This will be an honest review that tells you the truth: this game is not the real Gabriel Knight. I love the first/original/real Gabriel Knight game from 1993. That is one of the best adventure games of all-time. The 1993 game nailed the #1 most important feature of Gabriel Knight: the tone. The 1993 game has a tone of gritty, terrifying horror. Its world is dark, murky, and depressing. Those are the traits that Gabriel Knight's theme demands. This 20th anniversary remake from 2014 utterly ruins the original's tone. In the remake, the world is no longer dark, gloomy, and horrific. Instead, it looks like it belongs in a different universe, such as Barbie or My Little Pony. The remake version's colors are always super bright, rainbow-y, sunshine-y, and happy. Obviously, that is fatal to the theme of Gabriel's Knight story, which is a supposed to be a creepy murder mystery that centers on voodoo and demonic spirits. The bright tone also undermines the central premise of Gabriel's character: he is a lonely insomniac who is overwhelmed with financial problems. Here is an example of how this remake wrecks the tone. In the remake's park scene, one of the narration's lines is: "people seem to be enjoying themselves despite the lack of sunshine." While that line displays as text (and/or is read by the narrator character), the game’s graphics contradict it absolutely. The graphics represent the world's most super sunshine-y day. The remake version also ruins the #2 most important feature of Gabriel Knight: voice-acting. The original game featured legendary actor Tim Curry as Gabriel, and other characters were also played by top tier actors like Mark Hamill and Michael Dorn. The remake replaces all of them, mostly with bad actors. Instead, they could have literally just copy & pasted the voice files from the original into the remake. In conclusion, the real Gabriel Knight is nowhere to be found in the 2014 remake version.
Painkiller is the Greatest FPS Game of All-Time! I am not exaggerating. I mean that statement 100% sincerely. The Black Edition has everything you need: the original base game, and also its expansion pack called Battle Out Of Hell. Both of those games were made by the original developer (named People Can Fly), and both are masterpieces. You don't need any Painkiller games that came after Black Edition, because they are all trainwrecks that were not made by the original developer. This review is only about the Black Edition - the one you really want! :) Some reviews have criticized Painkiller for its repetitive gameplay. This makes no sense to me. Painkiller is actually much *less* repetitive than all other FPS games. For example, here is an accurate summary of 99.9% of the gameplay of Doom 3: enter a dark & cramped & generic-looking room on a space station, shoot the imp who facing you, then turn around and shoot the two imps who have spawned behind you, then walk into the next room, which is identical to the room which you just left, then repeat the process again...until you've done it a few thousand more times and beat the game, or fell asleep wayyyyy before then (Doom 3 literally put me to sleep since it is so boring). Painkiller is the exact opposite of everything I said about Doom 3. In fact, Painkiller is the true Doom 3. Painkiller is overloaded with unique monsters and environments. Every level is crafted exquisitely so that in each part of the game, you always discover new scenery and enemies that you haven't seen before. Everything is always beautiful, yet also creepy & horrific. Painkiller also brings back the run-&-gun style of gameplay that was present in Doom I and Doom II, but which Doom 3 abandoned for awful, snail-paced, crawl-&-gun gameplay. Painkiller is also infinitely better than every Call of Duty game put together. I would tell you why, but my review has run out of space. In summary, Painkiller is the best!
