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Fantastic!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 86 / 90
Date: September 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is phenomenal on all levels -- from graphics to video streaming cutscenes to puzzle solving. My only regret is that it ended too soon... but (not to spoil things for others interested in the game) the end is SUCH a cliffhanger! Much like the old movies of the 1950s -- you can't wait to see what happens in the next episode. It sets everything up for Syberia 2 (coming out in October).

The game plays more like a movie, the graphics and interaction are so refined, like nothing I've seen in any other game.

If you like shoot 'em up games, this game isn't for you. It is mouse-driven and puzzle solving with no killing or violence. It's a game that will please both adults and teens. You click your way through various multi-layered scenes and solve puzzles to advance to the next level. The puzzles are challenging but not so difficult that you can't figure them out, given enough time.

I'm a fan of the smartly written movie ... this is the first video game I've come across that has dialogue and plot written as well as, if not better, than some movies out there. Whoever wrote the script for it is very talented ... the discourse is natural, the actors voices in the game are perfect, you get so engrossed with the story line sometimes you forget you're playing a videogame. Some of the dialogue is funny, some serious, but overall, well written to keep your attention.

There's a cross-plot where the heroine's best friend is trying to steal away her fiancee (via various cell phone conversations), and that adds to the layers of the whole game, giving the plot more detail, and sucking you into the storyline.

I played this game all the way through in about four days. Most advanced game players will finish it in a day or so. It's not horribly challenging. But it's entertaining and engrossing and you will find yourself forgetting its simplicity because of how all parts of this game come together -- the graphics, the movie scenes, the plot, the puzzles. It's a beautiful piece of programming.

There should be more games out there like this. I know I'd buy them all. Kudos! I can't wait for Syberia 2 to be released!

Magical Mystery Tour

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: August 23, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Great adventure with no shoot-em-ups. Action required to move to next step made perfect sense, acting of characters was superb, and the visual is exquisite. I can't wait for a sequel.

An Absolute Delight

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: November 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have had some bad experiences with Dreamcatcher in the past and I was a little reluctant to buy Syberia because of those experiences. But, after reading so many great reviews, I decided to give it a shot.

First and foremost, this game is every bit as good as the reviews say. The voice acting is paramount and the graphics make this game beautiful and engrossing. The graphics in this game are by far the best I've experienced in gaming. If you are going to buy this game, make sure you have at least a 32MB graphics card. You can play the game with a lower graphics card but you may miss out on some of that beautiful artwork.

The gameplay is a breeze and the storyline is compelling. Most all of the puzzles can be solved logically and are an intergral part of the story ( Not just something thrown in to kill time). However, there are a few tough ones and I wouldn't have been able to solve a couple of them without the help of a walkthrough.

I've read a lot of reviews that complain about the short length of the game. And I agree that it is a little shorter than I would have liked it to be. However, it's not too short and will give you several hours of enjoyment. Personally, I liked the way the game ended. Maybe if the final scenes had been a little more drawn out, it wouldn't have met with as much criticism.

Believe it or not, I did have one bad knock against this game..........I just couldn't stop playing it. The storyline pulls you in and you're hooked....so get ready for a few groggy mornings at work due to staying up late playing this game.

Syberia truly is a great game and a safe buy. I highly recommend it and I believe you will thoroughly enjoy this game.

4 and a half stars

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Syberia, how should I say it, is a game with it's weaknesses and accomplishments. The story is one of the best included in any game in the last half decade, the voice acting and the art is astounding, and the overall length is good. The puzzles, perhaps, take away some of the enjoyment of the game. I didn't know how to complain, for several puzzles were incredibly easy to solve while others frustrated me to the point that I had to resort to a guide. Syberia is definetely a game worth owning though perhaps better when it's worth 10-20 dollars instead of 30. The copy I received from Amazon included a bonus disk which had lots of extra stuff but nothing that you would continuously view over and over. I feel that this game is one that you'll beat and won't play for a long while, before finally noticing it and having an interest again.

Syberia is the story of Kate Walker, an ambitious lawyer who begins her journey when she is sent to buy an automaton (robot) factory. When she gets there, however, she discovers that Anna Voralberg, the owner, has sadly passed away. Kate is about to give up when she discovers that Anna's brother, who was believed to be dead, is still alive. When Kate finds him, she will be able to make him sign the contracts and complete the mission. The game then begins to lead you through many puzzles and locations such as a toy factory, a cave, a university, several train stations, forests, and many more places that are each designed with every possible detail to give the player the most realistic experience.

