Rating: 
Summary: Mixed review from a long time adventure gamer
Review: At first load I was impressed with ths game. I am used to Dreamcatcher games beging very "hit or miss" (that is, good or vomitously horrible), so I bought this one with more than a little trepidation. The imagery and ambiance of the game immediately swept me away. I loved the feel of Valadilene, filled with automatons and I felt a deep urge to explore every nook and cranny of that town. To enjoy the graphics and scenery of a dreamcatcher game is a true rarity. I was then disappointed on a number of counts...
(1) the telephone thing was just consistently tedious. It interrupted the flow of the game and the soap opera tale to which we were treated through these phone calls from unbvelievable characters was frankly stupid. I don't use that word casually.
(2) The main character was not very likable to me. For instance, she actually listened to these rude people on her telephone long beyond the point when a rational person would have hung up and gone on with life. Her "development" is shallow at best.
(3) The puzzles are too easy. Ok...I know some of you will shoot me for that. My spouse and I sat in front of the screen for a grand total of 4.25 hours and not once were we stumped or stalled in the solution to any puzzle. The "keys" to verious items are all hidden in obvious places...the solutions to problems are usually pretty simple too. the thing practually solves itself. This makes me yearn for the days of "Lighthouse", "Neverhood" (both out of print), anything from the Myst series or even "Grim Fandango" (still in print--buy this fun classic while you still can!)
(4) The ending was embarassingly Deus ex Machina. It was anticlimactic and unsatisfying, leaving too many untied ends and unanswered questions. Now we find out (oh surprise surprise) that it was intended to have a sequel all along to tie up those ends. (Five'll getcha ten they split it in half after the fact.) Will I give them more money just to find out what mammoths have to do with anything? It will be a weak moment on a dull day, but I probably will. Will I ever be completely satisfied? Who knows. That quarterback turned out to be a disappointment in the sack the first time... maybe I'll give him one more chance on looks, but hopes are not high.
Rating: 
Summary: Long on looks, short on fun
Review: I'm writing this to counter-balance some of these overly enthusiastic reviews. True, Syberia has nice graphics, great sound, and good atmosphere. But where "The Longest Journey" adds an interesting story and empathetic characters, Syberia degenerates into a sequence of transportation related puzzles with goofy sub-plots involving retired opera stars and (often mentioned, but never seen) Wooly Mammoths. I just never developed a liking for the main character and her supposed "personal development"--told via a silly cell-phone soap opera that frequently interrupts the plot. Worst of all, when the game abruptly ends, nothing is resolved and you realize that this is just part one of the story. Really shameful! Having also subjected myself to Benoit Sokal's previous attempt at this genre ("Amerzone"), I should have been suspicious. That game was awful, pure and simple. Microids went out of their way to tie that one in to this game (at one point Kate says somthing like "Amerzone? Amerzone? What is the Amerzone?"). You don't want to go there, Kate. The puzzles revolve mostly around winding up her mechanical train so the trip can continue to the next location. Some of the screens are so dark that I couldn't see what it was I was clicking on (no gamma adjustment either, sorry). Some items could only be found by the most painful pixel hunting--slowly trolling the cursor back and forth over the entire screen. That was enough to get me to resort to a walk-through. You know what needs to be done, but you just can't find that item dropped in the corner of a room. The story itself is advanced by dialog fill-ins that seem shoe-horned in here and there. The voice acting of the American charaters is OK, but the dialog is full of poorly translated phrases (Kate keeps saying "I don't need to go down there" every time you try a locked door--down where?). And the accents of the European charaters are consistently terrible (the crazy industrial city commandant sounded more Scottish than Russian!). I suppose I could play "Syberia 2" and find out where all this mess was going, but I just don't care. Think I'll wait for "The Longest Journey 2" instead.
Rating: 
Summary: A piece of art
Review: This isn't a game, this is a work of art, with the suprisingly lifelike scenery to the tiny details in a characters face, one can tell Benoit Sokal is a great artist. It has the best graphics I've ever seen in a computer game. The story line was also very strong. You start with Kate Walker, a NY attorney sent to close up the Voralberg factory, but you arrive to find that the last Voralberg has died leaving the factory to a brother who was supposedly dead, he was buried, right? So Kate ends up on a train going from beautiful city to beautiful city. You follow the magic journey using logic to solve puzzles. It was an awesome game..
Rating:
Summary: OMG!!! ; )
Review: This is the best game I've played in a long time. Amazing graphics coupled with easy game play make this a must have in your computer-game library.
