Continuation of the legendary series of video games always interesting for many reasons. Firstly, it is possible to find out what happened to the main characters after the final credits of the previous game. Secondly, due to inevitable technological advances, games are becoming more impressive from a visual point of view. Thirdly, the players hope to re-experience long-forgotten emotions and get back to the favorite virtual world. But sometimes something goes wrong and instead of the long-awaited sequel we get something entirely unintelligible. A striking example of such failure is the game Syberia 3.
The first game series Syberia was born in 2002 thanks to the imagination of the Belgian artist Benoit Sokal, and to the efforts of members of the French Studio Microïds. 62-year-old Sokal once was one of the first artists who started to use the computer to paint their paintings and graphic novels. In 1999, he acted as lead designer of the quest Amerzone, won critical acclaim and even received a prestigious award PixelINA Award. Three years later, the light appeared the game Syberia, the plot of which tells about the adventures of brave American yuristkoy Kate Walker. The game was enthusiastically received by critics and won many awards, thus laying a solid Foundation for the creation of sequels.
The plot of their games Benoit Sokal comes up, borrowing elements of personal biography, in parallel, drawing inspiration from books, Newspapers, and even television programs. The current paragraph is not recommended to read if you have not passed at the time the first two games of the series, or just not afraid of plot spoilers. The leadership of a major law firm sends a talented employee Kate in the small Alpine town where she must sign a purchase agreement once famous toy factory, owned by the family of Vorarlberg. During the trip she meets a genius inventor Hans Voralberg, and being charmed by his world, decides to help him to realize a childhood dream: to find in the far East, the former USSR lost island of Siberia, where, according to the ancient legends, still live mammoths. During the first and second games, released in 2004, Kate Walker together with Hans and his helper automaton named Oscar trying to find the mysterious island. By the end of the game they do it, however, and Hans Vorarlberg, and Oscar, one after the other tragically killed. And Kate is left alone in a frozen wasteland.
No one was hoping that one day the continuation of the story of Kate Walker still sees the light. It seemed that the story was fully completed and this has been confirmed by himself Benoit Sokal. However, years later, the artist decided that he still has something to tell his fans. Or just the money of the person has ended – such a possibility I admit. Whatever it is, in 2009, it was announced the beginning of work on the triquel, the release of which was planned for 2010 for the two platforms: PC and PlayStation 3. At the stage of preparation for the development of Syberia 3, its creators encountered numerous difficulties. Aggravated the situation and buying in 2010, the Studio Microïds French publisher Anuman, who made confusion in the plans of developers.
In 2011 it became clear that the actual development of the game has not even started. Only in 2012, the Sokal has signed a contract with the new owner of the Studio and started to write a scenario for the future of the project. Presumably work on the game was to be completed by 2015, but the release date repeatedly postponed, meaning that Syberia 3 was born at the end of April 2017. The platforms on which the game came out, in the end, steel Windows, macOS, PS4 and Xbox One. In the near future Syberia 3 should also visit iOS, Android and even Nintendo Switch. After so many years and after several transfers, few believed in the success of the project. Especially considering that the game is so long dwelt in “production hell” where, as practice shows, successful units selected.
The plot of Syberia 3 begins where the end of the second game. Kate Walker freezes in the snow and it seems that it has nothing to save, but, fortunately, passes the caravan yukola – a mysterious Northern people living in incredible harmony with nature. Shaman Jukola with ancient rituals Kate returns to life, and then the tribe gives it to lost in the icy wilderness the clinic of Dr. Zamyatin. Kate wakes up in a hospital room and met with lying next to her young leader Jukola — Trigger. In an accident, the guy lost his leg, and now is undergoing rehabilitation, which will receive a brand new prosthesis and it will be released on all four sides.
But not so simple. It turns out that the chief of the clinic of doctor Yefimov works in conjunction with the evil Russian Colonel, the purpose of which is the destruction of a tribe of Jukola. And the main character is hunted by her former American employers from the first game who want to accuse the girl of all mortal sins and hang on to it a criminal case. After Kate manages to leave the walls of the clinic, she decides to help their rescuers to achieve their goal – namely, to make a pilgrimage to the place of breeding snow ostriches, which are the faithful companions of the people of Jukola for hundreds of years. Of the pilgrims way lies through the picturesque but dangerous land: the port city of Valcambi which has been frozen lake, in which lives a giant monster, an amusement Park in the city of Baranor affected by the explosion of one of the power units of the nuclear reactor (a blatant reference to Chernobyl and Pripyat), as well as through the sacred to a tribe of Jukola the river. And all the while our heroes are being chased by the Russian military in the best tradition of “Hollywood the cranberries”.
