Syberia

aka: L'avventura di Kate Walker: Syberia Volume 1, Sibir
Moby ID: 6828
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Kate Walker is a lawyer who has been entrusted by the Universal Toy Company to negotiate the takeover of an old luxury toy and automaton factory. Over the centuries, the factory has been developing clockwork devices, specializing in perpetual mechanical movement. The factory's ambitions, however, are ill-suited to the contemporary economic climate, and the elderly Anna Voralberg, at the helm of the Valadilene factory for more than half a century, has decided to sell up.

It turns out that the takeover might not be as straightforward as expected. The day that Kate Walker arrives, Anna Voralberg is being buried. What is more is that she has left an heir – her brother Hans. But Hans had left the valley at the end of the thirties and never returned, and was actually believed to be dead. However, a letter written by Anna in the days leading up to her death reveals that Hans is well and truly alive and living somewhere in Siberia. Valadilene's elderly notary entrusted to take care of Anna's affairs suggests that Kate find Hans Voralberg as he is now the only person in a position to ratify the sale of the family business.

Syberia is a traditional puzzle-solving adventure. The player navigates a 3D model of the protagonist over pre-rendered backgrounds with fixed camera angles. Puzzles are mostly inventory-based, though some involve manipulating the environment (such as mechanical devices). The interface features a single cursor; only highlighted objects can be interacted with, and there are no verb choice commands.

Spellings

  • Сибирь - Russian spelling
  • シベリア 日本語版 - Nintendo product page Japanese spelling
  • 西伯利亞 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 赛伯利亚 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

114 People (101 developers, 13 thanks) · View all

Author
Art Director
Production Manager
Technical Manager
Project Manager
Lead 3D Modeler & Texturing
Lead 3D Animator
Lead Programmer
Lead Integrator
France-Canada Coordinator
Game Designers
Writer/Editor
Set Design
3D Modeling & Texture Art - Environment
3D Modeling & Texture Art - Characters
Animation - Cutscenes
Animation - In-game
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 66 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 192 ratings with 14 reviews)

Well, that's it! I just have to say..

The Good
..This isn't a game you must buy and play. The whole agiotage around this game was always a mystery to me. No, no, I understand that Microids put a great amount of money into the advertisement company. I also can't deny that graphically Syberia is stunning. Sokal is indeed a great artist. But..

The Bad
..not a great adventure designer. The whole concept is nothing more then "interactive movie". And not a very good one, actually. Almost everything that makes adventure game an adventure game was simplified or even taken away.

Plot? It sure looks intriguing at first. But bad writing quickly ruins the whole concept. What the game suggests us is a very (and I mean VERY) linear journey from one fixed point to another. And at every stop some odd thing happens, delaying the departure of our young heroine. I don't really mind the drunken cosmonaut that denies to open the gates to freedom. OK. But a madman that steals Oscars' hands? What a stupid and wire-drawn thing is this?! And that's how most things happen in the game.

You get quickly bored watching Kate Walker running through hundreds of beautiful, but empty locations in search of something you can interact with. And even after you find a rare inventory item or a mechanism, all you can do is follow the prescripted procedure that can hardly be called "a puzzle" or even "a problem". The only available item you can use on the only available hotspot. Isn't that wonderful? Use a screwdriver on bolts. Logical? Yes! Entertaining? Hardly.

The smart cursor was invented many years ago, with games like Kyrandia or Gobliiins. But even though it had very limited abilities, it still allowed players to explore locations, to "feel" the world. This time it often serves as a triggering mechanism that allows player to move from one point of story to another. Exploration and interactivity, the main components that were introduced by IFs and always associated with adventures, were almost reduced to zero.

