Syberia
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| Syberia | |
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| Developer(s) | Microïds |
| Publisher(s) | FRA Microïds CAN Microïds US The Adventure Company |
| Designer(s) | Benoît Sokal |
| Engine | Virtools Engine |
| Release date(s) | FRA January 9, 2002 CAN June 13, 2002 US September 1, 2002 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: T (Teen) ELSPA: 3+ PEGI: 3+ |
| Platform(s) | Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox |
| Media | 2 CD-ROMs (WIN) 1 DVD (PS2), (Xbox) |
| System requirements | 350 MHz CPU, 64 MB RAM, 16 MB video card RAM, 16X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 7.0, 400 MB available hard disk space, Windows 95 (WIN) |
| Input | Keyboard, mouse, or gamepad |
Syberia is a 2002 computer adventure game conceived by Benoît Sokal, developed by Microïds and published through The Adventure Company.
It is a third-person, mouse-driven, semi-realistic/semi-surrealistic adventure game in which the player must solve various puzzles and follow certain procedures in order for the linear storyline to proceed. As a pure graphical adventure game, Syberia follows the guidelines first introduced by LucasArts : It is impossible to die or to get stuck at any moment in the game, which allows the user to fully immerse him/herself in Syberia's universe without the fear of making a mistake or the constant need of saving the game.
The game contains a dramatic subplot, conducted via calls received on Kate's cell phone, involving Kate's deteriorating relationship with her fiancé.
The game uses elements of steampunk fiction in its story. Most devices and tools, and even a train, are powered by springs and wind-up gears. Syberia was acclaimed by critics for its graphic design and intelligent script, and a sequel, Syberia II, was released in 2004, picking up where the first game leaves off.
Sokal's earlier game Amerzone is located in the same fictional universe, and Syberia contains some references to it. Sokal's latest adventure game Paradise has no connections to Syberia but does use the same high quality artwork and a similar interface.
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[edit] Plot summary
In the game, the player controls the actions of American lawyer Kate Walker, who is sent to a remote European village in order to finalize the take-over of a toy factory there. Once at the village, Kate learns that the woman who owned the factory has just died, and that she has a brother who must be contacted in order for the takeover to proceed. Her mission takes her across thousands of miles, and leads her to question her own lifestyle.
The title, Syberia refers to a mythical island, which is referenced in the game and will be Kate's ultimate destination.
[edit] Valadilène
The game starts with Kate arriving in the fictional French village of Valadilène and witnessing the funeral of Anna Voralberg, the owner of a small family-owned spring-automaton toy factory whose takeover by a big American business Kate was supposed to finalize. When visiting the village notary to hopefully finalize the deal, the notary tells Kate that just before her death, the old lady revealed that her brother, officially declared dead and buried in the town cemetery, is in fact alive somewhere in the North-East. Naturally, now that his sister is dead, Hans Voralberg becomes the new owner of the factory, which cannot be sold without his approbation. Kate has no choice: if she wants the takeover to succeed, she will have to find Hans. The notary gives her the key to the Voralberg’s domain and Kate, while exploring the mansion and the factory, slowly immerses herself in the life of the family by reading journals and documents, as if she was diving in the past. She discovers that when they were kids, Hans led his sister Anna to a cave he found in the mountains. There, atop a small rock, they saw an object that Hans decided to fetch, but he fell while climbing the rock and he suffered brain damage from the resulting injuries. Though he never totally recovered, Hans developed two passions. One of them was due to the object he found the day of his accident: a prehistoric doll of a mammoth ridden by a man. Since his discovery of this doll, Hans became passionate by them and his dream was to see real mammoths. His second passion was his father’s factory. Although mentally challenged, Hans was a genius for the creation of automata. His father was very proud of him and saw in his son his successor as director of the family’s factory. When one day Hans said he was leaving Valadilène to go looking for the mythical island of Syberia and its mammoths, his father was devastated and preferred to say that his son was dead rather than accepting his departure. Now that Kate knows what happened to Hans, she searches for help to find him, and help comes in the form of two of Hans’s creations: Oscar, a man-like automaton fond of protocol, and a spring-loaded luxury train whose plans Hans transmitted to his sister. Together, they leave Valadilène. As Oscar seems to know where he is going with his train, Kate sits and enjoys the ride.
