Syberia

Rating:
Summary: Stink-eria
Review: It is a sad state of adventure games when this moronic mess of software wins several 'Adventure Game of the Year' awards. Which is a shame, because this game has a lot of potential, with gorgeous graphics and a moderately intriguing storyline.

The beautifully rendered environments, however, are just crack; an addiction to keep you playing, because there's nothing else to keep you playing. The characters are insipid, with grating voice actors reading retarded dialogue. Kate Walker, our 'heroine', is a 'lawyer' trying to 'do something' in Europe regarding an old toy factory. Simultaneously, via her cell phone, she is dealing with her stereotypical friends and relatives in the States. The ongoing soap opera with her moronic boyfriend, airhead girlfriend, airhead mom, and slave-driving boss will have you rolling your eyes in disinterest every time her phone rings and the game screeches to an even slower pace. And well before the end of the game, you'll be wanting to pry the head from her little robot friend Oscar and flatten it like a penny on a train track.

But the real disappointment in this game is the puzzles. You'd think with all the cogs, gears, levers, buttons and robots that there would be some fun and intricate puzzles to solve and machines to build. Alas, it's hard to think of any way the game designers could have taken more fun, logic, and ingenuity out of the puzzles. At least they could have added a difficulty option so that those of us who didn't want to watch a bad 10-hour cartoon wouldn't have to. If you want an idea of the difficulty level of most of the puzzles in this game, I recommend buying 'Winnie the Pooh Toddler' and trying your hand at the balloon popping game.

In the end, it is a joyless game. I had mixed emotions when it was over: anger that it could just end in such a stupid way, anger that I had been duped into thinking this was going to be a great game, incredulity that people think this game is great, and joy that I never again had to spend time on this mindless exercise. But mainly anger.

Bottom line: Play Monkey Island.

Rating:
Summary: It was fun
Review: This was a fun game, but I found it a little short. The graphics are beautiful and the game is pretty easy play. None of the puzzles are arcane and with a little persistence can be solved.

There are a few annoying parts of the game, you can't move very fast (even when Kate is "running") and you have to go back an forth through several screens which can be annoying. Also most of the time ring of light cursor works, but once in awhile you need to go to the next screen but the cursor doesn't light up and tell you you can, you have to just try it. I found that to be most annoying.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: I loved this game. It worked! No glitches, no bugs, no patches...it worked great. It was beautiful. The cut scenes added to the game instead of feeling like filler. The puzzles were challenging enough to make it a fun game, but not so challenging that it felt like painful work to solve them. I was especially pleased with the length of this game. It was three times longer than I expected. Every time that I thought it was the end, there was a new place to explore. I was surprised by how fun this game was to play. I recommend it to anyone who likes adventure/puzzle games. I'm now looking forward to playing the sequel. Hurray for another female lead character!

Rating:
Summary: Solitude...
Review: This game is great. It excels at graphics, particularly backgrounds. The aesthetics are astonishing, the whole automaton concept produced on me a mixed feeling of nostalgy and amazement. The concept couldn't be more original and the story is very well written.

Why didn't I find the game so fun? Because there is not much going on the world. I guess Kate Walker is supposed to be a lone wolf adventuring on a barren land, but in my opinion it was too much. No dispensable characters, everybody had a purpose. There are no useless or semi-useless items; everything has a purpose. This made the game really easy, I solved it in three sittings. While I appreciate moderate difficulty in adventures (I don't like "dying" or staring 3 hours at the screen clueless of what's going on), I barely had to think and I found myself puzzled only twice (first with the first puzzle and then finding a readily accessible room towards the end): it was too easy.

In the whole, it was an excellent piece of art, but it lacked the spark of Lucas Arts I grew to love. Something I surprisingly found in Monty Python & The Quest for the Holy Grail.

Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but far better than average
Review: Okay, so there are some problems with the game. For instance, when will game developers realize that players don't like to spend half their time walking (or running) back and forth to different locations? A "PDA" that would allow you to click on various sites and just go there would be a big improvement.

Some of the other faults have been mentioned in other reviews (although some are nit-picking in my opinion -- I mean, who cares what kind of accent the cosmonaut has? This is a game, not a documentary.) I 'fast forwarded' (right clicked) on almost all the innane dialogue between Kate and her boyfriend and Olivia (another 'who cares' element).

But all in all, it was a lot of fun and absolutely stunning to look at. The graphics are superb and other-worldly. The characterization is good, and the plot is logical. The game also gets extra points for me because it was relatively easy (I'm not a terribly good adventure gamer, I admit). If you are an advanced player, the ease of the puzzles might be a fault rather than a plus for you.

Finally, although I could see it coming, I loved the endgame where Kate .... well, I'll let you come to that point yourself and see if it doesn't make your heart soar.

I am immediately putting in an order for Syberia II and hope they continue the series ad infinitum.





Rating:
Summary: Evoking a Sense of Wonder
Review: Few games invoke a sense of wonder and awe like Syberia. The attention to detail is tremendous, and the ability to set a mood is a real strong point. The goal isn't to save the world, but to enable Kate Walker to complete her personal journey of discovery as she seeks to capture what the Germans call "sensucht," or the joy of which C.S. Lewis spoke. How many of us would like to leave the "rat race" and be free like little children again? That's what this story is really about.

The negatives have already been mentioned in previous reviews: some of the voice acting is atrocious (the Russian cosmonaut has a Texas accent!), and most of the dialogue involving Dan and Olivia seems forced and unrealistic.

However, the game is otherwise compelling and well worth the effort. While it stands on its own, I do look forward to the sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Over-rated Adventure with few redeeming features
Review: I read many glowing reviews on this game, supplied by online sources, but recently found out that a lot of the reviewers didn't actually play the game, and were parroting what someone said. SO the commerical reviews tend to be all very similar. After playing just an hour of this game, it bored me to death but I still ploughed on with it, and at times found myelf falling asleep. The game is very slow, the characters flat, and the story is uninteresting. The writer of this game tried to induce some sympathy for Kates character but in my opinion it makes me hate her even more. Kates character movement is rubbish...she manages to walk and run, but when it comes to going up or down stairs, she moves like a 70 year old. The game is very poor, and should not be compared to The Longest Journey as it falls well short of that.