I used to be heavily into adventure games. This was back in the heyday of the Commodore 64, when Infocom was king. Those people really knew how to tell a story and make puzzling fun. Then the graphics revolution came, and adventures became more about pretty pictures than actual adventuring. I got tired of paying $40-50 for games that looked lovely but bored me. DOOM came along, I got into first-person shooters and I never looked back.

 Well, I might have peeked once or twice. That's how this game caught my eye. It was reasonably priced compared to what I was used to seeing, and I remembered reading positive things about it.

 I've found that not much has changed.

 In this game, you play a lawyer named Kate Walker (an appropriate surname, since she does an ungodly amount of it) who has left her job to assist an elderly toymaker named Hans Voralberg in realizing his dream: that of reaching a legendary island called Syberia, where mammoths still roam. Basically you are his errand girl, making deliveries, doing maintenance, and retrieving items because he's too infirm to do it himself, and his robot companion Oscar is too timid and absolutely refuses to go out into the cold. Will Hans make it? Will you end up wanting to tell both Hans and Oscar to get lost and hightail it back to New York? I won't spoil it for you.

 (I hadn't played the first SYBERIA game, but that was okay because this sequel - or continuation, really - comes with a cinematic recap.)

 SYBERIA II is easily the most beautiful game I've played to date. The setting, a remote area of Russia, is a veritable winter wonderland, and the attention to detail is superb both in the graphics and sound. Snow slides off roofs to land with a satisfying "floomph," wildlife roams or flies in the background, old structures creak. Kate makes footprints that disappear as more snow falls. It all contributes to an atmosphere so enveloping that I forgot that I was playing it in the middle of summer. There are also some amazing and truly cinematic linking sequences.

 The gameplay, however, is another story. The game is heavily scripted, which means you spend at least half the time talking to various characters. Repeatedly. In many cases, several times in a row. It's a very awkward and tedious way of moving the plot along. Why not at least have the conversation continue automatically rather than make the player keep clicking over and over again? As for the puzzles, they aren't so much difficult as simply obscure. At one point, you pick up a cleaning brush. (Why? Because it's there.) It's used to scrub away part of a painting in another room to find a clue. But why would anyone do that, or even think of doing it? There's no indication that the painting is relevant, unless you happen to run your cursor over the hotspot and see it change. That's just one example. A lot of the puzzles require you to pick up random items that seem to be of no significance, and which are very easily overlooked - and then do incongruous things with them. In one scene, you need to know how to operate a HAM radio, and the controls in the cockpit of a small plane. If you're not the game's creator, you're lost. Needless to say, I used an online walkthrough to get through most of it.

 When you finally do get to the end of the game, it's so sudden you'll feel like someone pressed stop on a tape. It's a huge disappointment after so much buildup, though the animation is, as always, stunning.

 It's a shame that so much obvious care went into the look and sound production and so little into playability. Perhaps SYBERIA II is better looked at as an interactive storybook than a game, though the story does need work. My recommendation is to wait for it to drop to a budget price, find a walkthrough, and enjoy the sights and sounds. Otherwise, it's frustrating.
I used to be heavily into adventure games. This was back in the heyday of the Commodore 64, when Infocom was king. Those people really knew how to tell a story and make puzzling fun. Then the graphics revolution came, and adventures became more about pretty pictures than actual adventuring. I got tired of paying $40-50 for games that looked lovely but bored me. DOOM came along, I got into first-person shooters and I never looked back. Well, I might have peeked once or twice. That's how this game caught my eye. It was reasonably priced compared to what I was used to seeing, and I remembered reading positive things about it. I've found that not much has changed. In this game, you play a lawyer named Kate Walker (an appropriate surname, since she does an ungodly amount of it) who has left her job to assist an elderly toymaker named Hans Voralberg in realizing his dream: that of reaching a legendary island called Syberia, where mammoths still roam. Basically you are his errand girl, making deliveries, doing maintenance, and retrieving items because he's too infirm to do it himself, and his robot companion Oscar is too timid and absolutely refuses to go out into the cold. Will Hans make it? Will you end up wanting to tell both Hans and Oscar to get lost and hightail it back to New York? I won't spoil it for you. (I hadn't played the first SYBERIA game, but that was okay because this sequel - or continuation, really - comes with a cinematic recap. )

 SYBERIA II is easily the most beautiful game I've played to date. The setting, a remote area of Russia, is a veritable winter wonderland, and the attention to detail is superb both in the graphics and sound. Snow slides off roofs to land with a satisfying "floomph," wildlife roams or flies in the background, old structures creak. Kate makes footprints that disappear as more snow falls. It all contributes to an atmosphere so enveloping that I forgot that I was playing it in the middle of summer. There are also some amazing and truly cinematic linking sequences. The gameplay, however, is another story. The game is heavily scripted, which means you spend at least half the time talking to various characters. Repeatedly. In many cases, several times in a row. It's a very awkward and tedious way of moving the plot along. Why not at least have the conversation continue automatically rather than make the player keep clicking over and over again? As for the puzzles, they aren't so much difficult as simply obscure. At one point, you pick up a cleaning brush. (Why? Because it's there. ) It's used to scrub away part of a painting in another room to find a clue. But why would anyone do that, or even think of doing it? There's no indication that the painting is relevant, unless you happen to run your cursor over the hotspot and see it change. That's just one example. A lot of the puzzles require you to pick up random items that seem to be of no significance, and which are very easily overlooked - and then do incongruous things with them. In one scene, you need to know how to operate a HAM radio, and the controls in the cockpit of a small plane. If you're not the game's creator, you're lost. Needless to say, I used an online walkthrough to get through most of it. When you finally do get to the end of the game, it's so sudden you'll feel like someone pressed stop on a tape. It's a huge disappointment after so much buildup, though the animation is, as always, stunning. It's a shame that so much obvious care went into the look and sound production and so little into playability. Perhaps SYBERIA II is better looked at as an interactive storybook than a game, though the story does need work. My recommendation is to wait for it to drop to a budget price, find a walkthrough, and enjoy the sights and sounds. Otherwise, it's frustrating.