By Kurt Kalata
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As computer gaming ages, there's a growing call for the media to mature, to tell more adult stories beyond the pulp fantasies of a vast majority of games. Many graphic adventure games from the likes of Sierra or Lucasarts, while enjoyable, erred more on the cartoonish side, telling light and humorous stories. Sierra's sole "mature" series was Police Quest, although that was little of interest to anyone who didn't care for crime drama or staunch adherence to legal procedures. In 1994, Sierra introduced Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, in an attempt to take adventure gaming to a new level.
Gabriel Knight is the creation of Jane Jensen, an aspiring author who eventually became an actual author after the death of golden age Sierra (officially bookended with the release of Gabriel Knight 3 in 2000.) Working her way through the ranks, she eventually assisted Roberta Williams with the story in Kings Quest VI, which is largely regarded as the reason why that entry is so remarkably better than the rest of the series. Given the chance to write and direct her own game, she created one of the deepest and most adult computer games ever developed.
Gabriel is the titular star of the series, an American author turned demon hunter. It neatly straddles the line somewhere between mystery and horror genres - its closest literary comparison would probably be Stephen King, but even that arguably sells the games short. Him and his partner, Grace Nakimura, investigate a series of crimes, each heavily intwining historical fact with mythological fiction.
There are three games in the series, each radically different from a technological standpoint. The first game is like most Sierra games - 2D, VGA graphics, with an icon-based parser - and covers Gabriel's investigations into several voodoo-related murders in New Orleans, as well as his own family's secret past. The second game heavily utilizies digitized photography and full motion video using live actors, and takes place in Germany, as Gabriel hunts down an apparent herd of werewolves. The third game is entirely 3D using polygonal graphics, and takes place in a small chateau in France, as Gabriel solves a mystery regarding vampires and the Holy Grail.
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
The Beast Within
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers - PC / Mac (1994)
American Cover
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers begins with a nightmare - images spilled blood on a ritual danger, and a woman burnt at the stake, culminating in a foreboding image of Gabriel's own limp body hung on a tree. This dream, actually a vision of his distant ancenstor, is explained further in the included graphic novel. Waking up in a cold sweat, he wakes up to face the world. He reads the newspaper and learns of a series of "voodoo murders", ritualistic killings that appear to have tracings with the voodoo religion. The experts dismiss this a crockery, but Gabriel sees this as opportunity to get some inspiration for his next novel and sets off to investigate. What begins as a casual curiosity soon explodes into not only an expose on the underground voodoo cults of New Orleans, but also an exploration of Gabriel's long forgotten - and cursed - family history. During the course, Gabriel learn that he's the last in a long line of Schattenjaegers, demon hunters from the days of yore. From there, Gabriel must not only solve the murders, but meet his ancient destiny, and stop the nightmares that have plagued his family for generations.
Characters
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Gabriel Knight
Garbiel is a New Orleans native. He's smart and handsome, but also a bit of a lout, and a huge slacker to boot. His few novels have failed, and he resorts to living in the backroom of his New Orleans book store, St. George's, which also isn't exactly racking in the dough. Voiced by Tim Curry.
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Grace Nakimura
Gabriel's assistant and his sole employee at St. George's Book Store. She's repelled by his chauvinistic mannerisms, but their sexual tension is undeniable. When not chastising him, she does research for his various investigations. Voiced by Leah Remini.
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Detective Franklin Mosely
Gabriel's childhood buddy, Mosely is a detective at the New Orleans Police Department. Gabriel spends his time hanging out with Mosely in hopes to find an inspiration for his next novel. Voiced by Mark Hamill.
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Malia Gedde
A wealthy socialite with deep ties to the history of New Orleans. Although initially repelled by Gabriel's forthcomingness, she eventually succumbs to her desires and begins some nighttime visits. Her unfortunate involvement in the case eventually causes Gabriel to open his to reality. Voiced by Leilani Jones.
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Wolfgang Ritter
Gabriel's long lost relative from Germany, who eventually enlightens our hero on his family history. He lives in Schoss Ritter, a castle in Rittersburg, Germany, which Gabriel eventually visits. Voiced by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
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The game is divided into ten "days", each day beginning with Gabriel getting a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper, keeping up on current events. From there, you can access a map to ride around New Orleans - both the famous French Quarter, including Jackson Square, and the surrounding areas, including Tulane University and Bayou St. John.
