Syberia

I don't know about Windows version but on Mac screen is stretched and every item on screen and directions to go is marked with an icon which make it unplayable.

Sadly, the game won't start properly on my setup (4k + 1080). It will switch the resolution on the secondary monitor to some smaller one but will draw a black rectangle with nothing in it on the main one. There is completely nothing inside the black rectangle. And nothing will convince it otherwise. I tried both GOG and Steam versions since I have both of them - and both behave the same. I'm not desperate enough to fight with this game just to make it run. Too many other games in queue to play.

After reading about this and seeing the first few screens I was really eager to play it. But I got so fed up with how much time I spent just moving the character around. What is the point of frames where you do nothing but walk through them?! The settings and textures are really beautiful, but after traversing them hundreds of times because the actions you're supposed to take to solve the puzzles aren't exactly logical, even the prettiness of the game wasn't enough to make me like it. The characters are all REALLY annoying, including Kate Walker. What is the point of all the annoying cell phone calls we have to sit through? There could've been a less insipid way of getting across that her life at home wasn't going so well. I also thought a lot of the characters in the game were based on someone offensive stereotypes. Like the "gypsy" characters who speak gibberish and are money-grubbers. I was surprised when the game ended. In the last level I thought it was finally getting a little less insipid and a little more like a good adventure game, where the actions you should take become clear with a bit of thinking. I thought it was finally getting on a roll. Now I will have to buy and suffer through part 2 if I want to get some closure. This could've been so awesome. :-(

I want to love this game, I really really do. The storyline is refreshingly original, the characters are compelling, and Kate's development throughout the story is incredibly well done. I loved every bit of the plot. That said, as an adventure game, it falls flat. The puzzles aren't puzzles so much as fetch quests. Almost every problem boils down to "x is missing! go find it!". The only challenge lies in scouring each screen for items - the game tells you, each time, exactly what you need to find or do. There's very little lateral thinking involved. This is incredibly frustrating given the setting - you're on the trail of a mad toymaker, surely there should be some kind of fiendish mechanical puzzle to solve? - and left me with an overall feeling of wasted potential.

So many people raved about this game I felt sure I was in for a treat. Alas whatever goodness there might be is buried under heaps of tedium. You walk everywhere, through window dressing screens with hard to find exits, and it takes forever. Fast travel would have been nice. The puzzles are either simple or maddeningly arbitrary. Three hours wandering around part 1 and I am done. Sorry.