Microids
Syberia

We all agree: video games are created with the sole purpose of entertaining the consumer, often hooking them with explosive action, and only occasionally involving them in stories and situations that are certainly second-rate compared to a paper novel; but the strength of video games, despite their effective inconsistency, is the possibility of interaction, even if only illusory, which drives the player to spend a few hours continuing and finishing the given adventure. The possibility, in short, of overcoming the game's challenges to finally proclaim: "Finished!". Few video games manage to offer something more, something to remember and perhaps to recount to an acquaintance.

In 2002, Microids released this "Syberia" on the market, a classic graphic adventure by established standards. It's an almost surreal adventure that compels Kate Walker, a young American lawyer, to get involved in events on the brink of the dreamlike: thinking automatons, stories of ancient peoples (legends?), between a ghost town in the most rural parts of France and an abandoned base of the former USSR. For a few hours (not many, really) the player must engage in solving puzzles and situations that are rarely frustrating, in a predictably slow yet smooth pace of play.

The story, in the view of this writer, is one of the most successful ever in the genre, characterized and enhanced by the few characters who accompany young Kate: the automaton Oscar, who feels human emotions despite all the limitations of a metal construct; the rectors of the university of Barrockstadt, severe but unintentionally ironic; the mad guardian of the Komkolzgrad mine. All are fictional places and characters, but the result of commendable insights, all linked by a certain underlying darkness, without truly sunlit or liberating moments.

The technical department is remarkable: with pre-rendered graphics, the scenery is beautifully crafted, and the few polygonal models blend well with the rest; the sound, always elegant, does its job well, thanks also to a good translation.

"Syberia" is the result of the notable creativity of the Belgian cartoonist Benoit Sokal, who also crafted "Amerzone" (released a few years earlier), also produced by Microids. Recommended for anyone who wants to ponder, this time getting engrossed in a splendid storyline, forgetting about fragmentation grenades and online clashes.