Get our game guide for: Syberia DS. This precise WALKTHROUGH GAME STRATEGY GUIDE is now available for you right in your members area and compatable for the Nintendo DS Platform. GameGuideDog.Com is dedicated to helping gamers through games. We are confident our support and guides are one of the best gaming resources anywhere!
A port from the PC title, this puzzling game is now being released for the Nintendo DS system Tuesday November 25th, 2008.
If you've heard that adventure games are dead, you've heard wrong. 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. 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. 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.
Syberia's opening scene lets you know you're in for a gaming experience that's out of the ordinary. 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. A metallic clockwork drummer jerkily clomps along the slick paving stones, followed by an ornate horse-drawn carriage bearing a coffin. Slowly following the carriage comes a handful of life-size metal automatons wearing top hats and holding umbrellas. They continue their solemn, silent march through the cemetery gates as a lone young woman watches.
This woman turns out to be your alter ego in the game, Kate Walker. 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. 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. While these marvelous mechanical creations have been sought by collectors and even emperors for centuries, the days of the Voralberg toys are seemingly numbered.
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. 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.
As 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. 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. However, Kate soon learns that there might be an heir, and a most unexpected one at that. 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.
Syberia features animated characters moving against largely static yet gorgeous 2D backgrounds. You control Kate by simply moving the cursor and clicking once to make her walk to a location or twice to make her run. 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. This system and the inventory screens are largely intuitive and easy to use. Everything is just a point and a click away.
When Kate encounters people during her journeys, she'll typically exchange a bit of dialogue with the other character. If the other character is more than just window dressing, so to speak, you'll get to instruct Kate to ask the character questions. Again, this is simply done--just click on one of a few possible topic choices listed on a notepad to hear what the character has to tell Kate.
Overall, the dialogue tends to sound pretty convincing, despite the occasional poor translation, like "hangover" instead of "holdover." At times, you'll hear some silly or clichéd lines, to be sure, but the dialogue is certainly an enormous leap in quality over the barely coherent nonsense that we've seen in many other adventure games.
You'll encounter some truly unusual characters throughout Syberia, like the crazed administrator of an abandoned Soviet industrial town who obsesses over an elderly opera soprano who once visited the town during its heyday. On one hand, some of Syberia's lesser characters seem more like caricatures than real people, and the fact that the voice-overs rarely rise above mediocrity doesn't help. On the other hand, the main characters receive much better treatment. Anna Voralberg's interesting life is fleshed out through a diary, a series of voice recordings, and flashbacks. You learn about Kate and her journey of self-discovery through other onscreen characters' reactions to her and from her cell phone conversations--some of which are very strained--with her fiancée, boss, mother, and friend back in New York. These calls help ground Kate in reality while setting up an even greater contrast between her everyday life and the dreamlike settings and surreal predicaments she finds herself in. Despite its uneven character development and occasional clumsy plot twists, Syberia's melancholy story feels unusually rich, a true cut above the stories in most other games of this sort.
CRITICS CORNER:
100Just Adventure Provides a huge dose of what adventure gamers are hungry for: a rich story, complicated characters, tons of puzzles and exploration of a series of beautiful and intriguing environments.
92Game Over Online The same beautiful artwork is there, but now there are more puzzles, better, deeper characters, and, I'm not sure how to describe this, but a wonderful mood to the game. In short, Syberia is the best adventure to come out in the last two years.
91GameSpot 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.
90Yahoo! Games The setting is rich, the characters are captivating, the interface is clean and easy to use, and the puzzles are just obtuse enough to be challenging, not frustrating.
90GamerWeb PC Overall, I must say Syberia is proof positive that no matter what anyone says, the adventure genre never died. It just went on holiday to Europe.
90GameSpy Combining a haunting story with astounding visuals and sound, Syberia is the best adventure game since "The Longest Journey."
90Adrenaline Vault One of the best adventure games I've ever played. The near-perfectly crafted combination of story, gameplay, graphics and audio makes it utterly enchanting.
90Quandary Syberia is a very fine adventure game, gorgeous to look at and with an intriguing and compelling story. It's tremendously enjoyable despite the air of sadness.