Another "high point" that many people discuss is characters. Now this is really surprising, as all of them are so badly written that you can hardly tell anything about the past or present of most people you met. Several identical questions that Kate comes up with are of "Who are you?" and "What should I do?" variety. And Oscar.. If someone asks me what is a bad way to present a robot in an adventure game, I'd show him Oscar. "Hello, Kate Walker". "Where are we going now, Kate Walker?" "Good by, Kate Walker".. It's plain awful! Play Feeble Files, or Chronomaster, or Y2K for comparison (and they have wonderful robots!). Or any of Gabriel Knight games for that matter, to see REAL personalities, memorable characters that you want to believe in. Which don't act like badly animated dolls.

The Bottom Line
A highly overrated interactive movie that was called "an adventure" by mistake. I would've closed my eyes, if it didn't become a cult. Not a "classic", just a cult. The game surely introduced many new people to the genre. People that are in love with Syberia and don't want to hear about anything that is not of the same beauty, length and style. And developers? They understand that masses don't need deep stories and smart puzzles, nor interactive environment. Pretty pictures and female heroine is enough to get some money from the product. Sokal already showed his fans that he knows nothing about adventure development (first with boring sequel, then - with ugly Paradise). But Syberia is still considered by many as "the best adventure ever". Now, who put the last nail in the coffin of adventure genre?

Windows · by Afex Tween (129) · 2006

A wonder, a marvel, and yet I do not quite understand why

The Good
This is an exceptional game, and not for the reasons you might think. As a game, it is abominable, completely linear, with absurd puzzles, and so on. And yet I loved it, and I see, from other reviews, that all those who have played it have been swept off their feet too.

Why? There is nothing special about the graphics. The scenes are a series of rendered backgrounds which you cannot pan unlike, say, Exile (Myst III). The camera is set and unmovable for each scene, only Kate Walker (that's you, gamer) and her occasional side-kick move against the background. Nothing to write home about.

The gameplay is abominably linear. Don't you dare even think of doing this until you are allowed to, after having done that.

So? So where is the magic? (It is a magical game).

So where is it? Hidden. When you play "Myst" you cannot hold back a "WOW!" of wonderment. Not so here. The "WOW!" is there, but subdued. There is nothing alien at all about those landscapes, that architecture, even those clockwork automata. But everything is... unfamiliar, yes unfamiliar enough, to wrench you out of this our world into the world of Syberia, without fully realizing how, or why.

What else? Oh, that is the one. Kate Walker (you, gamer) slowly grows in understanding and in wisdom. By the time it is time for her, her mission fulfilled, to fly back to New York, to her job as a lawyer under a perfect arsehole of a boss, back to make up, perhaps, with her perfect arsehole of a boyfriend, and back to her harebrained pain-in-the-bum of a mother, you just know that she will kiss good-bye to the "good" life for the frozen barrenness of Syberia. And that is where the story, the game, becomes a morality play. Kate takes to her heels to catch the Syberia-bound clockwork train which is leaving right now. Running like mad through the dining room of the Grand Hotel Cronsky, she slips, knocks over a chair, regains her balance, resumes running, away from New York, her boyfriend, her boss, her mother, to catch the train. That split-second incident, the slipping, the knocking over of a chair, is what turns this game into an unforgettable experience. This is no longer a game, it is life.

There are some very funny scenes too, some of them, alas, inside jokes which most players will miss. Kate's clockwork train runs out of spring power in Barrockstadt, a university town and a perfect spoof of Oxford and Cambridge. She has to take her train to a winding station. To do that, she needs to get it towed by a barge. Kate hasn't got the money (another piece of absurdity: who would go on such an errand without $100 in her pocket?). So she tries to talk the barge owner into doing it for free, as a favour. The barge owner replies: "Favor, favor, alors buik not full, mooonney, ya, buik full." Unless you know French and Flemish you won't appreciate it: "Favour, favour, then belly not full. Money, yes, belly full". Then Kate tries idle chit-chat. There is a marvellous aviary in the railway station. Has he been to see all those birds? Comes the answer: "Met U, mooie girl, ya, ya, met plezier!" (with you, beautiful girl, yes, yes, with pleasure!) Kate does not understand of course, so the barge owner's wife translates: "We no leave boat, husband is land sick."

