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Decline Syberia 3

RuySan

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Jul 11, 2005
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:nocountryforshitposters:

I guess even in a Syberia review he couldn't resist throwing in some virtue-signaling racial commentary.

Having a womyn protagonist isn't :incloosive: enough.
To be honest, the "American saves the day" trope is very annoying. I don't care if the protagonist is black or white, but many other countries exist. It's even more stupid considering syberia creator isn't even American
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
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Messages
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California
This was a game about a New York lawyer who’d been sent to France to sort out some sort of issue with a will over a clockwork toy factory. ... But as dull as that premise might sound...
That premise is amazing. Also, it's fun to go look at other reviews of his and see the premises he thought were novel and well-conceived. (Incidentally, as I've mentioned, I don't think Syberia is a particularly good game -- the very slow walk speed, very slow dialogues, and ping-pong puzzle design all smack of padding and there's really nothing very fun in the game. But the premise and setting are rock solid.)
 

abnaxus

Arcane
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There’ll always be a time and a place for a game like Syberia 3. While not all of the tradition of its previous mid-2000 ventures have translated well into the modern age, Kate Walker’s third outing in this subtly steampunk universe, if sporting a few technical faults and some fairly sub-par voice acting, holds up well enough in its gameplay to warrant a playthrough. Microïds may not be looking to radically shift the formula from what came before all those years ago and while at points its controls clearly show an unpleasant age to itself, the charm of its aesthetic not to mention the design of puzzles in parts keeps Syberia 3 firmly away from the gated-off litter of games often referred to as sequels we never asked for. There may not be as huge or as lucrative a demand here, but the adventure undertaken — after fourteen years of wait for some — is a satisfactory but modest one all the same.
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2017/04/27/review-syberia-3/255569/

This was a game about a New York lawyer who’d been sent to France to sort out some sort of issue with a will over a clockwork toy factory. ... But as dull as that premise might sound...
That premise is amazing. Also, it's fun to go look at other reviews of his and see the premises he thought were novel and well-conceived. (Incidentally, as I've mentioned, I don't think Syberia is a particularly good game -- the very slow walk speed, very slow dialogues, and ping-pong puzzle design all smack of padding and there's really nothing very fun in the game. But the premise and setting are rock solid.)
I suspect John Walker's butthurt might stem from the fact he shares his last name with Kate Walker, an evil white American womyn.
 
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Boleskine

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http://justadventure.com/2013-05-20-21-09-14/3914-syberia-3-review

Syberia 3 Review
Despite the (sometimes) arduous process of getting through the game, I would not have missed Syberia 3 for anything
Posted: 05/01/17 | Category: Review | Developer: Microids | Publisher: Microids | Platform: Xbox one, Playstation 4, Windows, Mac, Nintendo switch
Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure
Release date: April 20, 2017

Patience is a Virtue

Benoît Sokal is a Belgian video game developer who is best known for Amerzone (1999), Syberia (2002), and Syberia II (2004). I also discovered that he developed two other games that I have not played: Paradise (2006) and Sinking Island (2007; released for Nintendo DS in 2008 under the title Last King of Africa). He is an incredibly talented artist, writer, and game designer who holds demigod status to those who favor the adventure genre.

Originally due out in 2010, Syberia 3 was delayed by a series of business challenges. When a 2016 completion date was announced, I pre-purchased the game (from the JustAdventure store) and have been eagerly awaiting delivery. The arrival of my download key last week was a thrilling moment and I began to play immediately.

Although Syberia 3 is a stand-alone game, it is closely tied to Syberia and Syberia II and draws upon people, places, and events introduced in these earlier stories. I had replayed both in preparation for this new release and I was glad to have recent memories of Syberian history.

In a Word, WOW!

The game opens with Kate Walker lying frozen and half dead on a river bank. She is revived by the Youkols – a nomadic tribe that is on a spiritual pilgrimage with their snow ostriches. They deliver Kate and their own injured guide, Kurk, to a hospital in the city of Valsenbor where the adventure begins. Kate soon discovers that there is a sinister plot afoot to block the Youkol’s progress and to imprison her. She befriends Kurk and becomes an advocate for the Youkols, evading capture and facilitating their trek to the snow ostrich breeding grounds. The journey is fraught with obstacles to overcome and puzzles to solve. As before, Kate is a true heroine…beautiful, smart, compassionate, indefatigable, and possessing ad-hoc mechanical abilities that put MacGyver to shame.

