It's a rare gem like "Syberia" that reminds me why I absolutely adore my GameTap subscription. If not for GT I may never have known Aveyond even existed, or Return to Mysterious Island. But I fell in love with those games, just as I now have Syberia. It reminded me a LOT of The Longest Journey, the prequel to Dreamfall. Just to give you a quick idea and mental image. The control style was exactly the same and the graphics were about the same as well in quality.

You're Kate Walker, a rather self assured lawyer from America who's just arrived in Valadilene, a very small industrial tourist town in the french alps.
It's business as usual as you settle in and prepare to close a sales deal of a toy/automaton factory for your firm and gruff boss "Mr. Marson" back home in New York.

The steam punk addition to a rather current feeling atmosphere worked out brilliantly. Rusty brass looking robots seem to be implemented into everything. Gates, entry ways, machinery, vehicles, and even as stand alone androids. The tiny cogs, gears, and mechanisms were so interesting to me. It's all so clangy and clunky and rustic. I liked it more than I thought I would.

You end up with a huge problem on your hands. The woman who was to finalize the sale with you, Anna Voralberg, has died two days before your arrival. A brother she "had" would have been the heir but he was believed by everyone to have been dead for decades. The deal should have closed smoothly even without Anna's presence. But things never are that simple. Just before Anna's death, she confides to a close source that her brother, Hans, is still quite alive. And thus, quite the heir. And also, quite... nowhere to be found.

Beginning, I always felt a bit lost. NOTHING was very explanatory, even things that should have been and I was constantly retracing my steps. Sometimes I would have to revisit an area ten times over before figuring out what I'd missed. And I rock at point and click adventures. This one has a rough start though and Kate's movement speed could have been much faster. You spend a lot of time just watching Kate slowly jog across your screen from one point+click destination to another. Luckily, the story was capturing me. The slow running Kate was a small price to pay when I just had to know what would happen next. The voice acting was also impressive. As usual, they (as in point and click adventure game creators in general) chose ever so wisely Kate's voice and I was soothed and lulled every time she spoke. Much like I was by Zoe Castillo's voice in Dreamfall. *drools*

Running up and down cobble stone roads, wondering if she'll ever get home, helping a poor unfinished automaton get a pair of legs. I was feeling a bit like Dorothy on her way to OZ for a bit there. Once you get on the train with Oscar the automaton you've helped, the real fun begins.

At face value it's a woman just trying to do her job getting the run around from everyone. Underneath, which is where I really like to look, it's so much more. Everything from her gradual change in attitude, to her new found obsessions and curiosities, to the phone calls from home.... you begin to see the changes in Kate. Many of us "think" we want to wake up and go to work and just do what we do to make our living, but as Kate shows us, we would all give anything for a normal routine day to turn into a great and unexpected adventure.

Along the way, Kate begins to reflect and realize the REAL reason she's still overseas on the never ending chase to find Hans. It's not really because of her job, or because she needs to do it to keep her boss happy. It's because she wants to be there. She seems to thrive on the mystery of it all. And she becomes more and more spirited every step of the way. She bonds with a few supporting characters and a new adventurous Kate seems to help and inspire them. Something you just know she probably hasn't done for anyone in years of living in NY. You really get a good feel for how she's changed when her friend Olivia calls with some bad news. Olivia who has sporadically called to check up on her dear friend Kate has slept with Kate's fiance Dan after getting too tipsy with him one evening. And Kate finds it difficult to care. She's in the midst of a fantasy that is somehow her reality and it means more to her than the hum drum dead end bull back in NY, including Olivia and Dan. And who would need them anyway when you've got Oscar the eccentric automaton or Madame Romanski the old feisty russian opera singer. Or Professor Pons the paleontologist. And finally a dream to chase that doesn't seem to make sense. Hans.

I knew I was getting close to the end of the game. I played as much as possible and was hours into day three. All at once though it was upon me. Back in Aralbad and it's snowing.. and Oscar's acting a bit peculiar... and a bit sentimental. Some last words are shared with Madame Romanski and she, as well as her nurse automaton James, hint that I should go out to the pier. So I do. And there he is. Hans. A homeless looking old man who converses like a child due to a head injury when he was little. And suddenly he signs the sales form without a thought and Mr. Marson calls conveniently and Kate assures him everything is just perfect now. It's back to NY asap. I was literally thinking to myself "No... no.. no" this isn't right. After all the times Kate had said she'd miss Oscar, and after all that trouble to find Hans... only to speak with him for maybe five minutes. But that was it, and Kate headed for the small plane at the end of the pier, Hans heading for Oscar and the train to head on yet even more adventure. The cutscene shows the unsure expression on Kate's face and just when you think you're about to hate the game forever over it's ending, Kate spins around and starts running back along the pier. She runs inside the hotel and nearly slips, knocking over a chair, running as fast as she can. She makes it out the front to the train station and the train is just leaving. She runs along the side and you get Hans' point of view from inside, watching her try to catch it. And she does. And you get a clear sense that she won't be heading home ANY time soon. Nor will Mr. Marson, Mom, Dan, or Olivia be hearing from her for a long, long time. Call me a baby but this cutscene was so beautiful and the notion that Kate would choose Hans, Oscar, the wind up SP train, and more adventure over New York just made me burst into tears.

Loved it. I've played a LOT of games this month and last month... go figure an old point and click from 2002 that hardly anyone has even heard of takes the cake as far as I'm concerned. It's overwhelmingly sad that because of how unpopular this type of adventure game has become, creators can hardly pool the funding to make them. It's a miracle we even got Dreamfall. In a society who is so jaded they won't even read a fucking book anymore, you'd think a game that is pretty much an interactive novel with non-stop pictures and chapters you can actually hear would be clamored for. I just don't get it.

Is it too late to say ***spoiler alert*** ? Hehe.