The interface utilizes more icons than the standard Sierra game - in addition to "walk" and "look", the standard "use" icon has also been broken down to "push" and "operate". You can also choose to "talk" to people for brief dialogues, or "interrogate" for more in depth questioning. In some ways, the extra verbs make it feel like an earlier Lucasarts games, but all it really does is overcomplicate things. The screen view is letterboxed, with the icon bar appearing at the top of the screen, and the dialogue on the bottom. Not only does this lend to the movie-like feel, but it also prevents the text from blocking the visuals.
The writing is almost uniformly excellent - with the occasional slightly-silly line - bolstered by some excellent voicework found in the CD-ROM version. Tim Curry provides the voice of Gabriel Knight, which is a love-it-or-hate-it ordeal - it's distinct, to be certain, but there's still something off about a British actor trying to do an American Southern accent. The narrator is played Virginia Capers, an elderly African-American woman with a very thick New Orleans accent. She adds plenty of color, but she also talks really slowly, to the point where it's better to enable text and click through the descriptions.
There are any number of reasons why Gabriel Knight stands out amongst its peers. For starters, its approach to storytelling is much more mature than practically any other game out there, adventure or otherwise. It's more than just violence, sex and profanity - but there's plenty of that too, although it's rarely too explicit. Simply, Gabriel Knight's writing and characterizations are head and shoulders amongst any other adventure game. In most Sierra games, you just click the "talk" icon on someone and exchange a bit of dialogue. In Gabriel Knight, these are far more fleshed out. These take place on an entirely different screen, on a black background, with portraits lipsynched with the spoken dialogue. You can ask any of these people about any of the important topics regarding your investigation. Most of them are in some way relevant to the mystery, but the last option in any character is simply to ask them about themselves. Here, assuming you're talking to someone who's willing to open up, will go into huge depth about their background, their likes and dislikes, and other tidbits about their personality. It makes every other character in every other adventure game look like nothing more than cardboard cutouts.
Gabriel, too, is far more fleshed out than your average protagonist. Here, you can visit your aging grandmother, and have lengthy discussions about your family history, how your grandparents (and parents) met and fell in love, their immigration into America, their life ambitions. You can talk to your old childhood buddy Mosely, now a detective with the New Orleans police, and either chat about the case or simply reminisce about old times. You can even exchange playful insults, if you want, which highlights the boyish nature of their relationship. You rarely seen depths plumbed this deeply, in any kind of interactive narrative.
It also highlights some of contrasts between video game narratives and literary narratives. During the course of the game's ten days, you spend about seven of them simply wandering around New Orleans, interrogating people, following up on leads, conducting research, and generally just providing background info. It's not until the seventh day - roughly 3/4 through the game - that you actually leave New Orleans for a quick jaunt through Gabriel's ancestral home in Germany, before leaving for a tomb in Africa, and then finally returning home for the climatic encounter. In other words, it takes a sizable chunk the game in order for the "adventure" to truly begin - while the storyline progresses in the early chapters of the game, the locations don't, compared to most other games, which following a linear set of levels. It might feel a bit slow paced at first, but all of this backstory is necessary for the final stages of the game, and make the payoff all the more satisfying.
Where the characterizations really pay off is right at the very end, where you're presented with a very clear "good ending/bad ending" choice. Suffice to say, the bad ending is...pretty bad, where the surviving characters mourn the departed ones. Death scenes are rare, but when they do happen, they're really gory - as perhaps required by something that would call itself a "horror" game. So many adventure games, especially Sierra games, have prided themselves on haphzardly killing the player characters, for the sake of humor or frustration. Here, it's legitimately emotional, and even a bit heartbreaking. And that's when you know that Jensen has done a damn good job.
It's also clear that Jensen is pretty astounded behind the history of voodoo, particularly the brand that originated in Lousiana. New Orleans voodoo is a mixture of Africian traditions and Catholicism, which sprung up due to the slave trade in the South in the 1800s. Much of the game is spent exploring the history of voodoo, its misconceptions, and most importantly, how real voodoo has nothing to do with the ritiualistic murders bring committed in game. It's pretty educationial, and this depth of knowledg largely characterizies the entirety of the Gabriel Knight series.
