A highly worthy remaster of one of my favourite adventure games. Improved visuals and lighting, new music, quality of life improvements etc. For those of you who weren't happy with the minor line rewrites for Bosco in the first season, none have been changed this time, though Ogie Banks continues as the new Bosco. Ogie does an great job carrying the spirit of the character in this season, clearly settling into the role. I feel like this is not something worth complaining about - the fact that so many negative reviews are crying about this is so strange to me. (The original Bosco VA, Joey Camen, is still in the game as Jimmy Two-Teeth!) I can't wait to see what Skunkape does with The Devil's Playhouse, since that season was a whole different vibe. I imagine it might take a bit longer to come to fruition, so in the meantime, I'm happy to get back into the games that made me fall in love with the genre. This season is probably my favourite of all the Sam & Max games - there's just so much to enjoy, from Santa Claus, to zombies to time travel and even to hell itself. Such a funny, wonderful game. So yes, highly recommended. Ignore the reactionary 'censorship' weirdos - most of them clearly haven't played this release and have no plans to.
The original Gabriel Knight is probably, in my opinion, one of the greatest games ever made. It had an excellent story, great gameplay and very memorable music, not to mention an amazing host of voice actors who all played their roles brilliantly. So the remake? It's really good. It does its best to take the 1993 hit and modernise it, and I'd say it succeeds. It's no easy task to recreate something which had 90s design philosophy in it. Many people criticised the Monkey Island remakes - but really they were no different from the originals. Anyway, the remake to me looks really nice. I like the backgrounds especially, they are beautiful, and with several new screens, New Orleans looks even prettier than before. The character models are decent enough, definitely an improvement over Moebius' characters. The animations are a little jerky at points though, which isn't a major issue but still noticeable. The voice acting - put simply - is not the original voice cast. Every character has been recast, and I can understand why. Curry in GK3 was not great at all, and that was only 6 years after GK1. It's clear he would never have been able to do the new voice well. On the other hand, the new Gabriel is fine. Sounds accurate to Curry's GK1 Gabe and in some areas actually sounds a lot more believable. Curry's voice in places was somewhat comical. I can't exactly say the same for the other voice actors. They're close enough to the originals, but they don't quite have the passion of the originals. This doesn't ruin the experience though. What else? Well the music is fantastic. Robert Holmes is still Robert Holmes. Other than that, I'd say this remake is certainly worthy of your time if you enjoy the original, despite its shortcomings. Besides, the flaws of this remake don't detract from the story at all. It's still an amazing, tense and awesome story and that has not changed at all. The puzzles are still great too. Definite recommendation from me.
