User Reviews (1 - 11 of 15)

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Excellent!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

i enjoyed Syberia II as much as i did Syberia!!!! This game is action packed!!!!

Awful console port of a decent adventure game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There aren't too many developers who can botch the very basics of walking down a wide cobblestone street. Somehow the dolts at Microids managed. Buried somewhere in all the invisible path blockages, incongruent camera angles, and asinine random button press "puzzles" may be a good game. And you may be better off playing it on the PC.

I really wanted to like Syberia on the Xbox. For one thing, it looks fantastic on a large HDTV that can accept 720p. While they made a weird decision to letterbox the picture AFTER cropping it 4x3, it still looks great in high-res on a big tube. The environments, which are mostly non-interactive static backgrounds, look beautiful. And the sound effects and character voices sparkle. You can draw every conversation out to a short story if desired, or cut it off and get on with the mission. The story path in relation to conversation is nearly flawless; I don't remember a single bad lead from another character.

Physical interaction with the environment, though, is torture. Pathways are blocked off independantly of visible objects. A footpath may die at a brick wall, or ten feet short of it. The only indication of an environmental limit is the sudden unresponsiveness of main character Kate. On more than one occasion this resulted in the inexcusable "stuck" phenomenon. Throw in the tendency of Kate to twirl in an opposite direction during camera seams, or the M C Escher-ish tendency of adjacent environments to not synch up spatially, and it often seems as if tiny goblins have hijacked your controller.

The puzzles range from logical spatial reasoning or process-of-elimination types, to utterly senseless tasks of random object placement. The more difficult puzzles illustrate not the developer's cleverness but rather their total lack of understanding of mechanical principles. For example, the solution to one problem of a darkened hallway is to place a spark plug, yes an automotive SPARK PLUG, in a spinning contraption that somehow creates electrical power to a supply line. Seeing it is still not believing it. This is particularly glaring in a game that features ornate mechanical workings (the "automatons" of the Voralberg family) as a primary theme. And don't get me started on the musical drink mixer. It infuriates me to think that the designer of that little jewel probably considered himself very ingenious due to all the gamers he would stump. Jackass.

Based on this review, it may seem that Syberia is unplayable on the Xbox. No, it's actually still very amusing with a healthy dose of patience and an online FAQ nearby to help navigate the inevitable stuck points. It's just preferably played on the PC.

Visually Stunning but Lacking Adventure

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Let me just start off with a positive by saying, the graphics in this game are quite a sight to see. The scenes and environment are beautifully constructed.

The most important quality of this game, however, is missing: Adventure. The story is actually quite dull and the main character is neither heroic nor compelling in any manner. The few puzzles that exist are not challenging, interesting or exciting but they take a long time to complete (and it seems like it takes longer than it actually does because they are so boring). I did play this game the whole way through but only because I have always had to start what I finish. The ending was a dissapointment and really wasn't an ending at all; it was a middle and a prompt for you to buy the second game. No thank you; I will not put myself through the dissapointment again.

I would suggest borrowing or renting this game if you have a lot of free time and have no other adventures to go on. Although I did not enjoy this game in the least bit, it is always good to find out for yourself what you do or do not like.

Very disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I thought this game was slow and boring. The controls were ackward and movement was difficult. The scenery was detailed, but I spent more time looking around than actually doing anything. I can't really say what was specifically lacking. I thought it was uninteresting, hard to manuver through, and rather dull. I played it for a few days, hoping something about it would grab me, but nothing every did.

Great Adventure with Lots of Twists and Turns

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In starting to play this game, I was immediately struck by two things: the incredibly detailed graphics and the beautifully haunting music. Those two elements do a lot to set the stage and tone for what turns out to be an exciting -- though at times frustratingly slow-paced -- journey.

My husband and I played it together, and found that we each contributed ideas that led to the solution of the various puzzles. Although we were tempted to cheat and search the web for some clues, we didn't, and were always able to figure it out. We found the puzzles to be clever, original and well thought out. Naturally, they don't reflect what we would do "in real life;" it's a fantasy game!