90Adventure Gamers Beautiful? Stunning? Breathtaking? All words that can safely be used when describing Syberia's graphics. The level of detail is simply immense.
90GameZone While it doesn't have many fireworks or action sequences is does have a unique story that will delight those of you who are hungry for something different than your average adventure title or just tired of shooters.
89Armchair Empire Not only is it an intriguing game, it's also fun. It's like a good book – one that you'll want to return to again and again.
88netjak While not perfect, Syberia is one of the best games of the year, and is destined to become a legend in years to come. Grab it while you can, and enjoy.
80Computer Gaming World Easily the best new adventure game in years, though it loses some steam after its outstanding first act. [Oct 2002, p.112] 80PC Gamer If you appreciate well-crafted stories over carnage, it's an adventure that genre fans won't want to miss. [Sept 2002, p.84] 80eToychest It is a great quest game that is definitely aimed to appeal to the generation of gamers that grew up in a time when the adventure game genre took center stage.
80Pregaming Game play wise, it seems to be missing a basic function of the Adventure genre: The description of objects.
80Computer Gaming World Easily the best new adventure game in years, though it loses some steam after its outstanding first act. [Oct 2002, p.112] 80Cincinnati Enquirer A slower-paced, puzzle-based game without any combat. But for those who'd rather use their brains instead of brawn, it's a solid pick.
80G4 TV A magnificent game.
78Gamers' Temple Features an interesting story and great atmosphere, but its gaming aspects fall a little short.
77PC Gameworld Plot issues, questionable voice acting and a frustrating control scheme mask an otherwise good adventure title.
75Game Revolution Syberia will return as much as you are willing to invest.
71IGN It falls far short of being a great game because of its much too simplistic puzzles, boring story, characters you don't fall in love with and a really bad ending.
68Game Informer Got really old really fast. [Nov 2002, p.148] 63ActionTrip The biggest gripe I had with this game are the rather easy puzzles and the fact that some important technical (gameplay) issues were not resolved properly.
40Gamer's Pulse Overall, the game puzzles are too easy, which makes the game boring at times.
Itai S. gave it a 10: Best adventure game I've set my eyes on!
Shawn H. gave it an 8: This is an entertaining game with beautiful graphics. Game locations are varied and creative. Sound effects are appropriate and realistic. Story is told through interactions with others and through the use of cutscenes. The cutscenes are nicely done. I have been stumped a couple of times while playing the game and needed help from a walkthru, but for the most part, gameplay and puzzles are well balanced.
Marc A. gave it an 8: Really good adventure. I don't ever rate a game 10, as that is for truly perfect games. It doesn't get a 9 simply because the puzzles shift between very easy and absolutely unsolvable without a solution. Still: excellent grafix and great atmosphere and sounddesign.
Dominick P. gave it a 9: Finally a great adventure game. Amazing graphics and puzzles hard enough, but you don't get stuck for hours. I can't givethis one a 10 because of 2 reasons: 1. there is a lot of walking back and forth, going through multiple screens which can get very frustrating. 2. The side story about your fiancé and your best friend that, as a guy, could not care less.
Mike S. gave it a 7: Not a bad game, the graphics are alittle out dated by today standards. very linear gameplay.
Paulo F. gave it a 10: After Grim Fandango, the best adventure game.
Paul W. gave it a 10: Very good game.
Click here for Our Walkthrough Guide Website:
Check out this video GameGuideDog 'dug up' and 'fetched' for ya!
Other great new video game walk throughs and strategy game guides available from GAMEGUIDEDOG.COM (A Wonderdog Software Company):
Just wanted to thank GGD again for coming through! Just when I thought there was no more hope, here it was. Cheers!
Random Pick
Get our game guide for: Banjo-Kazooie X360. This precise WALKTHROUGH GAME STRATEGY GUIDE is now available for you right in your members area and compatable for the Microsoft XBOX 360 Platform.
GameGuideDog.Com is dedicated to helping gamers through games. We are confident our support and guides are absolutely the best gaming
Main Categories
Visitor's Comments !
Posted by on December 02, 2008