Thus, Syberia 3 has all the elements that made me fall in love with the adventure genre. It is a stunningly beautiful 3D game with scenery and object detail that takes your breath away. The cut-scenes are seamlessly integrated with gameplay and I continue to marvel at the time and effort that went into creating such an imaginative game world. This is complemented by one of the most effective sound tracks I’ve experienced. The music by Inon Zur is complex and amazing…from orchestra, to vocals that rise and fall with the mood of each scene, to tribal music that feels authentic. In terms of graphics and sound, the game is truly magical.

The story includes a diverse and interesting cast of characters that are created in exquisite detail. Each is uniquely crafted in terms of appearance, countenance, and costume. There is a lot of dialog with professional voiceovers. Some sections of the game had intermittent issues with lip synching, but Microids just released a patch to address this. Subtitles do not always mirror spoken dialog but this was more of a distraction than a true flaw.

As with most adventures, there is quite a bit of “find-and-use” with two types of inventory: (1) physical items such as a knife, a flask, a scarf, etc. and (2) documents such as journals, photo albums, and notes. These two groups are maintained and accessed separately and both play key roles in your quest. Inventory is displayed with a key stroke and cycled through to select a specific object to examine or use.

I appreciate the fact that there were no nonsensical puzzles and none that felt forced. Tasks are realistic such as finding a cog to repair a machine, finding a lighter to ignite a fire, retrieving a key to open a lock, etc. Each is a practical activity that occurs in life. Other puzzles are mechanical in nature and are a natural extension of the story. Most involve manipulating mechanical devices or other physical items to achieve a result such as starting equipment, operating machinery, or positioning objects. Some were more difficult than others but all can be solved by paying close attention to clues and persevering. I did not find any conundrums or challenges that sent me running for a walkthrough.

Trouble in Paradise

“So,” you say…“sounds like a perfect game!” Unfortunately, there are some issues with game mechanics that made my journey through Syberia 3 less than perfect. I should note that Microids has just released a patch which may address some of the items I’ll mention. I should also add that their support team responded to my service ticket in less than 24 hours which indicates that they are committed to making things right.

Making it through Syberia 3 with a keyboard and mouse was my biggest challenge. To be fair, the game warns you up front that it is “best experienced with a controller.” When I plugged in my Steam Controller, I received a Steam warning that the game was not designed for it. Hmm… With 20/20 hindsight, I should have tried harder to get my controller working but, at the time, it was easier to proceed with my keyboard and mouse. I immediately found that it was easier to use the directional arrow keys in lieu of the “WASD” for movement.

Navigating Kate through the 3D environment was not pretty. Under my control, she careened through the game like someone who has had far too many cocktails. She bumped into walls, missed turns, went up and down the same stairs multiple times, and constantly got “stuck” on the edges of 3D objects. Moving her from “point A” to “point B” was much harder than I’ve experienced in other games with similar controls.

Some inventory actions and all dialog choices are made using the numeric keys 1 through 4. Using the ‘1’ key did not always work as indicated by the on-screen instructions and I soon learned to click the mouse when all else failed. Across the game, the steps to “use” an inventory item did not seem consistent and I often found myself in the right place with the right object but unable to connect the two on my first few attempts.

Many of the mechanical puzzles require turning knobs, shifting gears, moving levers, opening panels, or assembling components. The mouse control for these activities was extremely frustrating. Often, I could not get the mouse to “grab” the object and move it as I intended. This was especially true when an object had to be turned in a specific direction or required precise placement.

“Hot spot” indicators in the environment appear only when Kate is in the proper position. Thus, if you traverse an area but do not pass close enough to objects of interest, you will never see that they are active. Combine this with imprecise navigation and you have a lot of running around trying to circle every object on the screen, just in case.

My biggest complaint is the lack of an explicit save or an automatic save upon exit. Instead, the game saves at predetermined points. This means that if you do not reach a save point before retiring for the night, progress may be lost. Combine this with long load times between scenes and the fact that you can’t skip through dialog or cut scenes, and the repetition required to get back to where you were can be tedious. I am a late-night gamer with a day job. At 2:30 AM, when my need for sleep could no longer be ignored, I felt like I was playing Russian Roulette when I exited Syberia 3. Would my progress be saved or not? How much was I going to have to repeat? OR…would (yet) another cup of coffee get me to the next save point?

