In this wonderful adventure, the protagonist, Kate Walker, is following the traces of Dana Roze. It is very much the same kind of story line as the first part of the Syberia series, where she follows the traces of Hans Voralberg. Like the first game where she does not know if Hans still lives, she does not know if Dana is still alive. The ending is also very similar, almost identical. But the story in this adventure goes deeper and carries more emotions. The rendered 3D models of The World Before are incredibly beautiful. I also liked the slow pacing of the game, which is compatible with the emations it evokes. For instance, the optional "introspections": I went gratefully through all of them. The puzzles may be a bit scarce, but some of them are very well done. For instance, repairing the automatons on the museum square, culminating in Kate playing the Vaghen symphony is a really amazing puzzle in my opinion. So for me a full 5 stars without any doubt.
The Tiny Bang Story does not really have a story, but it is a well made, beautiful puzzle and search mix. It also has a good replay value, as you will forget where all the objects are hidden pretty soon. Also the jigsaw puzzles remain interesting when replaying after some time. Apart from beautuful graphics the game also features quite good background music. The normal puzzles may be a little bit too easy but the emphasis of the game is on the hidden objects and not on the puzzles. The addition of two colourful flies to help you find the last pieces is also well designed and balanced. I played it on Linux using Wine (6.5) with no issues.
GRIS is a jump-n-run game with nice, but minimal graphics that I found monotonuous in the long run. All environments look somehow similar. So similar that I had difficulty recognizing if I had been somewhere before. I did like the variations of timed jump puzzles with interesting physics like sidewards jumping out of a water basin through a membrane, inverted gravity, fading stairs, shape changing ledges and others. But apart from timed jump puzzles the game offers not much. I sorely missed a map or mapping feature. Given the huge size of the puzzle space and a constantly and automatically changing zoom level, I got lost pretty soon. And you will wander aimlessly around until you happen to arive at one of the goals. Also on the bad side are the fixed save points (console game), which causes the unavoidable repetition of long (boring) timed jump sequences in case of failure. There are also area's that become unreachable but still may contain unsolved (optional) puzzles, which I think is bad level design, since there is no map feature so you can not know when you arive at a critical choice point. You can also not go back to a previous save point, because there is only one, the last one, euphemistically called "automatic save feature". I would rather call it "automatic skip missed optional puzzles feature". Finally, there is the lack of a story. The game seems to be about grief, but the only grief I experienced was having spent too much time and money on this game. I played it on Linux using Wine (6.5) with no issues.
This is not a good game, though it is technically well made. I stopped playing after 5 hours game time, having finally repaired the elevator to the other decks of the space ship. Imagine spending 5 hours game time for such a trivial task, using only two of the many available capabilities (psi, hacking). What it all boils down to is running through a maze of corridors with respawning monsters (hybrids) collecting key cards and key codes to get access to a sequence switches you have to enable. And in the mean time you can pickup and read/hear audio fragments that give a chaotic image of what happended at the space ship. It is supposed to be a good story, but after 5 hours of playing I still wondered when the story was going to begin. For me all this was not interesting, rather boring, more a repetitive chore, with much reloading when encountering turrets, maintenance robots and things the like. Also you have no idea where to go to find the next key card or key code. You get unclear directions through emails, and you go of wandering off through the endless boring coridors killing more hybrids until you find it. In my experience games like Deus Ex and Thief 2 are orders of magnitude better than this one.
This game is advertised for its dark humour. For me it is a very objectionable kind of humour. The game jokes with misformed and invalid persons. It kind of enjoys in suffering. It revels in reversing ethics and normal views (a sloth is an evil creature). It feaures endless boring comments of the protagonist with at least three or more predictable jokes for every single object you examine. Also the puzzles are of the old far fetched, illogical kind. The landscapes and interiors are of the same dullness and could not excite any interest for me to continue. So I quit the game in the middle, disappointed and disgusted. And leave this comment in contrast to the many reviewers who seem to like this game for a to me unexplicable reason.
The originality of many aspects of this game pleasantly surprised me. The changes of perspective as the roach climbs walls and ceilings did not in any way cause nausea for me as other reviewers reported. It is the same effect as a flight simulator, even less because once on the ceiling the perspective remains fixed. The game uses this freedom of movement of the roach to device clever puzzles where you have to find a way to a place you could not reach on the ground. The puzzles offer quite a variety of challenges and are in general interesting and rewarding. The other insects (NPC's) help you with cartoon balloons with pictures and text what object you have to achieve. It is an amusing way of a build-in help feature. There is no spoken text but many funny sounds and music. Also there is not much story to speak of. The game earns its merits by the relaxed atmosphere and clever, original puzzles. All in all a very entertaining game with many hours of puzzle fun. The value for money was very high for me as I got the game in a GOG-bargain. I played on Linux with Wine (4.0.2) on a very old computer (10 years) and it ran smoothly.
Overall I rate the game as a good adventure. Not very good, but better than most. The artwork is still superb, like the other Syberia's. The story is good and entertaining but not as captivating as the other 2 Syberia's. The 3D implementation is was clearly to much for the developers. Moving around in a scene is clumsy and makes navigation part of the puzzle to solve (console port). It is also very demanding for the CPU, much more than other unity games I have played. The positive: - plays well under Wine (4.0.2) on Linux - reaonable, entertaining story - beautiful graphics and cut scenes The negative: - unsatisfactory cliffhanger ending - heavy on resources - clumsy navigation
I did not enjoy the game. On the positive side is a good quality, bug free remake. The negative side for me: - ludirous and thin story - tom and jerry style nonsense - puzzels follow no logic, just absurd connections and combinations - zero percent chance to solve puzzles (with random trials) - walk through mandatory In summary: it looks nice it plays badly
The game has surprisingly well made environments. I liked San Pasquale: such beautiful views. Also the fighting was not too difficult for an elderly person like me to win all the boss fights (on easy level). The story and game play offer original aspects like fighting in a kind of ghost mode (twilight zone). It also has surprisingly few bugs. I played it on Linux, using Wine without any difficulty and good frame rates (only d3dx9_36 is needed and it should be played in windowed mode as wide screen failed for me). The only minus point for me (one starr less) is the map, which often does not work well and often shows the wrong (or no) location to go to. Also the sound is far from impressing and had (uneqeal) volume issues.
A wonderful game, with captivating story and well designed puzzles. I appreciated the hidden hints that Anna gives when you try a wrong action. It is so cleverly done that you do not need a walk through. Anna helps you with her second thoughts about your faulty actions. I liked the simple but expressive drawings and animations. I read some complaints about the monotonous voice acting of Anna, but I found it well suiting her character in the story. The dialogs may sometimes seem long winding, but you can always cut them short with a mouse click. All together one of the best point and click adventures I played.
