Allow me to introduce you to Doctor Phineas Waldolf Steel.  On the surface, Doctor Steel appears to be a humble mad scientist bent on world domination.  However, upon scratching that surface, what lies underneath reveals his true genius.  Though sufficiently and somewhat clinically described in Wikipedia and other media sources, the only way to truly understand Doctor Steel is to let him speak for himself, and you really should listen to him.

I’m in…  However, despite my clear and obvious motivations, I would like to continue discussing what makes Doctor Steel such an interesting individual.

This Victorian-era animation is clever, witty, and funny. Guaranteed satisfaction, or your money back. Hint: watch the credits.

Without a doubt, my favorite type of video game is Adventure.  Hours of hunting for the exact correct pixel to click on so that I can solve the friggin puzzle at last and move on with the plot.  I’ve played them for years, and I think I’ve played most of them, from King’s Quest on.  Most of us are now into Xbox 360 Xbox One modern gaming console 1st person shooters like Gears of War (including me), and the often-overlooked Adventure type of game is slowly dying out.  But, if you’re ever going to play an Adventure game, Syberia is the one to play.  It came out in 2002 and is simply the best game of its type ever produced, even today in 2022.

What might interest you is the game’s environment.  Beautifully rendered artful backgrounds, a clockwork train (it winds up), mechanical automatons, gears, springs, airships, dystopias, all presented in a well-thought-out and compelling story.  The game is challenging, but not so much that you need to turn to a walk-through.

Available for the PC, Original Xbox, and recently the Nintendo DS.  Play it on GameTap (or similar service), or get it and load it into a virtual machine like Microsoft’s VirtualPC or VMware.  Official home page with screenshots and videos: http://www.syberia-series.com/en/ [defunct]  Also, stay away from the sequel Siberia II, it wasn’t all that good.