The structure does lead to some irritating problems when it comes to progression. Each day will end once certain events are accomplished, and often times you find yourself running around into circles until you stumble upon the trigger that allows the game to continue. Compared to some other Sierra games, though, Gabriel Knight is much friendlier. While the puzzles can be difficult, they're rarely illogical. Some of them are typical adventure puzzles, like distracting police offers with a doughnut cart. Others involve interpreting drum codes (which is pretty easy) and translating a symbolic language (which isn't.) There are only a scant few places where you can die in the early chapters, and Gabriel's life is only ever in constant danger during the final days. And since the game won't progress unless you solve all the necessary puzzles, there's really no way to get stuck, not counting a few instances if you save in a stupid place at the end of the game. In other words, it's pretty progressive, as far as adventure games go.
Robert Holmes also supplies the soundtrack, one of the best heard in a Sierra title. The song most often heard is Gabriel's theme, done as a dramatic orchestration on the title theme, and as a lighter, piano theme in St. George's Bookstore. Much of the music is to bolster the atmosphere, and that, too, does an excellent job.
The CD version can also be run in SVGA mode - optional for DOS, but mandatory for Windows. In truth, it's pretty cheap - the icons and character portraits have all been redrawn in the higher resolution, but the backgrounds and sprites have just been resized, so there's little actual benefit. The Windows version also improperly scales the font, making it look jaggy and ugly. The game is also notoriously buggy, and even with some of the fan made patches, it's currently impossible to play through the entire game with DOSBox. Thankfully, a Windows XP installer allows it to be played in Windows.
MP3s Download here
Intro
St. George's Bookstore - Gabriel's Theme
Shattenjaeger - Wolfgang's Theme
Credits
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
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The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery - PC (1995)
American Cover
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The Beast Within
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The Beast Within
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The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, picks up roughly a year after the end of the first game. Gabriel has moved to his family castle in Germany, and is living off his first successful book: "The Voodoo Murders", starring one "Blake Backlash". His family reputation as demon hunters is soon revealed, and the local townspeople beg him to investigate a series of mutilations. They appear to have been caused by wolves, so naturally the blame lies on a pack of wolves that escaped from the local zoo. Further investigations, however, reveal the entanglement of a local hunting club, a secret animal smuggling ring...and, most intriguingly, werewolves.
Meanwhile, Grace decides that she's wasting her time back in America and flies off to Germany, only to find that Gabriel has left his castle for Munich. Frustrated, she sets off on her own research, slowly uncovering the mystery of Ludwig II, the "last true king of Bavaria", as the locals call him. Ludwig II was a bit of an eccentric, often dismissing foreign matters in favor of living a lavish fantasy life, and constructing castle after gorgeous castle. The government tried to declare him insane and remove him from power, but Ludwig was later found mysteriously drowned in a nearby lake. Whether it was murder or suicide, nobody quite knows, but it's a long standing national mystery in Germany. Grace is determined to prove that werewolves were somehow involved with Ludwig II, and ends up discovering a long lost opera composed by Richard Wagner, a longtime friend of Ludwig.
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Gabriel Knight
The hero, once again. Played by Dean Erickson.
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Grace Nakimura
Grace takes a much more active role in the sequel, although she doesn't interact with Gabriel until the end of the game. Played by Joanne Takahashi.
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Baron Friedrich Von Glower
A wealthy baron who runs the hunting club. He sees much promise in Gabriel and they share many of the same interests - primarily, wine and women. Played by Peter J. Lucas.
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Baron Garr Von Zell
A prominent member of the hunting club that begins to resent Von Glower's attention to Gabriel. Played by Richard Raynesford.
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Kriminal Kommissar Leber
Gabriel got a lot of help from the local police department back in New Orleans, but the Germany police department, led by Kommisar Leber, isn't quite so cooperative. Nevertheless, their goals are more or less the same - to catch the culprit behind the wolf killings. Played by Nicholas Worth.
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Chapter One begins with the player controlling Gabriel, then the view alternates between Grace and him for the next few chapters, until their stories and paths meet in the sixth chapter at the end. The game is spread over six CDs, generally one chapter per CD, but there is some disc switching for certain scenes. Apparently the original design documentation called for eight chapters, with at least one of them putting the player in control of Ludwig II, as he tries to hide the opera scrolls, but unfortunately was cut out in the planning stages due to budgetary constraints.
The Beast Within runs on the same engine as Phantasmagoria and uses many of the same techniques. Every interaction is shown with full motion video, which accounts the number of discs. By default, the video is interlaced and looks rather ugly, but a fanmade patch can disable it. (The screenshots in this article were all taken with the interlacing disabled.) There are still some compression artifacts, but in general, the video quality is actually pretty good. The less said about the CGI werewolves, though, the better.