I accept that a new software release is likely to have issues and Syberia 3 is no exception. There were a handful of bugs I encountered that caused me moments of pure panic. One item remained in my inventory which implied that I had not performed a critical task that was no longer accessible. Another item could not be used until I re-retrieved it, resulting in a lengthy search for an alternate tool that did not exist. On several occasions, stairwells or pathways became inaccessible and I found myself trapped. This was solved by circling back through the area and clicking on various hot spots until the missing exit point reactivated.

The Bottom Line

As crazy as it sounds, I absolutely love Syberia 3 but I cannot say that I enjoyed playing it. Benoît Sokal did not disappoint me and the story, graphics, and audio were more than I could have hoped for. But my sense of wonder was marred by my constant battle with the mechanics of the game. At times, I wanted to quit but I could not bear to leave Syberia 3 without experiencing Kate’s full story. I will say that my last few hours of gameplay seemed easier and, at the time, I assumed that I had finally acclimated to the quirks of the interface. As it turns out, Microids released a patch that day which may have been the reason for my improvement. It is my hope that Microids will continue to tweak the interface so that playing Syberia 3 can be the amazing experience that the developers intended.

As it stands, I would give the game an “A+” for design/story/graphics/music and a “C+“ for mechanics. Despite the (sometimes) arduous process of getting through the game, I would not have missed Syberia 3 for anything. The cliffhanger ending hints that there is room for another chapter in Kate Walker’s story, and I would love a chance to spend time with her again.

Grade: B+

:incline::positive:
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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abnaxus The "walker" thing always seemed to me a cruel lampshade on the movement speed and puzzle design. :(
 

Wirdschowerdn

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http://steamcommunity.com/app/464340/discussions/0/1327844097112941147/

Patch Note 1.2 [04/05/2017]
  • Text in Russian, Polish, Czech, Korean, traditional Chinese, and simplified Chinese is easier to read;
  • Updated localization of text in Russian Corrected a display bug when inspecting the flare in the inventory;
  • Remarks made while waiting are now sequential and no longer random;
  • It takes longer for characters to start making remarks while waiting;
  • Corrected a problem displaying non-interactive dialog sub-titles;
  • Hospital: Animations added for some characters that you meet on the patio (static NPCs);
  • Krystal: Corrected a display bug that occurred during the attack by the monster.
  • Theme park:
    - Corrected a bug in the ‘Oscar’s Heart’ puzzle.
    - Added a rubble effect when the Youkols are clearing things away.
    - Corrected a display bug with one of the camera shots during the roller-coaster scene.
  • Baranour History Center:
    - Corrected some of the cameras at the station.
    - Corrected the lighting during the cut-scenes.
  • Balatom Bridge: Corrected the animation of the shaman’s beard in one of the cut-scenes.
 

Keshik

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My biggest complaint is the lack of an explicit save or an automatic save upon exit. Instead, the game saves at predetermined points. This means that if you do not reach a save point before retiring for the night, progress may be lost.

Now that is just unforgivable :P
 

Boleskine

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http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/32752

Syberia 3 review
The Good:
Some attractive settings and dramatic cutscenes; a few fun puzzles; nice continuity to have Sharon Mann reprise her role as Kate; soundtrack has some beautiful pieces.

The Bad:
Contrived, insipid storyline; some absurd / badly clued quests and puzzles; poorly engineered game mechanics and clunky controls; hours of arduous backtracking; few and forgettable characters; awkward dialogues; washed-out, dated graphics with robotic character animation, awful lip sync, and jarring ambient effects; unnecessary cliffhanger.



1.5 stars out of 5

Our Verdict:

Kate Walker’s latest expedition to save the hapless Youkols is fraught with development missteps on multiple fronts, making Syberia 3 a mammoth disappointment.

