Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers – 20th Anniversary Edition

Just as enjoyable as the original. Even more so!

Gabriel Knight is an excellent series and not least down to the quality of the original game. The first Gabriel Knight is my baseline when judging any point and click style game. The early version was created with little capabilities with regards to visuals etc, due to the infancy of the computing world at the time. This remake was well worth creating as it expands on what was already an excellent game. It is the same story but it feels like a whole new experience when playing the remake, so I would certainly recommend downloading and playing this if you enjoyed the original or would like to play a point and click style game with an excellent story. If you immerse yourself and play through the Gabriel Knight series, the stories will stay with you forever as they are so impactful. Check out the campaign for Gabriel Knight 4: http://chng.it/qsxxdx8Rtj I guarantee that if you complete the series, you will be very keen on a fourth game to be made!

It's an excellent remake, no doubt, and very faithful to the original (which I still have on CD). Graphics are the most obvious, switching out the original game's 2D sprites and background paintings with polygonal environments. You're still using a 2D interface, but the characters move more naturally, with greater detail and the graphics scale better at different resolutions. A definite step up. The interface is similar to the original, but with slight differences. I'm not really sure which is easier to use as both have some weaknesses and frustrations. Both are fine and work for a point and click adventure. The original UI felt more intuitive and responsive, but that might just be a subjective trick of mind. Where the game falls down is in the voice acting and music. The original game's score was far more powerful and I had hoped they would use the same music. In some areas, they redid the music using the same score, and in others, they just replaced the music with a dull generic instrumental. I guess they ran into rights issues or something. Not even the GK theme was rearranged and made worse. It lacks has the orchestral punch it should. The voice acting in the 20th anniversary remake is a huge disappointment. Where there was some criticism on release about Tim Curry's overly exaggerated Cajun drawl, it actually wasn't too bad and never broke and they had well known and experienced actors. Whoever they got to voice GK in the remake keeps slipping in and out of a British accent and comes off as stiff and flat even when it stays in character. Most of the other remake performances are equally as flat and lifeless. The only voice that matches the original in quality of the voice and the acting is the narrator. The Jamaican female narrator is spot on. It's a good recreation, but the original is better in all but graphics.

Great game

great