Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

As someone who got into adventure gaming through the Myst series, Gabriel Knight was a wholly different and a wonderfully welcome experience. What Sins of the Fathers lacked in graphical beauty it more than made up for in immersiveness and gameplay, with an engaging plot set in a lively world that almost made me feel like I was really there in New Orleans. In hindsight of the terrible tragedy that befell that city in 2005, seeing the city through the lens of someone in 1993 leaves this game as something of a postcard from the colourful city as it was. Puzzle solving is actually fun, and fits within the logical flow of the game and your character. Compared to my experience with Riven and the Journeyman Project games, where the puzzles (as beautiful as they were) were almost arbitrary in their solutions at times, the methodology to solving the puzzles makes a lot of sense if you put yourself more and more in the shoes of Gabriel. That takes a lot of the frustration out of this genre of gaming which has usually left me leaving many games with a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm working my way through this game using the latest stable version of Boxer on Mac OS X (sadly, the latest 1.0 alphas choke on the video sequences, and don't mount the game's GOG disk image properly; installation was done through CrossOver Games, though the installers also work in Darwine), and I'd heartily recommend this title for any Mac user -- or any gamer for that matter -- looking for a true gem that's also a true value. For a game which delivers such a stellar experience, easily runs on older hardware on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux through DOSBox, and is only $5.99, how could you possibly lose?

Wanted to play the first Gabriel Knight game for a long time, and now I finally got it from a sale on GOG. I'm like 15 minutes in playing it and I am already horribly annoyed by the narrator. Especially, when clicking around stuff to interact with, I'm listening a loop of "Gabriel has..", "Gabriel won't..", "Gabriel this and that..." all over again. Oh man is the lazy voice actor killing my experience here. Same goes for the voice actor of Gabriel. Man does he not know how to put effort in it. It's like anybody reading a line from a paper with as monotonically as possible without any intent to deliver any emotions or such. I am really hoping that I can still enjoy this game, but I'm almost afraid that I have to buy the remake and give it a shot, because this is really hitting me under the belt with the input in audio department.

I really enjoyed this game. It has excellent writing; I particularly enjoyed all the research that went into Voodoo and how detailed it was in the game itself. It shows that the subject matter was taken seriously and the result is that everything feels more real as you play. As to the puzzles, I largely enjoyed those as well. There are a few that are arguably a bit too abstract though and that can be a little frustrating. It's hardly enough to stop me from recommending the game and it wasn't enough to make it unenjoyable either, so I would highly recommend this. The voice work is excellent, the writing is great, I liked all the characters, and it's a lot of fun to go sleuthing around. I can definitely see how it inspired other games in the same genre.

For a 26 year old game Gabriel Knight holds up incredibly well. Cycling between the many different action icons in hopes of finally executing the correct interaction and a few insane late game puzzles mar the overall experience, but New Orleans is beautifully realized. The composition, characters, and story are all wonderful. Navigating the voodoo underworld is fascinating. The back and forth between Gabriel and his assistant Grace is always entertaining, definitely one of the highlights. Uncovering the deeper lore within the game was what drew me in the most and it didn't disappoint. I would certainly recommend this one, even if you have to look up some hints now and then.

Managed to play this game for the first time in 2020 and it brings back all those classic vibes from the King's Quests and Space Quest's I grew up on. The game feels more like dialogue puzzles versus inventory puzzles, but its still excellent. Only gripes I have are: - The classic Sierra random deaths/dead ends. SAVE OFTEN AND DON'T OVERWRITE. - A few of the puzzles are absolute nonsense, but FAQs are *mostly* helpful enough. - The pixel art is a bit washed out, so identify objects in scenes can be difficult at times. - Lastly, I encountered some weird speed issues where Gabriel would move at a snails pace upon loading some scenes which was just a drag, (probably just a modern software glitch so nothing against the game). Still, pretty par for Sierra's best games as well. Overall, absolutely worth playing if you enjoy the classic pixel art and any of the Quest games. You will not be disappointed. I find myself searching for other detective/mystery point and clicks after finishing this one. It certainly left a mark! *Also, super cool to hear some Hollywood voice over talent!