In most of the scenes, you don't directly control Gabriel or Grace, although they're present on the screen. Instead, you simply click on an area to investigate it or walk to a different screen. The backgrounds are all high res photographs, which look fantastically gorgeous - it may as well be a promotional device for the German tourist industry, because like the New Orleans feel of the first game, The Beast Within completely nails the modern German atmosphere. In spite of its visual splendor, it still feels like there's a strange disconnect between the characters and the scenery. There isn't nearly as much to interact with or comment on, leaving each screen feeling hauntingly beautiful yet depressingly empty.
Of course, the major factor of any full motion video are the actors, and this is where The Beast Within hits some shaky ground. The main characters certainly look the part, and the acting, while not stunning, as it least competent, but they don't really feel alive compared to their personalities brought by Tim Curry and Leah Remini in the first game. If anything, they feel much more restrained, particularly Gabriel, who isn't as boorish as he used to be, but also not quite as lively. Still, in an era where most FMV games barely surpassed high school drama level, The Beast Within is relatively decent.
The problem more lies with the issue of direction and pacing. There's a reason why exposition scenes in TV and movie are brief - it's because watching talking heads discuss various issues for ten minutes straight just isn't all that engaging, especially when there's no music. When using live action, you need SOME kind of dramatic tension, especially when there's so much video, and it just isn't here.
Like the first game, you need to spend a lot of time interrogating various people. There aren't quite as many topics to dig into, because that would simply require far too much video, but that's ultimately for the better. When you're just reading text and listening to voice acting, you can click through the dialogue to speed things up. You can't do that with video - you either watch the whole scene or skip it entirely. (Thankfully, this is one of the boons of the game - there's an FMV scene with almost every action, but they can be easily bypassed with a single click.) There's no text either, although another fanmade patch has added it, at least in the Windows version. At least you can still record each conversation for later playback (and it's actually more useful than the first game, since you need to splice together a conversation for an early puzzle.)
The bigger problem, though, is that large parts of the game are simply hunt n' click fests. There's one whole chapter where you play as Grace, simply walking around museums and looking at things. That's fine, but the area layouts are quite confusing, making it extremely easy to miss one of the many, many triggers. If you miss even one, you can't proceed, which is liable to drive anyone nuts, as you comb and recomb the same areas over and over, trying to find the one semi-visible part you missed, and then interrogating the same people over and over in hopes that new conversation topics have popped up. There's a vague hint system which lets you know which locations still have tasks to be accomplished before you can move on to the next chapter, but it's still easy to feel frustrated and aimless.
The final chapters are far more dramatic, and include a wolf hunt through a darkened forest - which, despite its tension, is little more than a "choose the right path or die" sequence - and a rather bizarre real-time puzzle/strategy segment where you morph into a werewolf and need to hunt down your opponent in an enclosed space. It's actually pretty cool, considering the whole segment takes place from the first person perspective, complete with off-colored visuals.
Robert Holmes returns to supply the score, along with some additional helpers. Many of the themes will sound familiar to fans of the first game, but they've been arranged for orchestral quality, and all sound fantastic. The highlight is the "lost" Wagnerian opera, which is certainly an accomplishment. Despite its high quality, a huge majority of the game is played in silence, with only sound effects and character voices. Indeed, the most impressive is the opera scene, which tries to mimic Wagner's style. It's only one act of it, so it's obviously pretty short compared to a real opera, but it's impressive to see the lengths that Sierra went to make this feel authentic.
In spite of its pacing issues and apparent hollowness in the scenery, The Beast Within still manages to be engaging. Jensen is clearly enamored with the subject material - German castles and the conspiracies surrounding them, long lost operas, werewolves - and even though it can be slow going, the mystery itself is well written enough to be engaging, as long as you have the patience for it.
MP3s Download here
Main Theme - Prologue
Opening - Chapter 1
Transformation Aria
Woldcam
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The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
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Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned - PC (1999)
American Cover
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Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
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Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
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In the late 90s, the adventure game genre was dying. Lucasarts' fantastic Grim Fandango had more or less flopped, Sierra's latest entries in the Kings Quest and Quest for Glory series were practically in different genres, and titles from competing developers were few. And yet, those few faithful heralded the coming of the third Gabriel Knight game. After all, the previous two titles were critically acclaimed hits that sold extremely well, plus it would be fully in 3D. Surely this would be the game that saved the genre!