Written by Shuva Raha — May 8, 2017

Fifteen years ago, the clockwork train journey of a young New York lawyer and an officious metal man, across the breathtaking landscape of eastern Europe to the fictional Syberia in Russia in pursuit of an old man’s chronicle of mammoths, captured the imaginations – and hearts – of desktop adventurers around the world. Businesslike Kate Walker, on a visit to a remote French village to settle an estate inheritance, was drawn into a world of faded dreams and quirky inventions as she explored once-grand edifices in antiquated towns in search of self-discovery as much as her elusive client Hans Voralberg, leaving the life she knew behind with each determined turn of a gear and pull on a lever. Benoît Sokal’s Syberia, released in 2002, had audacious vision, brilliant storytelling, gripping characters, and complex steampunk-inspired mechanical puzzles that challenged you without distracting from the fragile beauty of their settings. Practical yet vulnerable Kate was an inspiring heroine, and emo automaton Oscar her worthy wingman. Syberia 2 followed soon and saw Kate finish her mission, but left her own future untold, raising the clamour from fans for a continuation.

Thirteen years later, after enough twists and turns in its development history to rival Kate’s expedition, we have Syberia 3, which reunites writer Sokal with developer-publisher Microïds. Unlike its well-oiled predecessors, however, Syberia 3 fails to steam off the blocks, held back by an insipid plot; generic and sometimes absurd quests; poorly engineered game mechanics and clunky controls; few and forgettable characters with lame dialogues and atrocious lip sync; washed-out, dated 3D graphics with robotic animation and jarring weather effects; and numerous glitches. Half of its 20-odd-hour playtime is wasted in backtracking for petty purposes, and much of the rest in guessing what to do, with only one or two hotspots in vast navigable areas, mechanical puzzles with no labelled parts or instructions, and little clarity of objectives or reasoning. It’s a massive ordeal to trudge through so many hours with so little to do, only to have the game end abruptly on a pointless cliffhanger instead of gracefully closing out the series. Players who have waited years may play this out of allegiance to the iconic series, but on its own, Syberia 3 is at best a mediocre, joyless game that is a pain to play, even with the recommended gamepad.

The story resumes with a semi-conscious, injured Kate floating down a river in a small boat. The game either assumes that players will brush up on the backstory of Syberia before loading Part 3, or isn’t too concerned if they start from scratch since this is billed as a ‘new adventure’; either way, it doesn’t bother recapping the story so far. Newcomers will start with an American woman inexplicably afloat on a Russian river, and series veterans will have to proceed with no understanding of intervening events since Kate bid adieu to Hans and the mammoths. In any case, she is soon rescued by the local tribe of Youkols, who revive her and send her to a nearby sanitarium. There Kate recovers, only to find herself trapped by a sinister nurse who is operating on the instructions of an eye patch-wearing goon and his army of gun-toting henchmen. Her co-patient Kurk, the disabled navigator of the Youkols, is also being held captive to prevent the migration of the tribe with their snow ostriches, as the authorities want them to settle down and become ‘civilised’.

Improvising on Kurk’s vague instructions, Kate escapes the sanitarium and connects with the Youkols, stranded in a riverside camp because global warming has melted the ice floes that allowed the ostriches to cross the river. To worsen matters, the folks of the neighbouring town of Valsembor have become paranoid xenophobes in the wake of a nuclear meltdown on a nearby island, and want nothing to do with the refugee tribe, who they perceive to be thieves and troublemakers. Meanwhile, the ‘finest private investigator on the East Coast’ is on Kate’s trail, because she is wanted back in the US by the FBI for absconding with Voralberg’s property.

And so it falls upon Kate to devise a plan to ferry the Youkols across the river, past the clownish villain, the idiot PI, a giant ‘sea monster’, and an irradiated island littered with decrepit amusement park rides and rusting automatons. Despite many millennia of migrations, the nomadic Youkols are totally inept at bridging an ordinary river or charting an alternate path for their ostriches, and must rely on a chance encounter with a foreigner, a novice to the region and outdoors in general, to save them from extinction while they crowd around her, either whimpering in fear or joyously shouting, ‘Miss Kate Walker! Miss Kate Walker!’ This lazy plot is embellished with only casual nods to the important issues of climate change and intolerance towards refugees – and since this is Russia, a token Chernobyl-esque disaster with scarred, demented survivors. I also didn’t quite get why the villains were hunting Kate with such ferocity, or why the US officials were using a PI instead of Interpol to track Kate, but these watery side-plots are largely irrelevant.

