Syberia

Shockingly beautiful even now in the mid '20s -- like an 0.7 on the RE Remake scale. The writing and voice acting and the punishingly slow movement across a ton of rather long screens did not hold up nearly as well.

A straightforward adventure with "puzzles" and "eccentric characters" of the sort fans of the genre know well, delivered a tad easily and slowly, for better or worse. Where it shines is in the settings, as each stop along the way takes you to a new, attentively-drawn fantasy of a lonely, forgotten little world that might have been. Is the writing really as evocative as the art? Well, maybe not, but it does give reason enough to keep following along and see what you're after.

Top badass moment? The chance to explore my feminine side. I think I did pretty well, dealing with so many people who could easily have a second career as the annoying 'nutter on the bus'. I also seemed to be surrounded by incredibly self-centred people; my mother, best friend, boss and that needy, narcissistic asshole of a boyfriend, Dan. Even Oscar, the driver of the most unreliable train this side of South Western Railways, was a bit too full of himself. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.

I haven't finished this, so don't know if the story would redeem the score somewhat, but I didn't enjoy the gameplay.