Cyberia

aka: Cyberia: -experience the future-
Moby ID: 810
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

In the year 2027, the world is controlled by two rival superpowers, the western-bloc Free World Alliance and the east-bloc Cartel. Transmissions from an FWA spy reveal the location of a secret multi-national laboratory deep within Siberia, the Cyberia Complex, where a mysterious weapon is being developed. FWA leader Devlin frees a cyber-hacker named Zak from prison and sends him to infiltrate the complex and discover the true nature of the Cyberia weapon.

Unfortunately, the Cartel is also interested in the weapon and will stop at nothing to get it. Not only must Zak make his way past the Cartel forces sent to stop him, but he must also overcome the Cartel agents which have already seized control of the complex. To make matters worse the Cyberian scientist's genetically engineered creations are running rampant in the same area as the weapon and Devlin also appears to have something up his sleeve.

Cyberia is an action game with puzzle sequences and a heavy reliance on scripted events and cutscenes. The game allows limited navigation between locations, which usually lead to a puzzle or (more often) action scenes that involve either shooting down planes with a gun turret or navigating various flying vehicles, destroying enemies in a Star Wars: Rebel Assault-style confrontations.

Spellings

  • サイベリア - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

45 People · View all

Director
Project Manager
Producer
Art Director
Computer Animation
Technical Director
Director of Digital Photography
Real Time Integration
Lead Programmer
3D Modelling
Lighting
Animation
Character Animation
Map Painting
2D Animation
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 67% (based on 32 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 56 ratings with 5 reviews)

Look how shining those cd thingies are!! Ooooh! Aaaaaah!! Shiny..!

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.

DOS · by Zovni (10504) · 2003

Junk, Purely Worthless, Its sad that they made a 2nd Cyberia

The Good
The music is ok.

The Bad
Lets face it people, this game is terrible. It was bad on the playstation, and its worse on the computer because the controls suck that much more. Hey nice consept, a over glorified shooter, that features pure linear play, WOW doesnt that sound fun.

The Bottom Line
Dont waste your time, this is pure crap.

DOS · by NotTwoQuick (18) · 2000

One of the better pre rendered romps... not that that's saying an awful lot.

The Good
Cyberia has a great story and it's this that will drive you to finish it above anything else, the way in which this game and its sequel connect is very clever and well done. The use of pre rendered visuals is pretty interesting in the adventure sections giving several set points in the room you can go to and at each one you have to choose which point you want to go to from there. While this is limited, it does help to give a little freedom to the game. Some of the puzzles and exploration are pretty good and as far as pre rendered shooters go, the on-rails shooter sections are also fairly decent for what they are. The sound and voice acting is decent and the visuals, at the time of release (1994) were amazing. This is one of the first pre-rendered games to use motion capture and it works well.

The Bad
The very fact that the game is pre rendered is a crippling problem in terms of gameplay. In the flying sections you are forced to go where the rendering takes you, leaving you the control of only a target. The adventure sections are very irritating to navigate because it's often hard to tell which direction you're headed in until you get there. There is far too much sudden death in the adventure areas usually occurring because you poked your nose into a new place. The actual puzzle game sections are very difficult to work out, often you solve them through shear luck and not skill. In the rail shooter sections there are often cutscenes of an enemy vechile exploding which is fine, the problem is that if you failed to kill the one that explodes in a special cutscene, you explode. This is regardless of how much health you had and there is no telling which enemy might be part of an impending cutscene. Lastly, often the point of playing a game like this is simply, eye candy and while this game had some of the best around in 1994, these days (2001) it is understandably very dated and looks far worse than games which we can now play in real time so the incentive to play for visuals is lost rather which leaves us with little else.

The Bottom Line
Cyberia has very little in the way of actual gameplay which is expected with pre rendered slog-a-thons but while it was visually stunning for its time, these days the only reason to play it is for the great story or if you played it when it was released and are feeling a mite nostalgic.

DOS · by Sycada (177) · 2001

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
No Sound Rafael Fonseca Mendes Leal Jun 25, 2007

Trivia

OEM version

An abridged version entitled Cyberia: Mission Norway was released to be bundled with soundcards and the like. This version takes you nearly halfway through the game.

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 810
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Alan Chan.

PC-98 added by Infernos. Windows, Macintosh, Linux, FM Towns added by Sciere. PlayStation added by Adam Baratz. SEGA Saturn added by Terok Nor. 3DO added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: Zovni, formercontrib, ケヴィン, Patrick Bregger.

Game added January 31, 2000. Last modified January 21, 2024.