Yeah, that didn't happen.
Instead, the third Gabriel Knight game, subtitled "Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned", is jokingly referred to as the game that nailed adventure gaming's coffin shut. This is a somewhat unfair assessment of the situation, but the fact is that it was also the last true adventure title published by Sierra - the offices were essentially shut down after its release.
As with the first game, the prologue is told via a comic book enclosed in the packaging. Gabriel and Grace have been invited to the house of Prince James, the exiled monarch of Scotland. During their visit, Prince James' youngest son, a mere baby, is swept away during the night. Gabriel hops on the train and follows them to the small French village of Rennes-le-Chateau. Although it may seem like a tiny little place out in the middle of nowhere, Rennes-le-Chateau has strong connections to the Holy Grail legend, which in turn its intertwined with the history of Jesus Christ. As luck would have it, a tour group is in town, each coming from different parts of the globe to hunt for the town's treasure. Included in this group is, oddly enough, Detective Mosely, who claims to simply be vacationing, but whose motives aren't entirely clear. Once Grace shows up on the next day, the action picks up as two of Prince James' men are found murdered, completely drained of blood. Naturally, Gabriel expects the supernatural and begins to investigate the possibility of vampires.
In conducting research for this game, Jensen integrated elements from Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln's controversial book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which examined the possibility of Jesus having children with Mary Magdalene. It also suggests that the Holy Grail may simply be a metaphor for the bloodline of Jesus Christ, and that his descendents mingled with the nobles of Southern France to spawn the Merovingian dynasty. The story also involves the legendary Knights Templar and the Priory of Sion, both involved with the mystery behind Christ's lineage.
The story also treads some of the same ground as Dan Brown's 2003 novel The DaVinci Code, although it can hardly be faulted for that, since Gabriel Knight 3 was released three years prior to the book's publication - Brown and Jensen just simply happened to read the same book. What can't be excused is the game's final chapter, where Gabriel must pass a series of tests that are just a little too close to the trials from the end of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. And, compared to the tight integration of voodoo mythology and werewolf lore in its previous games, the vampires barely play a part in the story at all - they just kinda show up right at the end.
All things told, it's fascinating stuff, but the story doesn't really pick up until the third chapter, and just meanders up until then. The previous games have been a bit slow, too, but they still managed to be somewhat engrossing. The writing, too, isn't quite up to par - it's fun to see Gabriel, Grace and Mosely interact with each other, but the secondary cast is largely made up of ill-defined nitwits. That may be "the point", that anyone who would come on vacation to a small town to search for a mystical treasure may very well be loony, but it doesn't make for interesting storytelling.
Like The Beast Within, the player controls both Gabriel and Grace. The story takes place over the course of three days, which are in turn subdivided into "time blocks", although it ultimately works the same way as the previous games - walk around and investigate stuff until you find the triggers for the next time block.
Gabriel spends most of his time hunting for clues about the missing baby, as well as the treasure, while Grace spends her time researching the history of Rennes-le-Chateau and its connection with the Grail legend. For Gabriel, this largely involves stalking people, breaking into their rooms to shuffle through their stuff, and taking fingerprints, which are then scanned into SIDNEY, the helpful computer database. Most of this is preparation for the denouement near the end of the game, where Gabriel must accuse some of the guests for a series of crimes. Although successful completion of this scene isn't required to finish the game, it does greatly elucidate the plot.
Grace, on the other hand, spends much of her time trying to solve the riddles of a thirteen verse poem by analyzing maps, symbols, and other various items found throughout the adventure. All of this lies somewhere between intriguing and tedious, depending on how much you like rote detective work, but it's a fair bit better than all of the click-happy chapters from The Beast Within.
Of course, the most infamous puzzle in the game - highlighted by this Old Man Murray article - is the one where Gabriel needs to impersonate Mosely in order to rent a moped. The first step is to steal his passport, which is done by placing a piece of candy in the hallway and snag it from his pants while he's busy unwrapping it. This in itself is weird, but not the oddest part of the puzzle. Anyway, Gabriel and Mosely look nothing alike. The logical step would be to find something to take a photo of Gabriel and then replace in the passport, but no, that would be too easy. (Strangely, you actually get a computer that makes fake IDs, but that doesn't happen until later.) So, the first step is to steal his yellow jacket. Next, you need to hide the fact that Gabriel isn't bald, so you need to find a hat. Fair enough - but then it gets more ridiculous.