The Pros:
1. Point and click navigation
2. awsome graphics
3. beautiful plot line
4. voices sound real
5. background music sets the mood
6. cliffhanger for the chronicles The Cons:
1. occasionally getting stuck
2. alot of reading when most times you can just skim
3. too short
4. too short
5. too short
6. cliffhanger for the chronicles This game all depends on how you like your gameplay.
Rating:
Summary: I had the best adventure
Review: I love this game, and plan to play it over and over again. I would rate it in my top 2 adventure games (Guilty by Psygnosis is the other). I see it is being compared quite frequently with "The Longest Journey", which I didn't really like much. I found TLJ rather too verbose, frustratingly verbose and boring. Plus the ending of TLJ made a complete mockery of the entire quest and left me feeling drained and depressed. On the other hand, Syberia seemed to have just the right amount of challenge for me, apart from the cocktail making episode which I found a little too hard and cheated on (walkthrough). The automatons were fun to assemble, and the character actually having a life outside of the game was (I thought) a nice touch, despite what others have said. The only problem I had with it was that it was all over too soon, however I see there is a Syberia 2, which I am pretty excited about. You have to play this game and see what you've been missing your whole life.
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous, but not very fun.
Review: Syberia is a textbook case for beauty in games, but its gameplay really leaves a lot to be desired. Not only is the game over too soon, but it is FAR too easy and the puzzles are boring. The characters are fine, but the attempted development and maturation of the main character, Kate Walker, really was not particularly well-done. The game's main problem is that the point-and-click interface just really doesn't work out in this case. The screens are too expansive and Kate too small and slow (running or not) to keep the gameplay interesting, and, again, the puzzles are just not particularly thought-provoking. None of this changes the fact, though, that you will want to explore this beautiful world simply for the reward of seeing everything. It's just too bad the gameplay didn't reach the bar the graphical design raised.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, Enchanting, Captivating, and even MOVING
Review: I've played most every game. I am a 50 year old man. I am not some impressionable idiot. And let me tell you something--this game is one of the most entrancing, beautiful, artistic, moving, and involving games I've ever had the pleasure to encounter AND I was able to give it happily to my 10 year old niece and know she'll be just as enchanted. It does get a little wordy at times, but wow--the art, the concept, the plays-fair-with-you-instead-of-cheating-like-most-games puzzles. This has EVERYthing. Get it. Treasure it. I can't wait for the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than "The Longest Journey"
Review: It seems that the biggest criticisms of this game are the lack of challenging puzzles and the amount of "walking" that Kate has to do. Since I'm terrible at puzzles that have nothing to do with clues that are part of the storyline, this was fine with me. In additon, anyone who complains about having to "walk around" a great deal, shouldn't be playing adventure games. That's simply part of the genre. If the player happens to move in the right direction and collect all clues and inventory the first time, there are fewer trips from place to place. If the player isn't that lucky, then they end up visiting locales numerous times - that's just the way most of the adventure games I've ever played work. As everyone has pretty much mentioned already, the graphics are astounding! I enjoyed all the characters and locales. The music was unobtrusive and the dialogue made sense. My biggest complaint with "The Longest Journey" was the amount of dialogue - volumes - Syberia was a great inmprovement in this regard. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the cellphone started to get on my nerves - but once we see that Dan and Olivia are having an affair, I got a kick out of it. It also helped to demonstrate how Kate evolves from a mousey woman who had never been adventurous before becomes this independent woman who is ready to chuck everything to go join Hans and Oscar on the train instead of returning to New York. I can't wait until Syberia II comes out in April 2004 to see what awaits them.
Rating:
Summary: Excelent adventure game
Review: Syberia has an interesting story and interesting characters. But its an extremely long game, and its very frustrating because every time you think you've finished the game there's always some thing else in your way. But when you've finally finished it you'll feel very self accomplished and satisfied. Its not the kind of game you'll play over and over again, but I still recommend that you buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Syberia -- good backgrounds, bad just about everything else
Review: Although this game contains beautiful scenery, it is largely a waste of the user's time. I bought this game with the hope of spending time figuring out some puzzles without the usual murder and mayhem. Unfortunately, the head-scratchers in this game are few and far between, and the 3-year-out-of-date-interface and primary character's annoying neurosis made me long for the game's final climax. It took 8 long hours to get there and wasn't even remotely worth it. This game is supposed to be about a smart, New York lawyer solving a mystery that ends in Siberia. Instead, you never arrive in Siberia, and your character turns out to be a neurotic wreck with serious issues with her mother, best-friend, fiancé, and employer. Not to mention these other extra characters call you during the game constantly, but generally add nothing material to the plot. To top the game's list of issues, she never actually accomplishes her main task: arriving in Siberia. To find out what happens to this doormat of a character Dreamcatcher Interactive actually wants you to buy the sequel. This game is now a coaster.
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