Cyberia

The Good
Drop-dead gorgeus graphics! Big explosions! Sound up the wazoo! Those are clearly the best characteristics of Cyberia. Playing as an undercover agent/hacker you infiltrate some sort of para-military organization to foil some sort of world threathening plot involving a secret superweapon codenamed Cyberia and off you go! Welcome to gloss-o-rama!

As mentioned, the graphics and animations in the game are extremely well done, combining digitized images with pre-rendered stuff to achieve a stellar presentation. The story, for as cliche as it is, is functional and the different twists you can take in the interactive-movie "decision time" moments are actually good, providing some expanded lifetime for the game.

The interface is simple and streamlined, with clever touches such as having a "scene selection" menu from which you continue your adventure and replay whatever you particularly liked instead of having to bother with a savegame feature....

The graphics are very good.... uh.....kickass explosions too!

The Bad
The only bad thing you can say about Cyberia is the same thing you can say of other multimedia experiences that appeared with cd-roms and which games like this spawned (The Hive, Rebel Assault, etc.) and that's the fact that it really isn't much of a game!

The game progresses as an interactive movie of sorts, where you move Zack (your character) around pre-rendered slides and jump from action sequences to puzzle sequences, to adventure sequences, etc... The word of the day for all these types of titles is "sequence" as they give you a taste of each form of interactivity but specialize in none (puzzles are easy exercises or stupid riddles, action sequences are twitch reflex rail-shooters, etc.) since there is no clear gameplay concept behind it and it's all just essentially an excuse to tell a storyline. And speaking of which, we could partially forgive Cyberia if it offered some sort of mind-shattering storyline, or at least a super cool one with lots of sex, violence, and explosions, but while Cyberia provides explosions and a halfway passable storyline with some clever creative ideas, it's nothing to write home about....

The Bottom Line
Cyberia is the kind of game that would come bundled with cd drives or sound cards in it's time, or that people that knew jackshit about computers would buy to impress their friends and showcase their "multimedia" PCs (much like Myst). It is pretty to look at and all, but when you stop "looking" and start "playing" you'll see that gameplay wasn't a major concern in the design of the game, and while many still enjoy interactive movies despite their lack of gameplay simply because they tell an unique story or stuff like that, Cyberia is nothing but another "hot-off-the-assembly-line" sci-fi adventure epic with little to no interesting features to it save for some interesting conceptual designs.

You don't need to run away from it, but it's hardly "can't miss" material.... I guess it's a good investment for 2-5 U$S if only to expand your game collection, but be aware you won't be fooling anyone with it. Cyberia is the hardcore gamer's equivalent of having a chia pet.... it's not bothering anyone, but it's hardly something to be proud of.