The game is set in five key locations: the sanitarium; the Youkol camp; the town of Volsembor, drab and in decline; aboard the ferry ship Krystal; and Baranour, the irradiated island down the river. Each has a few explorable areas, such as the Krystal’s decks and engine room; Valsembor’s clock workshop, warehouse and a bar; plus the lakeshore, some rides and a subway station in Baranour. Surprisingly for a game of Syberia’s pedigree, famed for its expansive vistas and architectural artistry, most of the locations here are unappealing, barring the sun-dappled arboretum of the sanitarium with its creepy wind-up birds, and the decrepit charm of Baranour’s rotting amusement park. The three-dimensional settings are rather rudimentary, and many scenes are afflicted with dim lighting, depth perception issues, and over-use of crude ambient effects like smoke, snow, rain, and lightning. The game allows for 360° third-person movement, and even has an auto-cam that allows you to sit back and take in a bird’s-eye view of select scenes, but the dated graphics cannot capitalise on such freedom.

Most places are also difficult to manoeuvre, in part because of poor layout design, such as the cramped Youkol market with its awkwardly placed crates and clumsy sprites that stumble into you, along with the confusing lanes of Volsembor and the cluttered setup of structures at Baranour. The camera constantly changes your viewing perspective, disorienting you and making you repeatedly alter Kate’s direction to keep going as intended. Another issue is the momentary but tangible delay in Kate’s response each time. Interacting with objects requires considerable jugglery with the gamepad buttons. If you play with a keyboard, Kate is controlled with the WASD keys while the mouse controls the camera. Hotspots can be used with the left mouse button, or their assigned pop-up interaction numbers. While okay in theory, in-game execution is fraught with problematic movement and camera control.

Compounding the issue, hotspots get marked with tiny white spots when Kate steps near them, but they are easy to miss. As far as I could tell, the game doesn’t offer a hotspot highlighter. You get a one-time option at the start to choose between the easier ‘Voyager’ mode, which claims to offer more detailed instructions and automatic selection of correct inventory items, and the no-hints ‘Adventure’ mode, with no way to swap difficulty modes in-game. The inventory, designed as a rotating wheel of items, is placed at the left side of the screen, and in the ‘Adventure’ mode it opens with the earliest collected item each time. Objects cannot be combined in the inventory, but can be dragged onto any onscreen hotspot, leading to abundant negative feedback.

While the game itself is strictly linear, with only one or two active objectives at a time, it burdens you with hours of backtracking as Kate is forced to go back-and-forth over long distances for everyday objects and pieces of conversations. Worse, hotspots get activated without any notice in already-explored areas, and you must keep revisiting scenes to check for new interactions. There are no handy tools like a map or a diary, but on the bright side, Kate runs in some areas. The game provides for only one saved game, auto-saving at preset junctures. If this gets corrupted, like mine did, you will have to start over.

The inventory-based obstacles are mostly straightforward, comprising unlocking doors, forging paperwork, and running errands for sundry persons. The spirit of Syberia shines through the standalone puzzles involving operating cranes, steering ships, adjusting assorted gauges, and activating the amusement park rides. Some are fun, like decoding a cleverly worded cypher to unlock a model ship, identifying a coal chute in a warehouse, and positioning mirrors to direct light beams. However, several others, like starting a motorcycle and casting a key, are reduced to trial-and-error due to missing labels and lack of clear directives. And then there are the absurd, like finding a small item you don’t know you need or exists, in the darkness of night somewhere in a random lane in Volsembor. Or locating the medication of a man having a seizure who is conversant about everything except where he keeps this literally lifesaving item.

Unlike its predecessors, Syberia 3 is also an artistic disappointment. A strange haze covers most of the outdoor locations, and the coarse, blocky graphics and stiff, robotic characters do not flatter the series’ signature style of using desaturated colours to amplify the sense of desolation while accentuating the frail beauty of quaint locales. Shifting from meticulously hand-painted, intricately detailed screens to simplistic, run-of-the-mill computer-generated 3D scenes eliminates the unique, classical sophistication that defined the art of Syberia. Mountains, trees, rocks, buildings and furniture are rendered as crude arrangements of flat planes, while the muted colours look dowdy instead of elegant when applied to abundant, sparsely detailed surfaces like roads, floors, walls and snowy ground. Only a precious few scenes, like Kate jogging through the wilderness around the Youkol camp, marked with frayed, fluttering red flags, are impressive.