[edit] Barrockstadt
The train stops in Barrockstadt’s station, which is in fact a giant aviary located next to a university. Oscar tells Kate that the locomotive’s spring is totally unwound and that the train can not go further. After a quick walk along the tracks, Kate finds a mechanism to wind up the train at some distance in front of the station (apparently, Hans went through this place), but there is no way to pull the train from the station to the mechanism. Luckily, there is a canal running alongside the tracks, and in the aviary-station, an old couple is waiting on a tugboat. They are willing to help Kate to tow the train, but want to be paid $100, which Kate does not have. She decides to leave the station and goes into the university to see if someone could help her by lending some money. Inside, she meets Professor Pons, a specialist of paleontology, from whom she learns that Hans stayed at the university a long time ago and came to his class. Apparently, Hans was passionate by Pons’s teachings about the mysterious prehistoric Youkol people which lived with mammoths and were able to domesticate them. Unfortunately for Kate, Hans has left Barrockstadt a long time ago, to find the Youkol and mammoths, for he was sure they survived somewhere. Kate also speaks with the university’s board of directors, which is a rather frustrating experience. They agree to give Kate some money, if she is able to fix one of Hans’s creations on the campus: a bandstand-automaton. As Kate is becoming acquainted with Hans’s mechanical pieces of art, this is not a difficult task for her, and she even discovers a little traffic going on in the university while trying to fix the broken bandstand. With the $100 reward, she pays the mariners and helps them to go pass the locks. In return, they tow the train out of the station to the wind-up mechanism. After convincing the guard of the city to open the door protecting it against an invasion, the quest to find Hans Voralberg continues, and the train rushes up North. While its location is never explicitly stated, from its name, appearance and character Barrockstadt seems Germanic, its dividing wall reminiscent of the division between the former BRD and DDR.
[edit] Komkolzgrad
The train stops again after having used all of its potential energy alongside a dusty communist-era industrial mining complex which appears to be abandoned and sealed up. Across the tracks, two giant metallic worker-automata, similar to giant cranes, indicate that Hans went through this place. After closely looking at the legs of one of the two giants, Kate discovers a mechanism to wind-up the train’s spring. It looks easy this time, and Kate doesn’t mind, for this place gives her the creeps. Inside the giant, she finds information left by Hans explaining that he worked in the mine to create automata that would help the miners, but he also discovered that his talents were used elsewhere, so he left the place. Kate moves the giant to the train and winds it up when suddenly someone gets out of the complex and attacks Oscar. When Kate reaches the locomotive, the aggressor has flown, and she finds Oscar tied up and without hands. Apparently the thief took Oscar’s hands, and without them he cannot pilot the train. Kate must find his hands if she wants to get out of here. She eventually finds a way to get inside the mine, and meets the thief, Serguei Borodine, who once was the director of the mine.
