The game begins with a very well animated piece of CG, and it sets the scene well. You, Kate Walker, arrive in Valadilene, a remote part of France to see a funeral procession lead by an automaton marching slowly in the rain. After watching the entourage pass, you arrive at your hotel exhausted, unable to lift your bags, and it is here that you first learn about the puzzles in the game.

In order to call the proprietor of the hotel, you need to activate the automaton residing on the front desk. It is a simple task, requiring you to insert a key and press a button in order to ring a bell. This is the sort of level of puzzle solving throughout the game.

Now that you've reached your room, you can begin adventuring. You discover that Kate's mission is to secure the sale of the Voralberg factory; unfortunately, Anna the owner of the factory was the resident of the coffin you watched entering the church. Things are no longer going to be simple.

You learn that Anna has a long lost brother who was assumed to have died many years ago. In order to secure the sale of the factory, you must find Hans. His whereabouts is unknown, and it is your task to locate him to make the sale, and subsequently, make your boss happy.

The first hour or so of the game, as with many adventures, is a little slow. It is not until you become familiar with the environments and story that you begin to enjoy the game. Syberia can be a lonely experience at times, with very few characters to interact with and whilst this is consistent with the story line, it doesn't make for a particularly engrossing environment at first. The story does become interesting though, and keeps you wanting to progress through the game, so long as you persevere.

The characters you come across are interesting to talk to, but the voice acting that accompanies them range from average to very poor. The emotions of the characters are not particularly well portrayed, and can often sound angry when really they shouldn't. It's not all bad; Kate for the most part is well acted, though her boyfriend Dan would have been dumped long ago for his tiresome whining.

A good deal of the communication, and therefore information gaining, is
achieved via your mobile phone. You will receive and make a lot of calls to
various people, including your mother, to let them know about your progress. It is advisable to turn the subtitles on in the options as these calls can often sound a little muted, making you miss what is being said.

You will spend a lot of time walking between locations, though Kate can run if you hold down the X button on the controller (advisable). The loading times are reasonably fast, so transitions from one location to another are not too disjointed. The position of Kate on the screen can range wildly from where you enter though, and often takes you by surprise. This can lead to you walking off the screen to your previous location if you're not careful.

Movement can be awkward; sometimes it is very difficult to work out exactly where the exits of a screen are, and often causes you to miss locations you are required to visit. Likewise, finding objects you can interactive with can be somewhat frustrating as items are selected by Kate's proximity and position. If two items are quite close together, it can be all but impossible to turn and select the one you want. You end up having to walk away and come back at a different angle in order to highlight it. This is particularly irksome when dealing with Oscar in the train you'll eventually travel on, as you will discover, though once you get used to it, it's not as bad.

As you progress through the game you will acquire objects you need in order to solve the puzzles you encounter. Kate has an amazing jacket which can store huge items. At one point you'll pick up a two foot piece of wood broken off from a lever. Quite where Kate manages to place this is a question probably best left to the imagination.

Interaction with the puzzles involves selecting an item from your inventory and clicking on the screen where the cursor changes. This is fairly typical of point and click adventures; here the puzzles are reasonably logical so trial and error is less of an issue. The cursor shows where Kate can interact with the environment, though sometimes it can be a little unclear as the cursor is quite small. It could really have done with changing colour to make things more obvious.

Graphically there is little to complain about. The backdrops are well rendered and colourful, very lush and well animated. Interaction with the environment is somewhat sparse though; Kate only ever casts a shadow, never a reflection, making the backgrounds merely a presentation thing. This isn't a major criticism as they really suit the game, and it is typical of this genre. Animations change if you do something to alter them via a puzzle, and this is reflected through all screens as needed.

The atmospherics of the game are really emphasised by the background sounds and music. Kate's footsteps change depending on what surface she is walking on, and the environments have the acoustics you'd imagine. The music can be somewhat dramatic at times, even if the action isn't, but it isn't out of place and is well scored.

Something that mars the experience somewhat is a very annoying bug. It is possible to arrive in a screen and for Kate to get stuck there; making it is advisable to save your game reasonably often. If you don't, you will find yourself having to reload and repeat whatever it was you were doing previously, and as there is a lot of walking involved, it can be particularly irritating at times.

Overall though, the experience is refreshing and for the most part enjoyable, so long as you're prepared to endure the first hour or so of the game. This makes Syberia a slightly above average adventure for your Xbox.