As adventure games go, Syberia II is hardly groundbreaking. Almost identical in look and feel to its excellent PC/PS2 predecessor, it picks up the story of New York lawyer Kate Walker (that's you by the way) and the stereotypically eccentric shocl-haired inventor Hans Voralberg, who's looking for the mystical woolly mammoth-inhabited island of Syberia which, he claims, is somewhere north of Russia.

Hoping desperately that the old loon isn't just suffering from a chronic bout of senile dementia, you set off by train to help him look for this so- called glacial paradise, stopping off at a series of rather isolated and often slightly sinister locations along the way.

Each area is packed full of brain-teasing puzzles. These usually charge you with wandering around, interacting with colourful though badly acted characters and finding objects - some of which are harder to track down than a virgin porn star - that can be used to solve each problem.

Sadly, the quality of the puzzles falls well short of the first game's superbly crafted conundrums, with many feeling rather arbitrary and subsequently too detached from the main thrust of the story.

The plot also fails to impress, and never manages to reach the magical heights of Syberia's captivating yarn, at times feeling like a poor man's Tim Burton movie on acid. However, there's still just about enough quality shining through to make you want to push onto the next part of the game.

Syberia II teems with fairly attractive and intelligently imagined locales, though taking in the sights is made unnecessarily clumsy thanks to some hideously unresponsive controls and ludicrous movement restrictions. Kate might be able to tell you what a Deposition is, but ask her to walk over a tree root and she'll display the intelligence of a professional halfwit. Who dropped out of school. When they were six.

Ultimately, this is the type of game that'll probably only appeal to a select few. If you're after a slow-paced, puzzle-packed experience with a half-decent story and plenty of characters with which to converse and interact, then Syberia II is just about worth a look, especially if you've played its superior predecessor and want to know how the story ends. But if you prefer more bang for your buck, then we suggest sticking with Halo 2, Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II and reputable Dutch brothels instead.

1. Solid if unspectacular visuals are let down by your frustratingly clumsy and limited movement in many of the locations.
2. Countless puzzles that challenge your grey matter, though many feel a little too detached from the main plot.
3. Poor voice acting often cheapens the otherwise well-imagined characters. Pity.
4. The quirky story is entertaining enough, but pales in comparison to that of the first game.

1. Kate can be very hard to manoeuvre and often gets trapped behind small objects or undulations

Well presented, but sometimes irksome and lacking the quality and depth of its predecessor.