Kate and her fellow cast have well-constructed appearances with lots of detailing, but lack emotive expressions. Character animation, with stymied movements, collisions with obstacles and totally misaligned lip sync, are reminiscent of Chaplin comedies, and along with amateur ambient graphics like huge rod-like raindrops and thick, almost-opaque radioactive ‘smoke’, make for an overall tiresome experience. The cutscenes, like Kate’s fevered dreams as she is treated by the Youkol shaman inside a firelit tepee and the amusement park creaking to life once more are suitably dramatic, but blurry at high resolution. Weighing in at 40GB, the game strained even my high-performance system, with lengthy load times between scenes and screen transition jumps.

The underwhelming script doesn’t allow any of the new characters make a mark. Kurk remains a tool for basic exposition, while the drunk, self-loathing captain of the Krystal hams through voluminous dialogue and makes a hash of every crisis, failing to earn any empathy despite a meaty role. The rest of the cast, voiced in bland American accents despite being Russians, simply go through the motions. Actress Sharon Mann reprises her role as Kate, and does a fair job of sounding the same as fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, the writing is awkwardly translated and sprinkled with typos. Dialogues – including repetitive negative feedback and rabid, incessant nagging by people once you are given a task – cannot be skipped, while important exchanges cannot be replayed. At least the soundtrack has a couple of gems, including soaring vocals backed by melancholy strings, and some melodious humming against the rhythmic beat of the Youkol drums.

As I watched the final cutscene of Syberia 3, which ends on a lukewarm, and one may even say unnecessary cliffhanger, I felt relief at somehow having completed this trudge, and regret at this devolution of a stellar series. Like Oscar, the original Syberia was more than the sum of its parts. It went beyond tinkering with gears and chasing mythical mammoths deep into the heart of Russia to ask us, through the gradual self-actualisation of Kate Walker, our raisons d'etre. Kate’s choice to disconnect from the cacophony of her life in New York to embrace an existence that felt alien yet comforting was a virtual challenge to follow one’s heart, and it resonated wistfully with the tired souls in the cities she passed through.

It’s sad, therefore, that one of the most anticipated releases of this decade has turned out to be a clunker, so completely devoid of art and skill and soul. Syberia 3 doesn’t even bother connecting Kate’s present with her journey so far. Instead, the contrived storyline gives her a task-list simply because now that she has chosen to stay on in Syberia, she must have something to do. Loaded with contemporary artifices, the plot never rises above the transactional, failing to make any emotional impact even in the face of grand sacrifice. Weighed down by a weak script, a blah cast, a clumsy control system, subpar graphics, generic quests and poor game design leading to hours of backtracking, Syberia 3 creaks along on the single track of getting the Youkols across the river. I do not fully discourage existing fans from playing it as an homage to a much-loved series, but without the benefit of fond familiarity, this is really just a poor game with a lousy mechanical framework.

:dead:
 

Jaesun

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This seems to be turning out pretty much as I expected. Rush title out, on multi-platform. And here we are.....
 

ortucis

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http://steamcommunity.com/app/464340/discussions/0/1327844097112941147/

  • Hospital: Animations added for some characters that you meet on the patio (static NPCs);


How the fuck do you make a 3D adventure game and forget animations for NPCs?

I knew the game looked like shit, as I previously bitched about, but this is just lazy. Also, they needed Andromeda animators to take focus from everything else. That's a perfect strategy these days, for BioWare.


Another review. Says it's decent and Syberia fans will enjoy the game, but it's not very good overall mainly due to technical issues and writing/dialogue.

Yeah, it's not like adventure gamers play adventure games for good writing/dialogue. Kate Walker getting banged by automatons was the star of the show in the previous games.
 
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Tom Selleck

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NSFW:
Nnzlbe7.jpg
 

Wirdschowerdn

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http://steamcommunity.com/games/464340/announcements/detail/2767873904686912304

Major Point and Click Update! Patch Note 2.0 PC [14/06/2017]

14 June - Team Microids

Greetings all. We are continuing to take your feedback into account while working hard to give you the best possible gaming experience. With this in mind, we're getting back to you today with a highly-anticipated patch that adds a Point and Click mode, so you can go through the entire game using only your mouse. A lot of you have been asking for this; now it's here. We also added a few gameplay improvements and some minor bug corrections.

Controls:
- Addition of a Point and Click - "mouse only" - mode:

- now the player can click on the spot he or she wants to move to
- all interactions can now be 100% completed using the mouse

- We've corrected a visual bug where the interface wasn't displaying the right keys for using or interacting with objects. The keys are now correctly displayed.