Let’s start with the fact that this game sold really well. First, it is a simple but quite interesting and logical plot. From the point of view of the Russian citizen the game somewhat spoil the “evil Russians”, are the main antagonists of Syberia 3. On the other hand, Kate and the tribe of Jukola interesting enough to keep players at the screen for 10-15 hours. Secondly, this is great music by the Israeli composer Inon Suhr, who owns the soundtracks of the games Icewind Dale 2, Syberia II, Prince of Persia, Crysis, Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Fallout: New Vegas, Dragon Age II and Fallout 4. Impressive list, isn’t it? Third, in the game you’ll meet very colorful characters. For example, the captain is an alcoholic, cowardly customs officer or a former champion of the Olympic games-80. They are all very interestingly written in the story of the game, but, again, are the clearest embodiment of the “cranberry” making fun of the Russian culture. Fourth, this is quite an interesting, albeit simple puzzles, common sense and do not require from the player to the presence of supernatural abilities. Fifth, the developers have tried to implement in their game approach, familiar to fans of adventure game Studio Telltale Games, when during the dialogues with NPC, you can make certain decisions affecting the attitude of the interlocutors to you. Any fatal consequences on the story, your actions do not have, but in principle, such a system is quite viable.
Read the previous paragraph? Perhaps this is all that is in the game is good. When playing the Sims 3, you are constantly on the verge of having to shut down this game and never again to her not to touch. Sometimes want to break your controller (I got the version for the PlayStation 4), throw the console out the window, to open a bottle of vodka and drink it at one gulp for the repose of the creativity Studio Microïds. By occupation, I often have to deal with a variety of games, sometimes very boring or abounding with bugs. But so outright schlock from the French, I just didn’t expect. The guys from Russian publisher Buka for the first time showed me the game last year in the framework of the exhibition “IgroMir” and even then, in my head crept into some doubts about the quality of the final product. “Surely this is just an alpha version”, I thought. And never guessed. The final version of the game has not become any better than what we were shown over six months ago. I even admit the probability that over the past months the game has become slightly worse.
Listing all the problems the Sims 3 would have taken me another two of the review, so I will try to highlight the most conspicuous and ears problem. First, it is very mediocre graphics, created based on the graphics engine Unity. Generally, this engine is in the right hands is capable of much. Recall, the game Ori and the Blind Forest, or the same INSIDE – good projects that just couldn’t fault it. In the case of the Sims 3, all very, very bad. Blurry textures, straight out of the early 2000s, a very rough three-dimensional models, nasty facial animation when the characters lose in artistry uncouth logs. You know, this is the case when you realize that the actors of the cheapest Russian TV series “about gangsters and investigators” are playing much better characters in the modern game. An extremely rare case.
The animation movements of the characters are no better than their wooden expressions. Kate moves as if in a dream, even when running. It turns into tiny objects lying on the floor, and climbing stairs is so hard that the head just POPs a scene from the show “Mr bean”, where he was on the stairs behind the old lady, descending at a speed of one step per minute. Compounding the situation is the fact that you constantly need to run from one location to another, and load the next location, and it takes about a minute (what’s shipping?). Seriously. I noted the time with a timer. Backtracking in this game is terrible, as nuclear war. Even more fun is when you see the slider on the loading screen at first, creeping forward and then back. With all this, the game is terribly slow almost everywhere: after loading a save, in the process of moving to locations and even in the menu. Sometimes the framerate drops ridiculously 3-5 frames per second. Given that the mediocre quality graphics, I just don’t know – how the developers have managed to achieve this “bottom”.
Some textures in the game are so low resolution that it’s simple interfere with a comfortable gameplay and even solving some puzzles. That you want to read the e-mail on the display of the discovered computer, but the font is so small and so badly blurred that it can be done with great difficulty, only came close to your TV screen (and I have a very nice TV). Such graphical issues in the game are a dime a dozen! For curve lighting and the wrong color on one puzzle I fought 20 minutes, though it was decided elementary. The shadows of characters and objects, then disappear, then appear abruptly again. Sometimes in the Sims 3 suddenly the night comes, and you literally can’t see straight, but the game, with enviable persistence continues to show you the plot saver in the pitch dark. Even the inventory in this game works badly. To find the desired object, you have to slowly scroll down the long list of moving reluctant.
