Syberia places you in the role of Kate Walker, a New York lawyer sent to
Europe to finalize a corporate buyout. The target acquisition is a
family-owned automaton factory in a small village in the French Alps. All
that you need to do to complete the deal is to get the factory owner's signature
authorizing the purchase. When you arrive in the village of Valadilène,
you witness a strange and somber funeral procession moving through town.
Unfortunately, the departed soul is the very person who's signature you were
sent to retrieve. This launches you on a quest to find the last heir to
the factory, a man who left years ago and left little clue behind as to where he
went.
The
locales and environments that you will travel to and through on your adventure
appear almost normal, but lie just this side of the surreal. They are at
once familiar and strangely out of place. Adding to this feeling that you
are walking through a waking dream is the way that Kate takes all of the strange
characters and elements in stride, going with the flow as the story carries her
along - behavior that you certainly would not expect from a New York lawyer.
This slightly-out-of-place feeling generated by the game's story can also be
used to describe Syberia itself. In an age of 3D graphics and violent
games, it is a throwback to the golden age of computer gaming when the adventure
game was king. If you played the adventure games of ten years ago, you'll
find yourself in familiar territory and will be able to play the game without
ever looking at its manual.
All of the familiar elements of adventure games are in Syberia. You'll
need to collect objects found in the various game locations and use these to
solve puzzles or unlock new areas to explore. You'll also need to converse
with people to get information and clues that will help you to advance the
storyline. This means that the issues that have traditionally been seen as
problems with adventure games are present in Syberia as well. Entering a
new location always results in a mouse hunt for interactive objects or items to
be collected. Puzzles are not always logical and must sometimes be solved
by attempting to use each item in your inventory in turn until the right
combination is found. Parts of the game will also make you feel like a
gofer, as you trudge across screens to deliver an item to somebody or to act as
the intermediary between characters.
So what does this all mean to you? If you never liked adventure games,
Syberia won't do much to change your mind about them. However, if you do
enjoy these types of games, you should definitely take a close look at Syberia,
as quality games in this genre are few and far between these days.
Page 2 »