Graphics: 9/10 - The graphics are brilliant, simply wonderful, in a good and bad way. The good is that everything looks too realistic. The bad thing is that players don't want a game to show them something that they could easily see outside. For example, take another adventure game, Curse of Monkey Island's graphics. The graphics there are cartoony. But are they colorful and entertaining? Yes. The realism of Syberia both takes and adds to the game.

Replayability: 4/10 - The game will have you hooked for many days but as soon as you finish it, you won't play it for a long time. In Monkey Island, there were at least difficulties in which there were more puzzles and harder solutions. Syberia's puzzles are mostly easy so trying to play the game for a second time knowing all the solutions is incredibly boring.

Voice Acting: 8/10 - Perfect. The actors show real emotions and feelings. One thing I would have liked to see was to actually choose the things I want to say after a person speaks to me. There are options as to what you want to discuss but then Kate starts saying unneeded things. For example, when a mechanical robot in the game starts asking Kate for things, she says "Oh, is that really necessary?" or "Come on, please!". I felt that all that time could have been used to actually get what the robot had asked for.

Story: 9/10 - Good but there's not really a villain. Kate's just trying to get to Hans Voralberg and it seems like nothing is going to stop her. There's no arch-nemesis or any person she's trying to beat. There's no conflict. And everyone knows that the best stories always have a conflict.

Bonus Disk: 5/10 - Not much to see and everybody talks French. I hate subtitles.

Overall, 95%. If a friend has it, I recommend borrowing it for a week or two and beating it easily. If you see it in a jewelcase for 10 bucks, buy it. If someone offers you this or another adventure game like Monkey Island, take Monkey Island.

FInally! They get it right

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: February 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

An old fashioned adventure game. I mean a real adventure game. No shoot em ups, no ridiculous puzzles that don't make sense... just a really great game. Deserves the game of the year award.

Syberia raised the bar on adventure games.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: March 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The scenery and graphics in this game is really fabulous. Just the buildings' architecture, colors and room views alone bring you into a place that is both modern but a hundred years old.

The story line is good and although I did have to get hints from the website - UHS Hints, to help along at the most challenging times, that only added to the pleasure of the game (any game) because I could move on.

The movements of the protagonist, Kate Walker, are surprisingly realistic, (although Syberia 2 made them even more fluid).

One or two tasks are repeated in each "chapter" with a slightly different manner, such as winding the train for power before you can leave to the next city, and this familiarity is a confidence booster. If every single scene had all new logic, it would drive me nuts.

I actually finished this game and played it again, then bought Syberia 2 to repeat the fun. I hope they make a Syberia 3.

An Astounding Piece of Art

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: April 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I can't quite say what it was that drew me to buy Syberia. I simply saw it on the shelf and picked it up for some reason. Then I put it back. Then I picked it up again and read some more of the reviews. Then I put it back down and thought that it would probably be best if I were to save my money for something I actually knew more about.

As you can probably guess, I'm not the most decisive person. I have to admit that Syberia is one of the best computer games I have bought since Myst III. Actually, it probably is the best computer game I've bought since Myst III. As a writer I have always been drawn to games with a definate plot, such as The Journeyman Project and Myst. Syberia met and surpassed my expectations. The graphics are stunning, but the really astonishing thing about this game is the characters, who are brought to life with some of the best voice acting I have heard in this type of game. Each and every one has a solid personality and identity that invites you to learn more about them. The character of Hans, for example, is one that you learn about very slowly until you get an impression of him that, when you finally do meet him, seems both an exageration and an understatement. The plot and the subplots are interwoven to guide the shaping of the main character, allowing development like I have never seen in this particular genre. Some have complained that it is too short, and I must admit that I hardly wanted the game to end. I would say that the reason for how short it seems is not that the story itself is short, but rather the fact that once you have started you will find it almost impossible to stop until you have reached a conclusion, much like the main character in this story. The ending is somewhat open ended, but the execution makes a statement about the character that I personally find to be both inspiring and enchanting. In fact I felt a strong desire to follow. In short, if you're going to spend $...on a game, spend it on Syberia.

If it was a film, it would've won the Oscar.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: August 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When this game was released in 2002, it was the most imaginative story I'd heard all year. And it was a video game! The same medium that is flamed by Hollywood as the bastion for all evil in modern filmdom, had upstaged every novel concept by Hollywood that year.

Even the opening is cool. How many games begin with a funeral procession at a small town in the French Alps...? This is no typical funeral procession, however, since its entire entourage consists of clockwork automatons, made by the toy factory of the late Anna Volalberg. "You," Kate Walker, have been sent to have the surviving owner of her failing company sign on the dotted line, and sell all a$$ets to a prestigious client. Trouble is, now that Anna is gone, that ownership lies with her brother Hans, whose whereabouts are unknown. It is your mission to trace his life since leaving this small town, and find him.