My PlayStation 4 while playing Syberia 3 was heated literally “red hot” and howled cooler there loud that woke up the neighbors, and my cats hid under the sofa. This is surprising, given that incredibly beautiful game Horizon: Zero Dawn, where the hairstyle of the main character was given 100,000 polygons, the console is practically not heated. And here is probably the most detailed character pulls somewhere for a couple of thousand polygons. The funny thing is that the developers, I think, just decided to score the quality of the console version (I don’t know what eventually got the owners of the PC). In it, distorting everything. As the quality control Department was so obscene to carry out their duties? Where we watched the testers? Hoped for Benoit Sokal and producers? To go to the popularity of the previous two games and to make some quick money? When you sell to people so poor quality product, no past achievements won’t save you from the barrage of criticism. Once the game is stupidly stuck at the time when I was looking at a picture on the wall. Seriously? The game is tightly chopped off my game controller and ran in a circle an endless loop of the animation, out of which I could only start playing from the last save.
Quality voice acting and subtitles of dialogues of characters to match their animation. And abused people not only in the domestic dubbing the game, but original English. The young leader Jukola is voiced by an adult (judging by his voice) man, and an elderly patient at the clinic – a young girl. Further – more. The characters are confusing emotional phrases, intonation, and sometimes the words themselves. The localization process is very difficult, I understand that perfectly, so when he was translating the game on Russian language. But in Siberia 3 localizers “kicked ass” in full. I haven’t seen in games text errors from the category of “ll” and “sterile”, mixed up nouns and pronouns, the wildest differences in the text of the subtitles and voice acting. In General, you just want to close my eyes, plug your ears and a little moment of silence. What can I say about the game, in which even the final credits transferred with errors?
But this is not the end of the criticisms of the team responsible for localization. Sometimes the phrases are cut off in mid-sentence, and you just don’t understand what the character wanted to say. And sometimes, when a proposal has been fully voiced, the character continues for a few more seconds in silence to speak to you about something, actively moving his lips. The worst thing of all was that in-game dialogue is impossible to skip or speed up. Especially painful is when hovering after the game, you have to listen to a long dialogue in the second round. And I would like to criticize the French developers behind the fact that as long as you choose one of the options in the dialog, your computer the person begins natural and very angrily yelling at you to get you thinking quicker. It’s just a horrible, disgusting solution, Deplete the already suffering from many problems.
Pros:
- The plot of the game is able to please fans of the original novels.
- In Sims 3 you will meet some very colorful characters.
- Puzzles are logical and mostly fun.
- Music composer Inon Zura creates an amazing atmosphere.
- The dialogue system looks pretty interesting.
Cons:
- Catastrophic optimization of the game spoils everything.
- Buggy game camera often stormy.
- Throughout the game you will chase the brake and friezes.
- Mediocre graphics and fuzzy textures.
- Terrible facial animation of the characters and their movements.
- It is impossible to skip dialogues and cutscenes.
- Unpredictable lighting.
- And again to blame the evil Russians.
- Disgusting management.
- A lot of mistakes in Russian translation.
- Serious problems with the voice acting.
Game Syberia 3 does not save any familiar to lovers of quests, the name of, nor involvement in the development of the famous artist Benoit Sokal, nor the numerous attempts to play on the nostalgic feelings of the fans of the franchise. This project is able to bring to the tantrums, even the most balanced and calm person. The game should be put in museums as an example of how IN ANY CASE do NOT NEED to continue once wonderful adventure. I’m afraid that Syberia 3 will not help nor patches, nor even an apology developers. The credibility of the series was seriously and permanently damaged. I even know a few fans of the original novels who purchased Syberia 3, and the next day tried to sell it for half the price. If only to never see this nightmare. In the final game it becomes clear that sooner or later the light will be a continuation of the story of Kate Walker, but I want to believe that “such continued” I never in my life will not see. Put the game 4 points out of 10.
Game overview the Sims 3: the third pancake is always lumpy
Sergey Grey