and also a collector's edition, but not sure what extra goodies these two versions give you. I plan on picking those up as well whenever I can, and when I do, I will probably just add a note onto this review that will tell you what they do include.

So all you adventure game freaks, you must add this title to your collection, I would say that Syberia is a must have for any adventure game enthusiasts. Happy adventuring!

Your Fellow Gamer,
Bobby

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