Very nice game, but German version flawed

Syberia has increasingly convinced me playing - and despite the weaknesses to which I have come down. Emphasis should be on the one hand the very beautiful story of something yuppiehaften New York lawyer Kate Walker, which comes in a sleepy village in the French Alps, to regulate the acquisition of a (very interesting) factory by a group, and is involved in an adventure, they lead to a bizarre journey to the east. The initially rather cool Kate is always more fascinated by her first alien world of the craft, the nostalgia and the family ties on which they met here, while rather alienated from their previous life and her career. I do not want to reveal too much, but the development of the story and the main character is well done and round; the sequence of places really gives the impression of an exciting journey into the unknown and an adventure.

The graphic design is consistently beautiful and visionary, the darkly whimsical buildings and scenery reminiscent of endearing, a little to the style of the film director Tim Burton ("Big Fish," "Corpse Bride," "Edward Scissorhands", etc.), with no place so are alike and the atmosphere is changing during the trip, of course. It's always fun to explore new places.

On the way Kate encounters a number grumpy characters with endearing little mysteries. The game shows here an impish sense of humor, the smile a smile again and leaves. However, is not a "perfect world" drawn - personal crises and problems that have quite a realistic note, occur as well as several fractures and dislocations in the history of the 20th century.

But here I must unfortunately come at a significant point of criticism, which, however, not the game itself, but the German language version concerns: While Kate's German voice is still largely ok, many of the secondary characters are spoken just amateurish. The dialogues are good and also the written documents that appear in the game are well translated, but the speakers are largely a disaster, so that I often "fast forward" in dialogs when I realized that no important information more coming. Ideally, it should be fun to listen to the figures, a bit like in a movie, but here it was in many cases the contrary annoying. Some speakers are at a level between amateur and puppet theater, which acts wannabe funny and tears out of the story. I always find it annoying if you a successful game in itself is doing something, after all, it should not be too difficult to engage some actors, who need not be yes Stars. (At least) one of the speakers is how to clearly hear, doubly occupied. For this, the sound is still poorly laid out, because if a figure the other interrupts, which happens often, you always about one second pause between the two. The first interrupts so de facto himself, as if he knew that he is equal interrupted. This is certainly the fact that the speaker is not recorded individually in the dialogue, but what some common and not necessarily bad is also in radio plays - but really you'd have to cut it then already. Oh, and sometimes the music in relation to a speaker is too loud, so it is difficult to understand. This is all the more annoying because the information is partly important for the run of play in his text.

I would like to switch the sound to the original version. This request would actually come to meet that can be switched on German subtitles - but it is no other than the German soundtrack included, which makes the subtitles for the most players meaningless.

Smears, there is also also the gameplay. Mostly are the paths that must bring Kate behind him, too long. The first and second time when you walk the path, that's even ok, because the scenes are beautiful and because such a game anyway should not play if you are too impatient. But sometimes you have to stop a few times in an adventure run and play around back and forth, and if too much time passes in blunt Click and wait, the game suffers. The problem aggravated a little by the fact that Kate seems to have a problem with stairs - it always takes a while to put themselves at the right angle to the stairs and climb then what sometimes looks as if it were a old woman who is slow in their movements and afraid to fall.

Despite these shortcomings gameplay I would have four stars (four more plus) where, because the strengths of the game then are so convincing and engaging again. But (at least) one star I have to pull this German version, which is half-hearted and amateurish in parts and the game does not do justice.

All in all, at least I found "Syberia" as I said a very nice adventure, beautiful enough then to get me the same Syberia II - in English.