There were many times when our progress seemed to hit a brick wall and we were ready to give up completely. Naturally, we had a breakthrough five minutes later and stayed up until 2 a.m. playing. (We don't have any kids for whom we must set an example.)

A bit of advice for Xbox players: Save after each big breakthrough. We hit 2 dead spots where we couldn't move and had to start from the previous save. Arrgh.

There are no blood and guts, nobody gets decapitated, and nobody gets run down by armored vehicles. It's an intellectual game, not a shoot-em-up game, and for someone who's used to faster-paced games, this might be too slow to be satisfying. We, however, loved it.

Elegant, challenging, non-violent game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I do not enjoy video games very much, mainly because I do not like the violence and the anxiety of being constantly stalked, shot at, or run over. This game is a great alternative. The scenery is beautiful, and I actually enjoy the slow pace of the game. I find many of the puzzles challenging, and the story is interesting and involved. The feel is very much that of a mystery novel turned into a video game. Most kids will probably find it dull, but for adults looking for a different kind of video game, I highly recommend this one.

Awful!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 18
Date: December 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is boring. You just walk around with no action and do corny puzzles like finding a key just to make a bell ring and in real life you could just ring it normally or yell.

Not a Page Turner

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: September 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I read the reviews about this game and expected an experience similar to the Myst series. The graphics are beautiful throughout this game and the voice acting is as good as it can be with the material provided; however, it falls short in too many other areas for it to be called "fun." The storyline is somewhat intriquing, but definitely not a page turner. The characters are lifeless and uninteresting. Even the main character, Kate Walker, is a bore. The "puzzles" throughout the game are mindless and, for the most part, lack logic. You might be better off reading a good mystery novel.

Atrocious controls

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: June 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Maybe this isn't an issue on the PC version, but I'm just about ready to stop playing this game on the Xbox because the controls are so annoying. I don't enjoy pacing back and forth across the floor (when I can even get the character to stop standing in place while I wiggle the joystick) trying to find the one spot on the floor in the left half of the big open room that will switch the view over to the right half of the big open room. Try to walk down the road in the initial town by staying on the sidewalk and you'll get nowhere -- if you don't walk exactly in the middle of the street you'll get stuck in one place. And make sure you release the joystick whenever you walk from one place to another, since chances are the camera angle will change and you'll end up turning around and going back where you came from before you realize it. This is a very pretty game, and the story seems like it might be interesting, but it's like reading an engrossing novel that's been translated into Pig Latin. Not worth the pain.

I would call it an interactive novel

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: February 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

You can immediately tell that there was a lot of dedication and effort put into this adventure game; the graphics are outstanding, animation is realistic, the dialogue, both verbal and subtitled was translated in several languages including Spanish, German, French and Italian (and Blue Cheese!)

You are in control of Kate Walker, a young lawyer that has a very specific agenda of signing a deal for her company to acquire a long-established automaton factory located in Valadilene, France. What seemed liked a straightforward, ordinary business transaction becomes an unexpected quest in search for a legendary man, known as Hans Voralberg.

The plot is intriguing, it succeeds in grabbing your attention, and the adventure unfolds in a very dramatic and cinematic way, but it doesn't really fulfils the expectations for people who are looking for a challenge.
The game seems more like an interactive novel where you unveil the plot as you progress, than it is a true adventure game. Some puzzles are there to give it a sense of challenge, but the linear approach of it made them very simple to figure out.

The dialog is remarkable, and there is plenty of it in this game. A negative side about it is that in between the entire dialog there are important clues for the adventure, so it is unavoidable to go through all of it in order to progress. There's a button available to skip the dialog, although I would suggest against doing that as there are many instances where the dialog is not repeated.

4 stars for a great effort, and for the overall entertainment value, I took one star out for the lack of a true challenge.

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