Syberia review

	Syberia /official site/ Publisher: Microids     www.microids.com

Strengths:
* Amazing graphics.
* Great and intriguing story.
* Absolutely sucking-in atmosphere.
* Intuitive puzzles and very good developed gameplay.

Weakness:
* Sometimes you might get stuck. In this case just try to use your phone to call somebody.
* Hardcore adventurer gamers might find the game quite short.

Syberia is absolute diamond among the adventure games. You are taking the role of Kate Wilson – a cold-blood New York lawyer who has a special mission in Europe. In the small village of Valadilene you need to seal a deal regarding the ownership of the local automatons factory. Entering the game you will see a funeral procession escorted by automatons /robots/ instead of living people. Unfortunately the owner of the company Anna Voralberg just passed away and you need to find the only heir of the factory now – her younger brother Hans Voralberg. And this is how your fantastic adventure begins.

You will undertake a great journey using a mechanical train. You will pass through four areas to complete the game. The first one is located at French Alps and is called Valadilene. You will need to find a way to finish the production of an automaton engineer which will drive the train through the rest of the world. In the mean time you will fall deep inside the heartbreaking story of Voralberg’s family. At the end you will leave the village in a search for Hans Voralberg.

Your next location to visit is going to be Barrockstadt. It is a great university location with amazingly beautiful garden/station and decorations. You just stop here because your train needs to be winded up again before you could move on. You will need to accomplish several tasks before you could wind up the train and leave out Barrockstadt though.

Stopping in Komkolzgrad to wind up your train again will turn out to be very dangerous. There is a madman left in an old mine who will steal the hands of your train driver companion and will ask a big favor to return them. Now you are in a whole new adventure searching for an ex-star singer Helena Romanski. You not only need to find her but pursue her to come back with you to Komkolzgrad and sing on a stage for the mine chief. At this point as part of your adventures you will even send a person to the space with a spaceship shuttle designed by Hans, long time ago. Then you are going to use an air ship to reach your next destination.

Arriving at Aralbad will put you in melancholic state immediately. This should have been a great resort once upon a time but now the building and the surroundings are paying the toll of time and the lack of new visitors. You will find your old lady singer there and after creating a miracle cocktail for her to regain her beautiful voice, she will come back and help you release your train from Komkolzgrad. There the madman mine chief will try to imprison the singer forever but you will manage to free her and escape back to Aralbad with your train. Finally you will find Hans Voralberg there and he will sign up the contract completing your entire mission.

At the end of the game you still need to make your final choice. You could either return back to New York or continue your journey with Hans and help him achieve his childhood dream – finding the living mammoths somewhere in Syberia. And I am sure you are going to guess what Kate’s choice will be.



Conclusion:
Syberia is such beautiful and story engaging game that it is a shame to be missed out. The story is very strong, the characters are very strong and unique and the gameplay is absolutely intuitive and fun. The sounds are also great and all characters have their own voices corresponding to their personalities. It is a must to play this game even if you are not a fan of the adventure games genre.