I think what really sold me with Syberia is its overall message; what makes us "human," compared to the life-sized windup toys Kate comes across throughout her journey? As Kate's mystery progresses, she gets called on her trusty cellular phone by her friends, relatives, and colleagues back home, each of whom is either a total dimwit, or too obsessed with their "routine" to truly show any compassion for Kate. Each call seems not as interested in Kate's well being as much as how quickly she can return, so their daily routines can be complete again. This is Kate's life to a "T," whose most frequent phone call is from her boss, demanding her to "do what you're told," as if she were a wind-up toy herself. Will this assignment be a turning point for her? You bet; and that's half the fun.

This was one of my favorite games of 2002. Not as action-packed as Jedi Knight 2 or as comical as Freedom Force, though very cerebral and as close to "interactive novel" as a game has come since The Longest Journey. I loved it. I'm sure you will too.

Excellent example of 3rd person adventure

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

For those of you new to the adventure game genre, this is a wonderful place to start. For those of you like myself who are long-time adventure game fans, you're in for a real treat.

A simple glance at the screenshots (see http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/syberia/index.html) will be enough to convince you that the graphics are superb -- and run exceptionally well even on my 4-year-old 450MHz PC. The music is engaging and appropriate. The interface is extraordinarily intuitive; it's one-click easy (like LucasArts' The Dig) but the cursor changes depending on whether you can speak, look at, pick up, or use an item. Every now and then I found myself running the cursor hopelessly across the screen in an attempt to find anything I could interact with, but frankly this is more of a tribute to the game's excellent graphics than a comparison with the days of "pixel-hunting." The inventory remains uncluttered, with a separate division for documents, and Kate (the protagonist) gets rid of objects you'll never need again in a natural way throughout the game. The voice-acting is generally exceptional, although in all fairness I did get tired of several canned phrases ("No need to go down there!") by the end of the game.

One last note on the graphics: I'm used to games like the Monkey Island series where you click on things to look at them and have the protagonist tell you something about the object ("It's a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle"). At first I was confused when I couldn't "look at" many things on the screen...and then I realized that the graphics are so good, there's just no need. If you don't understand what something does, chances are Kate doesn't either. Finally adventure games have reached this stage!

All this is well and good, but is the game any FUN to play? I gave it 5 stars because of its fun-factor, and in many ways that's due to Syberia's engaging story. The story is as realistic as anything you're likely to see in a game; it starts off very simply, with Kate in a world that you and she both understand, and as the worlds you experience get more complex and the story progresses, you agree that it all makes sense -- never is the rug pulled out from under the story's feet. All this means that you can identify with Kate throughout, and that helps you get further absorbed in this exciting world.

The puzzles are decent -- a little on the easy side (I finished it without a walkthrough, and in all fairness I'm the type that's tempted to cheat two or three times per game when I get really stuck), and with a minimum of running all over the place like a chicken with your head cut off just to solve a single puzzle (there's one exception in the University town, but it's forgivable).

I wish it had been longer -- I didn't time it, but I'm guessing it gave me 10-15 hours of enjoyment -- not exactly "Longest Journey" stuff, but worthy of $'s.

Are you still wondering if you should get it? You should. Trust me. It's worthy of its Adventure Game of the Year status.

Download the demo at: http://download.com.com/3000-7564-10230194.html

Moving story, beautiful game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: March 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I consider myself pretty discriminate when it comes to adventure games. I cut my teeth on the Infocom text adventures; forayed into graphic adventures with Myst. With those two as my standards, it's been hard finding anything I truly enjoyed.

I LOVED Syberia. I thought character development was excellent, the puzzles were so well integrated into the story that they didn't feel like puzzles - but they weren't extremely easy either - they require some thinking. But I definitely enjoyed the lack of pixel-hunting, "use every object in your inventory to see if it's the right one" type gameplay. The graphics were superb.

OK, the voice acting left a little to be desired. But, it wasn't absolutely horrendous either. If I could, I'd take off half a star for that. But truly, the magic in this game lies in its storytelling. I was captivated, interested, and couldn't wait to find out how things turned out. The ending... All I can say without spoiling anything is: I am SO glad Syberia 2 is being released on Monday. I haven't waited for a game this eagerly since Riven!

If story is a factor to you, get this game. Both graphically and emotionally beautiful, this game is right next Myst in my Number One spot.

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