Syberia

A woman protaognizing without D.E.I nonsense. Writen by someone that understand the meaning of coherent dialog. That is the essence of a good old game.

I was disappointed by this game. The locations and characters are interesting. But the puzzles are mostly extremely simple, if you take care to pick up every item. The main thing you'll do is walk from A to B and back, usually several times. For this reason Syberia is just not in the league of The Longest Journey or Grim Fandango.

I mean hey, who doesn't love a good Benoit Sokal game, amirite?

I really enjoyed this game. Even stretched on a 22" 1680 monitor the backgrounds and artwork were amazing. 4 stars because I found a certain series of phone calls to be quite annoying, trite and predictable, but otherwise the game was a masterpiece. I don't have much familiarity with adventure games of this nature. For example, there are no guns, and you cannot die. I have played one or two Nancy Drew games with my niece and I suppose those are similar. If you want action, this game is not for you. It plays more like a mystery - puzzle novel and the pacing is relaxed but interesting. I really enjoyed it.

Syberia, or as it would be called in any sane world "Tedious Backtracking: The Game", is definitely amongst the poorer of the point and click adventure games I've played. Normally I enjoy said games. Normally I enjoy story driven games regardless of genre, but normally the games I enjoy don't have loads of backtracking or NPCs with some of the most absurd motivations you've ever heard of. For instance, one character you meet will overcome your mechanical buddy Oscar (himself extremely annoying) take his hands by cutting them off with shears (and how exactly did he do this without having hands before this? We'll never know!) all to finish making a concert room for his favorite opera singer, when he has no idea where she is and might be dead for all he actually knows (not that he'd tell you that) and it's quite likely she would not know who he was either. I'm not joking. This actually happens in the game. It's also INCREDIBLY easy to miss an item you need because it hides so well in the background. I don't like the shiny "YOU CAN TOTALLY CLICK ON ME" mechanic but surely there's some middle ground? Then the phone calls. Oh gosh the freaking phone calls. During the second act in particular the main character's fiance calls and tries to guilt trip the protagonist about how lonely he is and why doesn't she think of his feelings more often - AND THEN has the nerve to tell her she needs to calm down. Yeah. Then later the "best friend" calls to say that she's spending some time with the fiance, just propping him up while you're gone - GEE I WONDER WHAT DIRECTION THIS MYSTERY IS GOING TO TAKE? The mother is absurdly annoying. So yeah, if you're not backtracking you're on the phone with exasperating, feckless idiots. Or speaking to other exasperating, feckless idiots in person, like the university heads. They want you to fix their bandstand, which was broken for years. All you need is an egg, open the door, pull a lever, fixed. Music's ok. That's about it.