Syberia

The Good
Syberia is, simply put, breathtaking. It's not the graphics (see negatives below), but the sheer creativity and attention to detail that went into how the game is built; the amazing depth and consistency of the renderings, the slow, subtle buildup of the music, the way everything is put together is nothing short of cinematic brilliance.

The back story is also fascinating and unique; a cross between an Indiana Jones-like sense of awe and adventure, a fantasy world bordering on the plausible, and a narrative the flits back and forth between fantasy and reality convincingly. Finally, Syberia conveys a true sense of desolation; not oppressive and agoraphobic, as in Fallout, but rather lonesome, sad and beautiful. From a purely audiovisual standpoint, Syberia utterly oozes atmosphere.

The Bad
Unfortunately, Syberia has significant shortcomings, and fails to capitalize on lessons learned from previous adventure games. The gameplay consists of the routine "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" detours, which is fine, but does so in an infuriatingly linear way. There are no multiple quests to keep you interested, and very few intellectual challenges, so the player's involvement is essentially reduced to a "go there, do this, go back, do that, talk to the guy, go to the other side of the current map" routine which becomes badly predictable after the first episode or two.

Worse still, puzzles come in either the woefully obvious verity, with a lot of unnecessary walking and dialog to fill the blanks; the annoying sequence puzzles where you have to do very specific things at a very specific order (which may or may not make sense); or, and this is probably the worst adventure game anti-pattern I can think of (a leaf unfortunately taken from the pages of The Longest Journey), pixel hunting puzzles. The detailed but static graphics are actually a detriment here, with important objects dissolving into the background and easily missed. This leads to a routine of moving the mouse back and forth over the screen area in order to make sure no clue is missed, which leads to boredom and hurts suspense of disbelief.

Lastly, the game mechanics mostly work but, given the repetitive and far-reaching nature of the puzzles, can become insanely annoying after a time - moving from screen to screen takes forever, there's no way to skip non-cutscenes such as climbing a ladder, the inventory system is not particularly effective and there's no notepad or dialog history, which means you need to keep notes (even phone numbers!) manually. For any game, this is an annoyance (unless there's an actual intellectual challenged involved; Star Control 2 is pretty much the only example I can think of); for a 2002 game, this is simply inexcusable.

In the nitpicking section, I have to add that the graphics (not the art - the actual in-game graphics) are disappointing for the game's age. The characters only look somewhat believable, the resolution is low and everything is too static; computers back then certainly had enough horsepower to handle a little more detail and move moving objects. There may have been budget constraints here, but suspense of disbelief suffers accordingly.

The Bottom Line
Ultimately, Syberia is a modern version of Myst: beautiful, well-made, certainly a labor of love but ultimately a flawed game. Well worth the sixpence you can get it for nowadays, but I would have been gravely disappointed had I paid full price back in its heyday.

The Good
OK, you think to yourself after reading the headline, “oh another one of those big queens who cry from anything”. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. I AM gay, but I am ex-special unit soldier who fought both in Lebanon and in Gaza. If I cry over a computer game, you can guess that this game is a real gem.

I think in order for you to feel Syberia, you have to play it twice. Then, the people in the game will really matter to you. The main characters in the game make you feel sorry or happy for them long after you finished the game.

Take for example Helena Romanski, Does she not represent the fear we all share of getting old and loosing our social status? Are we all not afraid to be alone toward the end of our life? When you hear her talk, sing you can only feel so much sorry for her.

And what did you think about Anna? How can one not sorry and sad for her loss? Two days before she was to meet her brother whom she has not seen for over 50 years, her heart gave up, probably from the sorrow of having to sell the factory.

The scene where Kate tells Hans about Anna is simply most moving.

In a way, Kate’s personality is somewhat of a disappointment. She is more the glue that connects the plot and brings you closer to all the other characters. Normally the main character is the one you are supposed to identify the most, not in this case. But, who knows? Maybe this was the intention.

From a technical point of view: The game still looks great, and the music is simply phenomenal. I bow before the composers.

Voice acting was also superb.

The game interface is also very easy to use.

The Bad
You need to walk a lot to solve some of the puzzles. This makes the game somewhat tedious.

The Bottom Line
If you want a moving long lasting game experience, play Syberia!

The Good
Steampunk style point-and-click with really nice graphics (just remember it was made in 2002) and fantastic voice acting (one of best I've ever heard in an adventure game).

Village mysteries, steampunk factories, amazing airships and intricate automatons - all this explored by young New York lawyer, Kate Walker.

The Bad
"Syberia" has some shortcomings, namely some annoying unskippable animations (like stair or ladder climbing) and it is quite linear, but the story is so great I would definitely recommend it anyway!

The Bottom Line
GRAPHICS: 8/10 AUDIO: 9/10 GAMEPLAY: 7/10 STORY: 10/10