This review will focus on the differences between the original and the 20th anniversary edition. Graphics, needless to say after 20 years the graphics have had a drastic improvement. This improvement is not just with technology, but also with design. The best example is the cemetary. In the original all the tombs look brand new, but here a lot of them are worn down and faded, as if they have been there a long time without much maintenanance. Voice Acting. This is a strange one to categorize. Everyone knows that although at times Tim Curry did a good job as Gabriel Knight, other times he seemed to have no clue at all what he was doing. The new voice for Gabriel Knight is very solid but not perfect, and overall he did a better job than the uneven Tim Curry. Same can be said for Crash, who's death scene is a fine example of a massive improvement in voice acting for both Crash and Gabriel. On the other hand you get Wolfgang Ritter and Detective Mosely, although the actors did a good job, when compared to the original actors they were clearly lacking. This can be said about the whole game, some voice actors are better, some are worse. Puzzles: Most of the puzzles are the same. However some puzzles were changed like how Gabriel obtains his priest disguise. Yet other puzzles seem to be added randomly, like a jigsaw puzzle on the wall of the library in Schloss Ritter. Also, if you get stuck there is a hint system. Plot: There a few improvements in the plot, which clearly puts this version ahead. While the plot is the same, it is clearly enhanced a little. A scene which still haunts me is when you have to break into Mosely's office, well this time there are three little girls playing jump rope outside. To avoid spoilers, I won't tell you what happens. Conclusion, this game is clearly superior across the board except for voice acting, where is some is better, some is worse. If you are fan of Gabriel Knight, you will not be disappointed.
First off this game is a Broken Sword, not just in name but in spirit. For those of us who know the franchise that is enough of a review right there. For those who don't, the game revolves around George Stobbart, an insurance assessor, and Nicole Colard, a journalist. The old friends are covering the opening of an art exhibit for their employers. All of a sudden an armed gunman comes in and steals a painting and kills the museum owner. The game is around 5-6 hours long, and that is just the first half. However you are paying for both halves of the game, you just have to wait a couple months for the other half. The graphics are hand painted in 2D. Fans of the 3d style of the 3rd and 4th games might be put off by this, but their is no need. The graphics are beautiful and the art direction is perfect for this game. The main problem with the graphics is that the lip syncing does not always match up. In fact there are one or two parts where the lips do not move at all. As for the sound, the voice acting is superb. Lastly the puzzles, the vast majority of the puzzles are intuitive, and if you get stuck there is a hint system (which can be turned off in the menu). I used the system maybe a dozen times, and most of the time I used it I kicked myself for not seeing how obvious it was. Only once or twice was it actually needed. In summary I would say this a fantastic game, and I for one cannot wait for the rest of it.
This games are worthy of at least four stars, but unfortunately, due to the technical issues on these games I can only give it one star. Castles 1 is a solid castle building game. The focus is on the construction of individual castles where you have to manage the construction workers and military and pay their wages. You get to add things like cauldrons of bubbling oil and arrow slots to the walls of your castle, choose between round and square towers and even build a moat. You get to design the castle and watch the men build it and defend it while being built. The focus of the game is to defend the castle until it is built. There are also numerous stories that are like mini quests where people seek your audience as king and you make decisions that effect the story and your overall rating. The stories that pop up are random and they have a tendency to repeat themselves a lot, and more often than not there is a "right" solution. In Castles 2 you play as one of approximately 5 players who each have a territory. The game shifts focus away from building the castle to a traditional strategy game of expand your territory and eliminate other players. Each territory gives one of a resource; food,iron,gold or wood. The castles act as a defensive fortress to protect your troops when attacked and to allow you to collect two resources in that land instead of one when you send your men to collect resources. As with Castles 1 there are stories involved and they act the same way they did in Castles 1, except you might either lose or gain resource as result of your decisions as well. The ultimate goal is to become the new King (as you are fighting a civil war). This is done by getting the pope to sponsor you by having enough territories and a good standing with the pope. Or to conquer all territories, including the pope's. Unlike other players the pope does not expand and attack his neighbors. However if your standing with the pope falls too low he will excommunicate you sending your troops morale to rock bottom so they are easy pickings on the battlefield. If you attack the pope he will excommunicate you (go figure). Now for the downside. These games run too fast on today's computers. Even with dosbox there is little one can do about it. Being a real time strategy game you will notice that the days of the in game calendar go past like pages of cartoon, you can't tell one drawing from another. (Think April 1 now, in ten seconds July 15th). The only way to counter this is to slow down the cpu cycles in the dosbox configuration file for those of you who know how. Even if you manage to do this, the end effect is that parts of the game run too fast and other parts of the game run too slow. For example, you would end up having to wait 5 minutes for the game to load, once it did it runs 5 times faster than it should. This is better than 100 times faster than it should if the game loaded in at regular speed, but you also have to contend with loading times for videos as well. The end effect is like being in a car where someone is learning how to drive. They speed up then apply the break, then speed up again. Normally I would recommend these games very highly but until someone fixes the speed issue in a far more efficient manner than the dosbox configuration allows, it is virtually unplayable. As a result, I only give 1 star out of five to games that normally would deserve at least 4.
