Gabriel Knight Review - GamersHell.com

I doubt there's been any adventure game that's made me more pissed than GK1. When I had my good ol' pentium 75 I tried at many occations to install and play this game, but for some reason which I do not know it would not work. The other day when I was checking out some of my oldies I decided I should give it a try on my new K7 650, and luckily it worked. One thing that sort of annoys me is when you have to change to 256 colors, it's probably because the windows version uses WinG libraries (the stuff that was used before directx) and it probably found out that it should piss off every single person who could afford the luxury of more colors. ANYWAYS, after having installed the game and watched a somewhat strange intro the game starts off in some strange office. As a matter of fact it looks a little like the room you start in in Indiana Jones 4, you know; brick walls, loads of books, strange artifacts and symbols, and a general mess. Before you can actually play you hear you secretary taking a message and babbling about some. But then, Gabriel opens his mouth, and that's when the shit hit the fan, so to speak. When I tried GK3 some time ago I got totally pissed off at the voice that the character had, a real wannabe southern accent that really pissed me off. I did think that that was just something they had slapped in there, and that you had a normal voice in GK1, but no. Sadly you're left with a guy who's voice in my opinion does not fit the requirements for a modern computer game hero. Shame on you Sierra.

I suppose the box hype might clear things up a little:
"You are Gabriel Knight, the last born of a long line of phantom Shadow Hunters. You started out writing a book on voodoo and you are now fighting for your very soul. As night falls, the nightmares begin. Evil, supernatural forces take possession of your body. You must fight against a curse stretching many many centuries. Keep a level head every moment while you explore the avenues and dark back alleys of New Orleans in search of the key to unlock the buried secrets of the past."

The secretary I wrote about earlier is there because you're the owner of a bookshop called St. George's Bookshop, Grace being Gabriel's secretary by the way.

What I really liked about this game is that it's more..., "serious". I mean games like Leisure Suit Larry are really funny and all, but not many are meant to be scary etc. Another thing is the difficulty of the game, which is higher than your average game.. You see now you get to translate stuff, listen to tapes from people you've interrogated, and basicly forcing you to think more. If only they could have put in a different voice and the game would be in my opinion really great. Speaking of voices, the secretary's voice sounds like Daria on MTV so if you like her then you'll like the secretary.

While looking at the box now I saw that the voices are of professional Hollywood dudes including Tim Curry (Gabriel (you are on the top of my hit list, j/k)) and Mark Hamill (Mosely (Cool!))

The storyline is really sophisticated and does beat a whole lot of films I've seen, alot of exciting gameplay guaranteed by yours truly.

The Graphics:
Really above average. It really seems like they've put alot of work into the graphics. You also have some cinematic events where they actually used 3d Studio, which was state of the art back then, so kudos for that. I must say that I'm greatly impressed by the artwork, so if you buy the game you should definatly have a look at the 20 min movie about how they made the game.

The Sounds:
You know by now what I think about the voices (especially 1 in general), but besides that you have huge amounts of sound effects that really sound great. They give the game realism and depth.

The Music:
Synthesizer made midi music by a professional artist makes a really scary mood, good work (even though I'm a sucker for the old adlib/sound blaster music).

The Gameplay:
Mostly regular point and click interface, but it is changed at some places such as the dialog, the interface in general, and that you now have text while there is action on the screen (which according to the how-they-made-the-game movie made the lead programmer puzzled. The final product works great so kudos to him).

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