The Bad
The puzzles. They bring nothing to the story, but aggravation. Some are trivial, some absurd, some aggravating. Aggravating such as when one puzzle requires you to have listened to Kate's mother's over-the-phone logorrhea to solve the Russian diva's puzzle. It was all useless garbage, along with her boyfriend's calls, and her boss's calls, and you are expected to have written down all that crap? (it doesn't show on your journal). Or again, you are supposed to mix a cocktail that will make the Russian diva regain her voice. Following the instructions, you mix the cocktail. She drinks it. No effect. So? So you think you have stuffed up, and you try again, different ways. Wrong. What you must do is mix it again, exactly the same way, and it will work. I object to that. There are many more such examples of aggravating absurdities, such as when you are told that a document must be signed, when, in fact, you should have it stamped.

The Bottom Line
What other game could be worth playing, with such stupid, irrelevant puzzles, with such a linear story? And yet, what other games end up with such flying colours against such a handicap? "Syberia" just has to be something exceptional.

Ah, if only, if only....

Windows · by Jacques Guy (52) · 2005

Ridiculously gorgeous.

The Good
It was unbelievably beautiful in the artwork and the movement of the characters. On a fast computer, one will be very happy with this game. The voice acting was also excellent, and it was long enough for a busy highschooler to finish her homework fast enough daily to continue it for weeks. Those who have weird imaginations will also like Syberia.

The Bad
If all you do is gaming and you aren't very busy, then this game will be short. Also, if your PC is not top-notch or it's already loaded with other stuff, then this game will only be slow, crash every 5 minutes, and irritating. My computer just happened to get some bug that week, so it crashed every 10 minutes and the "virtual memory" message appeared every frikkin time! But I was still satisfied, and as a child who grew up with the beloved King's Quest series, I was happy to see adventure gaming still alive.

The Bottom Line
Unique. Compelling. Beautiful. Get some popcorn.

Windows · by leahrif (1) · 2003

[ View all 14 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Who Was the Model for Kate Walker? null-geodesic (106) Dec 1, 2007

Trivia

Language

The words written on the control panel of the airship in Kolmkozgrad are authentic Russian. However, the name of the hotel in Aralbad is written incorrectly.

Marketing

Some German games magazine editors received a postcard from New York with a handwritten text from someone called Kate who wrote in German, that she had an Austrian uncle, some problems and so on. There was no clue that this was a PR-event for the game Syberia, even the fake-handwriting was done with some smeared ink.

PlayStation 2 version

Contrary to the Xbox release, the PS2 version did not appear in North America, as SCEA did not approve the game there.

References

  • The rat from Road to India makes a cameo appearance in Syberia. It appears in the basement in Kolmkozgrad, makes exactly the same movements it did in Road to India, and disappears.
  • Syberia contains some references to another game by Microids, Amerzone . In Barockstadt you can read and hear a lot about different species of Amerzone's flora and fauna.

Awards

  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2003 (Issue #148) - #10 overall in the "10 Best Games of 2002" list
  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Adventure Game of the Year
  • Gamespot
    • 2002 - PC Adventure Game of the Year
    • 2002 - Best Artistic Graphics
  • Gamespy
    • 2002 - PC Adventure Game of the Year
  • IGN
    • 2002 - Best Adventure Game (Readers' Choice)

Information also contributed by Felix Knoke, Jeanne, PCGamer77 and Sciere

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Isdaron.

PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS added by Charly2.0. Linux added by Plok. Android added by Ingsoc. Nintendo Switch added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. Xbox 360 added by Kennyannydenny. iPhone, Blacknut, iPad, PlayStation 2 added by Sciere. Xbox added by LeChimp. Windows Mobile, Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: frin, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, tarmo888, Sciere, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto.

Game added June 28, 2002. Last modified March 11, 2024.