If the other character is more than just window dressing, so to speak, you'll get to instruct Kate to ask the character questions. When Kate encounters people during her journeys, she'll typically exchange a bit of dialogue with the other character. One of Syberia's many beautiful nature scenes. Everything is just a point and a click away. This system and the inventory screens are largely intuitive and easy to use.

The cursor is context-sensitive, changing shape to let you know when you can investigate, manipulate, or pick up an item, or when you can speak with another character. You control Kate by simply moving the cursor and clicking once to make her walk to a location or twice to make her run. Syberia features animated characters moving against largely static yet gorgeous 2D backgrounds. Thus begins the real adventure of Syberia, as Kate travels to far-flung locales across Europe and Asia in search of this heir and the clues to his mysterious life. However, Kate soon learns that there might be an heir, and a most unexpected one at that. While the sole remaining member of the Voralberg clan, the elderly Anna Voralberg, had already agreed to the takeover, things quickly go awry when Kate learns that the funeral procession she just witnessed was for Anna. Young people have been emigrating from Valadilene in growing numbers, seeking their fortunes elsewhere since there's no longer much work to be had at the Voralberg factory.Īs a matter of fact, Kate has arrived to facilitate the buyout of Voralberg Manufacturing by a massive and modern multinational competitor, the Universal Toy Company. Syberia plays out in the present day, and as such, electronic toys and video games are all the rage, and there's little demand for mechanical contrivances, however ornate and imaginative. While these marvelous mechanical creations have been sought by collectors and even emperors for centuries, the days of the Voralberg toys are seemingly numbered. Valadilene's one claim to fame is that it's served for centuries as the home of the Voralberg family, makers of exquisite clockwork toys, puppets, and automatons. Kate is an associate with the New York law firm of Marson and Lormont, and she's been sent all the way to Valadilene to secure a major business deal.

This woman turns out to be your alter ego in the game, Kate Walker. They continue their solemn, silent march through the cemetery gates as a lone young woman watches. Slowly following the carriage comes a handful of life-size metal automatons wearing top hats and holding umbrellas. A metallic clockwork drummer jerkily clomps along the slick paving stones, followed by an ornate horse-drawn carriage bearing a coffin. On the quaint, aged streets of a tiny town in the French Alps called Valadilene, an eerie funeral procession makes its way through the rain toward the local cemetery. Syberia's opening scene lets you know you're in for a gaming experience that's out of the ordinary. Aside from a few little rough spots, Syberia is an adventure-game tour de force, with an engrossing story, a truly imaginative gameworld, and stunning visuals. This year, adventure game fans get treated to Syberia, a product of the fertile imagination of comic book author and illustrator Benoît Sokal, the man behind the 1999 adventure game Amerzone. Sure, this once-dominant game genre is now just a shadow of its former self, but it's a genre that nevertheless manages to produce one or two really impressive games each year. If you've heard that adventure games are dead, you've heard wrong.

Syberia 3 game review