Clarc has a lot going for it, a cute story with nice art, but it's really hampered by not letting you zoom out with the camera. This is bad enough in the early stages which are just puzzles that you might have to redo because you couldn't seem them all at once, but later the game adds in enemies which might shoot at you from off screen. It's very annoying and keeps me from finishing the game and I do like this kind of game.
The Cat Lady is depressing from the beginning to the end, and it is horrifically gory and violent at every turn. And yet it is consistently insightful and beautiful. It's a poem of a game, and the dialogue is some of the realest I've ever encountered. I'll keep my review short, because I don't want to be tempted to reveal anything of the plot, the disorientation in the opening chapters is one of the game's best features and would be ruined if you knew what it was about. I think SOME of the violence was gratuitous. The bleach scene was disgusting and the villains for it were out of a more comically grotesque horror story. I wouldn't have cut those scenes, but maybe they just needed a bit more thought. Also, there another villain who should be cut, simply because his appearance is so random and unconnected to the rest. (Unless he will be better explained in the up coming third game?) The across the hall neighbors are further explored in the sequel game after all, so maybe there's more of a plan than in apparent here. My other critique is that you are shown flowers at one point in the game and when you smell them, Susan says she won't. So, when I saw flowers afterward, I never tried that option again. So, I was stuck long enough to have to use a walkthrough, and the worst part is the reason you have to smell them is totally illogical. A normal person would just walk to their kitchen to get a knife rather than use a piece of a broken vase to cut something open. And NOTHING would keep Susan from doing that, except the game doesn't let you. But one illogical puzzle is a site better than most adventure games. Perhaps it is a problem that there aren't any hard puzzles that are logical, but I don't mind this being more of an interactive movie than a game, and it gets my whole hearted recommendation.
I just completed this game, and the feeling I walked away with was how wonderful this game was. It had wonderful puzzles, an emotionally involving plot, beautiful music. Then I remembered that I almost quit playing after the 6 hours or so because of how dull and tedious the game had been up till then. The last straw was a puzzle involving a "swollen" window that you could only open *spoiler, but I recommend you read it* by squeezing Lady Howard's hemorrhoid cream onto it. Is it a pun? I don't know. Swollen window, swollen anus. It's baffling and disgusting. And far worse than the famous cat's moustache which was at least well clued. Another glaring problem in the game is the shoehorning of Mosley from the first game into the plot. It's a bit of a mystery in the game why he's there so coincidentally, the solution to the mystery does not satisfy. There are a few scenes late in the game that he adds some interest to, to the point that I don't want him out of the game, I just want his existence in the first part fixed. That's whole game, everything is broken in the first half and everything works in the last. The overall problem with the first half of the game is that what you are doing is so far removed from the plot. The plot goes like this: You've been hired to protect an aristocrat's baby from having its blood sucked by vampires. You epic fail, and the baby is kidnapped. You manage to follow the kidnappers to a train where for reasons I'm not sure of, you wait patiently till the train gets where it's going, the kidnappers step out and then knock you over the head. You wake up the next day in a hotel, where you were brought by a taxi from the train station, and here's where I really object to the plot: You proceed to investigate everyone at the hotel you were randomly brought to (there are even other villages in the area), despite the fact that the kidnappers got into a car at the train station, and drove away to who knows where in the night. And no, none of the people at the hotel have a similar vehicle. You spend days in the game and hours and hours in the game investigating these people who have nothing to do with anything, clearly. And none of them are the least bit interesting. It's mind bogglingly dull. But then the last half of the game is brilliant and you can't walk away. Grace finally returns and although she isn't initially much more interesting than Gabriel, she eventually steals the game, much like in 2. It's almost a bit sad that you have to control Gabe in the finale :-P The puzzles all greatly increase in quality, even surpassing the second game. And they all fit well with the plot. There is a sort of meta puzzle called Le Serpent Rouge which Grace has to solve which is the best multilayered puzzle I've seen except for the Fool's Errand. And this is just one part of the game whereas the Fool's Errand was its entire game. From the uninteresting characters and plotline of the first half, the last is very dramatic as well. There are several scenes which are a bit complicated emotionally -- perhaps not so much as in the second game, but they really strike a chord and are make you care about what you're playing. In short the second half of the game is some of the highest quality gaming and story-telling out there, but this is a very long game. It might be longer than the second GK and that was enormous as well. I feel caught between the two parts, It seems wrong to average them and to give the game a three star review. The first half being easily a one and the last a five. And finally I decided this: the game at the end of Gabriel Knight 3 is so good that it's worth playing though a one star game to play. I suppose it's just part of the price of admission. So I've given the game the five.
