All Aboard The Syberian Express! (Syberia (PC))

Member Name: dissident505

Product:	Syberia (PC)
Date:	14/06/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful art and story

Disadvantages: Really need to play Syberia 2 as well, but they're both great so it's not really a problem

Syberia is a traditional point and click adventure game. You control Kate Walker, an american lawyer sent to close a deal in France by her law firm. The game charts the adventure that follows as unexpected obstacles and events turn what should have been a simple assigment into a life changing adventure across Europe.

Kate starts at a small French village where she is tasked with closing a deal to buy a factory there. On arrival she finds that the owner who she travelled to meet has recently died. She needs to find the owner's brother Hans if she wants to complete her task. The game takes place in a contempory setting and in a relatively real word. Springs, gears and clockwork devices feature heavily in Kates travelled. She leaves France riding in a specially built spring driven train, driven by a clockwork robot called Oscar. Oscar is more Tin Man that replicant and fits into Syberia's old feeling world oddly well. Kate discovers the legend of an island which still has mammoths and this legend is built on as Kate journeys on, later playing a large part in the story.

The gameplay is standard fare, click on the screen to make Kate move to the cursor, click on objects to pick up or use them and click on people to speak to them. The game has a decent mix of logic and inventory based puzzles. Playing through the game, there were very few points where I had no idea what to do. The puzzles are challenging enough to make you think but logical and fair enough to not make you reach for a walkthrough.

The locations portrayed are all beautiful and help bring you into the adventure. Perhaps more movement in the backgrounds would have helped in making the world even more engrossing. Kate and the other characters in the game are designed well and their animation is decent. Sound is excellent with music used sparingly but wisely. I played the game in english and the voice cast were all well suited and the main characters portrayed convincingly. Often when playing adventure games, I find myself taken out of the experience by miscast voices or over the top performances. This was not the case with Syberia.

Syberia is a wonderful game and adventure game fans will doing themselves an injustice not to play. The game ends quite openly but I was left satisfied still. The story continues on in Syberia 2, another superb example of the genre which provides greater closure and should also be checked out. Through this first game we see Kate's character develop and change for the better. From an unsatisfying job, relationship and mindset, we follow Kate into the unknown. I'd recommend you get on board and take the journey with Kate, you'll be glad you did.

On a side note, Syberia 3 was recently announced and should be out mid 2010. It's being made by the same man who created the first 2 games Benoît Sokal, so I'm eager to see where he takes us next.

Summary: Benoît Sokal is an adventure game titan and Syberia is proof.