YOur final step is to grab a magic marker and draw a mustache on the passport photo to obscure the face. Now, Gabriel himself doesn't have a mustache either, so you need to find a local alley cat, stick a piece of masking tape on a hole in a door, spray the cat with a water bottle in order to make him run through said hole, pick up cat hair snagged from the tape, and then apply it to Gabriel's face using a packet of syrup found in the dining room.
Pretty stunning, yes.
This kind of crazy, backwards hyperlogic might fly in a cartoonish game like Day of the Tentacle, but with Gabriel Knight, which is vaguely based in reality (supernatural elements notwithstanding), it comes off as completely absurd. Furthermore, this puzzle is right near the beginning of the game - undoubtedly half the people playing this game just gave up right here. Members of the development team have even proclaimed that they hated the puzzle, they just didn't have any time to rework it into anything better. A wiser staff would've just cut it out entirely.
It's more than just the puzzle design that's suspect - the technical aspects just aren't up to par either. Gabriel Knight has now gone full 3D, with the gamer controlling both the cursor and the camera. You move the camera around the environments, either by the keyboard or by holding down the mouse button and moving it around. When you want Gabriel or Grace to interact with something, you point to it and click on it, bringing up a handful of context sensitive icons to interact with it. Although you can technically click around the screen to make your character walk around, it's not really needed - if they're offscreen, they'll warp to the camera's location anyway, and you can make them instantly jump from place to place with the Escape key. In other words, it's much closer to the Tex Murphy games like Under a Killing Moon than it is to other 3D adventure games like Grim Fandango.
It's filled with its own issues though. Indoor navigation isn't much of an issue, but when wandering around outside, you'll often hit invisible walls to signify that you need to make your character walk to the next "area". The camera itself moves too quickly, and you need to utilize the Control and Shift keys in order to tilt the camera, strafe, or change elevation.
The visuals haven't exactly aged well. The textures are relatively decent, at least in the indoor sections, but less so during the many outdoor scenes, as the geometry is very angular and unrealistic. The characters come off far worse. The animations are stilted and robotic, and only the lip-synching looks anything even approaching natural. One could simply write it off as being a product of its era - after all, this was only released a year or two after the original Half Life and Unreal - but those were action games that didn't necessary focus on drama or dialogue. On the other side of the coin, it came only a year before Final Fantasy X for the Playstation 2, which looks markedly superior by orders of several magnitude. No matter way you look at it - the technology used in this game just wasn't good enough for this type of adventure game.
The other areas don't quite hold up as well either. Tim Curry returns as Gabriel Knight, but his acting seems off even compared to the first game. New actors take on the role of Grace and Mosely, and as sound-a-likes, they do a pretty decent job. The rest of the cast is filled with a variety of accents, and waver from excellent to awful - it's not nearly as consistent as the first game. The soundtrack is supplied once again by Robert Holmes, but is joined by David Henry. The music is a bit sparse, and a few songs are reused over and over to the point where they become incredibly repetitive, but there are still some outstanding pieces, particularly the underused title theme, another piano theme, this time backed by an acoustic guitar.
So it's a bit rough to say that Gabriel Knight 3 killed the adventure game genre, but everything - from its structure to its writing to its puzzles - are sufficiently lacking compared to the other games, and its troubled development (the title was delayed for over a year) obviously didn't help the final product. The resolution makes the story pretty worthwhile overall, but it's hardly one of Sierra's most shining moments. Too bad, too - although the plot ends on a high note, the final scene ends on a cliffhanger, with the future of Gabriel and Grace's relationship in question, which, due to the death of the studio, was never explored.
MP3s Download here
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Gabriel's Theme
Good Confronts Evil
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Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
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Compilations
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Sins of the Fathers and The Beast Within were compiled into a single collector's set, dubbed Gabriel Knight Mysteries. It aincludes copies of the graphic novels found in Sins of the Fathers and Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, although with a soundtrack CD containing the music from the second game, along with a few themes from the first. It also includes a demo of the third game.
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Gabriel Knight Mysteries
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Novels
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The first two games were rewritten as novels by Jane Jensen and published by Roc. The first is a fairly faithful adaptation, but the second deviates greatly from the game. The first is also easily available through second hand retails, while the second has some degree of rarity.
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Sins of the Fathers: A Gabriel Knight Novel
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