Hey.

So the point of this thread is quite simple, if you have a game that you've been eyeballing for a while and still want to hear the opinions of fellow GoGers - just ask here. Simple, right?

The real reason for this thread is me wanting to hear about Syberia. I keep hearing great things about it, that it's starting to look fishy. I'd love to hear your opinions about it.

Feel free to use this thread for what is actually suggested in the second paragraph.

Skyrim - yay or nay?
(Loved Morrowind, hated Oblivion and FO3)
In particular, is the engine good? Quest design?

Yay, no explanation needed just yay

Don't have it, but this... kind of "let's play" video makes a good job at selling it. It's quite funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F84oQejFvss&feature=player_embedded

People, focus:

Syberia!

It's awesome, but you have to play part 2 to see the end of the story.

I saw Syberia in retail years ago, and I had my eye on it, but I never bought it. I picked up both parts on GOG, and it was worth it.

Syberia is an average point-and-click adventure game, and if I say average I don't mean that in a bad way, but whether you like it or not will depend on your usual preferences and expectations. I gave it three stars out of five, meaning it's quite a good game if you like adventures, and it certainly has its place on GOG, but it' might not be for everyone and isn't exactly spectatular or genre-defining, even though it has its own charm. It's got very nice graphics, a good soundtrack. decent voice-acting (although I can only judge the original French version), the gameplay is average, with some good puzzles and some rather annoying ones, and a little bit of backtracking. Story and setting are really a matter of taste, you could either consider them quite imaginative, quirky and lovable or rather boring.

All in all, I liked it and I didn't regret playing it, but I think you are right to be a little suspicious about the hype surrounding it. I recommend watching some gameplay video on youtube in order to find out if you'd enjoy it.

Syberia is very pretty to look at, but as a game, it sucks (note I say "a game" because it is, in fact, one game artificially split in two; the first part does not even have an ending). Adventure games can have two strengths, writing and puzzle design, and Syberia fails miserably in both aspects; the writing is dull as dishwater and the puzzles are average at best, dreadful at worst.

It came in the early years of the Great Adventure Game Drought, which is why people tend to overrate it. If you're desperate for an adventuring fix, it will do its job, but there are much, much better games to be found in this genre.

Huh, thanks for the answers. I have plenty of adventure games to play trough, I just thought this one was something extraordinary.

It could be, but only on a personal level. I can understand why some people love it, but that doesn't make it a must play for everyone.

I'm exactly the same as you. Loved Morrowind, hated Oblivion and FO3 (NV is much better). I'm not too far into Skyrim, but thus far it's in the middle. Not quite as good as Morrowind, but not nearly as bad as Oblivion. Actually it's more towards Morrowind imo. For instance, early in the game I died. There battles I had to avoid because I wasn't strong enough to win them yet, which never happened to me in Oblivion unless I played on the highest difficulty setting.

I have question regarding Master of Orion 3 and Empire Earth III and even Megarace 3. Do you honestly think the games are really bad if we not treat them as sequel, instead treat 'em as whole different games?

Even ignoring it as a sequel, MoO 3 is pretty damn bad from what I remember. I bought it not long after release, so I followed the modding scene for awhile. Fundamental systems in the game are broken/do not work right and even with the work of modders it was almost impossible to fix it. It also has an overall feeling of not being fun. It's just a tedious mess of a game.

But I'm sure there's someone out there that loves it and can defend it.

That's sound pretty bad. If the game are broken, then they have no excuse.

Even as a separate game, it's more of a spreadsheet simulator than a fun game. I played a lot of it when I was young, so I have no idea how broken/not broken the mechanics are, but it was just not fun. The only good thing I can say about it is that the different races were pretty unique. Pity that to get those they killed off a bunch of fan favourites. And redesigned the ones that were still around.