Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

This game is famous for being "groundbreaking," "the pinnacle of Sierra Adventure Games," "Enthralling story,"etc. I really wanted to agree and like this game. But I was disappointed. Story. The high point of this game is the story. It is very well written, and thoughtfully detailed. Once the game gets up and going, that's what drives this game. As another reviewer said, the first day of the game is a bit of a drag, being a lot of "click everywhere on everything for no particular reason." But after that first hump, the story is great. From there, things go downhill. Characters. Oh, how they were so close, and yet so far on this. It's clear a lot of effort was put into developing characters. The voice acting was superb. And yet, in the end it falls flat, because almost all the characters in this game are just crappy people. You don't like them, you don't want to root for them, and for gosh sake, you don't like walking around the entirety of this game hanging out with them. There's a little development/redemption by the end, but its so grating to get to that point, it ruins the entire game. Also, a note on voice acting. Whereas overall it's great, there were some aspects that really spoiled things. The accent Tim Curry gives Gabriel is so inauthentic, it breaks the suspension of disbelief every time he talks. And having a Monkey Island-like voodoo lady as the narrator makes it difficult to take the game seriously. Puzzles My favorite game of all time is King's Quest 5, so I'm not afraid of the occasional Sierra puzzle head-scratcher. But this game has some that are just over-the-top ridiculous. [SPOILER] There's literally a field where looking at the grass basically says, "nothing to see here", unless you look at the exact right blade of grass. And of course seeing a picture of a 3-headed dragon means all clocks you find should be set to 3:00 p.m. [/SPOILER] After that, things get more enjoyable. A good-enough game, but just that.

When I played GK1 long, long, long ago when it first came out - it was so immersive that it got me interested in wanting to visit NEW ORLEANS (which I've now done like six or seven times!) as well as got me interested in the history of Voodoo. The game does such a great job with the characters in the game; and the feel of everything. It's very easy to lose yourself in the game! I can't recommend this game enough! Murder! Mystery! And... zombies?

This is definitely the peak of Sierra's adventure games. After this things went pretty much downhill, with odd video experiments and confused projects. The storyline is brilliant, and the voice acting is surprisingly good for its age.

I already own it on CD (thought, do not know if it still works with modern Windows). Very fun and challenging. A "must get"

the GK series was always ahead of it's time in both storyline and character development. some of the puzzles may be a bit difficult for some but there are plenty of walkthroughs out there! combining the best of point and click adventure with an x files type of plot gabriel knight sins of the father is a joy to play i was lucky enough to play the original game 10 plus years ago and was delighted to see the game return thank you GOG now i wonder if they can secure the rights to the sequels.