When the complex closed, Borodine decided to stay and is now the only living soul in the giant steel mill. As he almost never sees anybody, Kate gets to hear his whole life and learns that he is a fanatical admirer of the great soprano Helena Romanski, who sang once at the steelworks to inspire workers during its heyday. Since the closure of the plant, a nostalgic Borodine became obsessed with the memory of Romanski's visit, constructing a small shrine to her and subsequently a gigantic organ out of the pipework of the plant's machinery. He stole Oscar’s hands to complete the automaton organist, as he lacked the mechanical skill to construct his own, and he does not seem willing to give them back unless you can persuade Helena Romanski to come back to the mine and sing for Borodine while the organist is playing. By luck, (with a call to mom) Kate learns that the old lady is spending time in a care center in Aralbad, but without Oscar’s hands, it is impossible to go there by train. Borodine tells you that there is an abandoned cosmodrome next to the mine, which is guarded by a man named Boris. When Kate arrives, she discovers that Boris is quite drunk and that it will be difficult to get help from him. But once she splashes him with some cold water, he tells her that he will help Kate use the old airship if she agrees to help him go in space in a flying-wing, one of Hans’s inventions. Although Kate is reluctant to send a drunken guy in space, it appears that she has not much choice, and familiarizes herself with the command desk. Once Boris is launched, she uses his advice to launch the airship and leaves for Aralbad. Obviously Russian, Komkolzgrad is strongly reminiscent of a fusion between Magnitogorsk and Baikonur.
[edit] Aralbad
The airship, apparently one of Hans’s creation fitted with a pilot-automaton, brings Kate to the thermal station of Aralbad. Getting inside is not an easy task, for the owner does not seem to be keen on letting strangers enter the building. But she succeeds in distracting him and is able to sneak inside, where she finds Helena Romanski. The elderly lady explains that she is now too old to sing and that she has lost her legendary voice that was so powerful it could break glass. And as she is very professional, there is no way she would sing with a broken voice. Kate has no choice but trying to convince her, and during the conversation, she learns that during her career, Helena once drank a special cocktail when she had some problems with her voice. It was made especially for her by a Parisian barman, who named it the Blue Helena in her honor. A quick phone call (number is on the hotel mans' desk) at the hotel where he worked allows Kate to know the ingredients needed to make the drink, but she still needs to learn how to use the automatic-bar (Hans has probably been through this place as well). After two or three attempts, Kate is able to get the right mixture and gives it to Helena, who, after drinking it, is able to break a crystal glass while singing. Having regained her self-confidence she accepts to follow Kate in the airship. Together, they fly back to Komkolzgrad. Aralbad, with its receding coastline and deserted ships, is clearly patterned after the region surrounding the Aral Sea.
[edit] Epilogue
As soon as they reach Komkolzgrad, Kate and Helena are welcomed by a very excited Serguei Borodine. Helena and the organist give an impressive concert in the industrial complex, whose vast empty spaces are perfect to propagate the music. But as soon as Helena finishes singing, metallic bars drop from the ceiling, imprisoning the prima donna. It looks as if Borodine, now revealed as completely crazy, wants to keep Helena at his side as his personal opera singer. Kate is able to find some tools to free Helena and take back Oscar’s hands, but as she is leading Helena out of the complex, Borodine bars her way out from within his control room. Mrs. Romanski is outside, but Kate seems to be trapped inside. She urges Helena to go into the train and to give Oscar his hands, while she finds a way out of the mine. By triggering an explosion to destroy the lift, Borodine accidentally blows the protection in front of a ventilation shaft, which allows Kate to escape and reach the train, with which they escape. Kate brings Helena back to Aralbad, and notices that the train station is equipped with a mechanism to re-wind the train. An old man who wasn’t there during Kate’s first visit is waiting on a bench. It is Hans Voralberg, who is delighted and very excited to see that Kate brought him his train and Oscar. Kate tells him that his sister died recently and that he is now the owner of the family’s factory, but Hans does not care at all. All he wants to do is to board his train with Oscar, and go find the mythical island of Syberia, where he is sure mammoths and Youkols are still living. Kate gives the selling contract to Hans, which he signs without hesitation. A plane comes to fly Kate and her precious contract back to New York, and Hans gets ready to leave while Oscar prepares the train. As Kate is boarding the plane, she hears the train’s whistle and takes the most important decision of her life. Abandoning her job and her unfaithful fiancé back home, she gets out of the plane and runs to the train which is already moving but is able to board. Her life has changed; she is going to help an old man realize his dream.
