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

It feels like a classic adventure game, like the kind you don't get much of anymore. I did not play the original (I played the second one, though never finished it) so this is my first time experiencing the story and I loved it. It's got a few puzzles that are a bit difficult, but there's a hint system to help push you in the right direction, which is a welcome addition. Failure is handled pretty well - you won't lose much progress if you die or fail. The graphics are great, the voice acting is mostly good, at worst it's tolerable. Sound and music are often great as well. There are some bugs, mostly graphical - I had characters spin around in place or have their torsos flip while not moving their legs, but overall nothing major and nothing that prevented me from enjoying the game. Generally it feels quite polished and runs very well. I highly recommend if you like puzzles and a punchy murder-mystery-supernatural story, there's a bit of tragedy, romance and action, something for everyone, as it were.

Gabriel Knight was one of the first games I played start to finish as a kid, and one I've always remembered fondly. Never knew they made a remake until I saw it on sale recently, decided I'd pick it up for an hour or two of nostalgic fun. Nine hours later I'm hunting down the same voodoo cultists I did nearly 30 years ago, and loving every minute of it.

It's easy to sneer at remakes when you compare them to memories of the first time (like much of life, erm, best leave that there). It has all the story and brilliant characters of the original, who doesn't love Grace's sarcasm, just now with graphics updated beyond the era of the spud. Now, please, for the love of God, remake GK2 in the same way (yes, I know it will be tricky because of the live-action, but it REALLY needs doing because the story is even better than GK1).

They changed the voices and they destroyed the atmosphere. Usual crappy "phoenix online studios" quality, similar to the recent "Moebius" trainwreck. Gabriel Knight sins of the fathers is one of my favourite adventure games of all time, but this is not the way to play it. Get the original one that runs fine under DosBox (which is also available on GoG btw), and experience this game the way it was supposed to be.

Ok there are rave reviews all around on this game. Firstly this game is a classic and the remake tries to improve on this. But getting past all of that I find the main protagonist un-likable . . . . He comes across as a sleezy sex starved creep, to the point that I want his dream to come true (the intro nightmare). I feel a game especially a point and click adventure game needs to have a likable main character that one can connect with or at least like to some degree. The protagonists voice over is short of horrible in respects to my above mentioned comments, maybe the voice artist is actually really goo to the point of conveying his slimeball-ness. I am struggling to get past this and for that reason alone I give it 2 stars. I have read that others recommend to play the original, which I am installing at this moment. However for this remake I give this a thumbs down. Sorry I can not force myself to like the game beyond the main character. I will play the original and see if my tune changes and will write a review there based on my findings. For now this game is uninstalled. This is only my opinion as I am sure if you can get past Gabriel you will enjoy the game.