Gameplay:
- The cursor has been revamped to make it easier to see in all circumstances (including on white backgrounds).
- We've added a visual indication in the form of a rotation icon during the knife tutorial on 3D object manipulation.

Audio:
- We've corrected a bug that occurred when the player finished the game: the music would stop during the credits and on returning to the main menu. The music now plays properly.
- We've corrected a bug in the German version of the game: in some cases, dialog was cut partway through. All of the dialog is now played to the end.

Text:
- We've corrected some of the text in the German and Spanish versions to make the translation more accurate.
- Correction of a bug that stopped some sub-titles from being displayed

Optimization:
- Improved framerate in the following level: Hospital
- Improved framerate in the following level: Bridge Over the River Balatom
 

Wirdschowerdn

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I've finished this yesterday night, and this game truly is an embodiment of it's long and troublesome development.

Random thoughts, good and bad stuff:

-Kate Walker is kind and endearing and carries the whole game.
-Game is technically clunky, but oozes with atmo and charm.
-Point-and-click controls (introduced with new patch) are adequate enough, but still a bit wonky with a bitchy camera. Nothing a seasoned adventure gamer can't deal with though.
-Too much backtracking.
-High variance in location and art quality: Generally, the later Soviet stuff can be truly breathtaking in terms of architecture and vistas. Walking around in the metro or the hazardous sections of the ghost city of Baranour gives you the chills. Some other stuff though like Valseborg or the Krystal ship feels empty and boring.
-Puzzles: Obviously, that's the meat of the game and again the quality varies a lot. Generally they're easy and logical enough, with only a few of them sticking out as genuinely fun and creative.
-Characters: Well Kate's the star here. There's also Oscar, who only gets his limelight in one section (where you control him directly). There's also Kurk, a true hobbit gentleman. The rest of the cast range from mediocre, annoying to superficial. The bad guys' agenda was never explained (lol bad Russkies). The Shaman lady is a retard.
-Story: I dunno, it's the little moments when Kate uses her wit and charm that truly shine. The Youkols do find resolution in the ending, but for Kate it ends in a cliffhanger. Rather disappointing as it felt very rushed, but it opens space for a sequel*.
-VO: Huge variance in quality. Obviously they didn't have much budget for voice overs, so I can say that only Kate and Oscar do a professional job, the rest is really tragicomedy-bad. Not a deal-breaker, but still a shame. Perhaps the French dubbing is better? You can actually switch languages on the fly.
-Music and soundscape: Top-notch. Inon Zur did a great job with the soundtrack.

Overall, this is a quaint and clunky sequel still very faithful to the franchise. If you are a fan, you probably want to play this with a 50% discount. It's not as good and cohesive as Syberia 1, but still worth your time if you allow yourself to surrender to the fantasy of Syberia. If you look for realism or a challenge, look somewhere else.

I, for one, am actually looking forward for more.

*Benoit Sokal did mention in this interview that he's creating a story for Syberia 4.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/295079/QA_Benoit_Sokal_on_Syberia_and_his_comics_career.php

Benoit Sokal said:
All stories are love stories. So I do not imagine that the adventures of Kate Walker could never benefit from a romantic engine as powerful as love and sexuality. I am currently creating for Kate Walker a love story that will take place in Syberia 4. What will be her ups and downs? The directions she will be taking? it's probably a bit early to say. But Kate Walker is an intelligent and free woman: her motto is “Adventure!”, which is included in her love choices... I can only imagine that these will never be final or stopped.

There's also this (light spoiler):

dog1cwsfu.jpg

dog2rjs5d.jpg


:shittydog::shittydog::shittydog::yeah::shittydog::shittydog::shittydog:
 
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Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,950
Location
Russia
Shite, it's Unity again. This is ugliest Sokal game ever made. Not as ugly as Dreamfall of course (that one is on the level of Neverwinter Nights 1), but still, that's not pre rendered beauty it was. These textures, urhhh
And dat fps
Controls and camera are so awkward
And VO and lipsync are terribad
Puzzles isf are non existent

I also don't understand what Kate wants for now, since everything was resolved in previous game
 
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abnaxus

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2010
Messages
10,847
Location
Fiernes
Kate herself doesn't know what she wants.
 

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