Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

The Good
A game can't go wrong with Jane Jensen at the helm. This third, and likely final, installment of the classic adventure series is once again endowed with a rich plot, fascinating characters, and mind-boggling puzzles. The new interface and free-form approach to the mystery (puzzles have multiple solutions, and you can miss a good 30% percent of the game if you're not on top of it) provide an added level of depth. Fingerprint kits and a functioning laptop computer bring Gabriel's archaic and intuitive techniques a modern flare. This time, Gabriel fully shares the bill with Grace as co-protagonists.

The Bad
While the previous two games were practically honed to perfection, this one retains some significant, if excusable, flaws. Infighting meant the development was rushed, and you can feel this at the end, when the game abruptly shifts into climax mode without provocation, leaving a significant puzzle introduced only a short time before unaddressed (Lady Howard's fang picture). The polygonal models are awkwardly shaped, and Curry's voice acting, while familiar, sometimes falls ridiculously flat. The atmosphere is distinctly lacking in this game -- the environments are almost cheerfully colorful and bright, and the free-roaming camera ability eliminates suspense in key elements of the game. Unlike the previous two entries, Robert Holmes' powerful and pervasive score is missing, a key element of the series success, replaced with David Henry's sometimes-obnoxious lounge jazz ambiance. The final puzzle of the game is a bit Tomb Raider-ish, but that's not necessarily a negative.

The Bottom Line
All in all, this is a fantastic game, and a good note for the series, and indeed the genre as a whole, to go out on. While not as timeless as its predecessors, it's replayability factor gives it added value. The plot is deep and interesting enough to be a novel (and was indeed portentous of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code), and its an essential play for any fan of the series or the genre. Unfortunately, it spelled the death of intellectual gameplay. Play it once through for the experience, and again with a walkthrough to cover the things you inevitably missed.

The Good
Graphics and sound - what works

Gabriel Knight 3 has solid, well designed graphics in full, ‘real’ 3D. No slow-down whatsoever, the camera roams high and down ahead and back and rotates 360-degree as you wish all the time with no hiccups.

What’s most important, most of the people and things in the game still look cool 15 or more years after release. Takes little to appreciate what hard work went into the good looks of everything, from the characters to buildings and the various landscape.

Music and sound fxs are there doing their job too. Scary when it ought be scary, more emotional or straight fun when ought to be so, music keeps up helping the story’s whole atmosphere the whole of time.

In a nutshell, nice graphics and good sound add up to a game experience likable to the eye and thrilling.

Gameplay - what works

In a 3D world designers could hide secrets and caveats pretty much anywhere, which opens up the game for more quirks and things to do than your average 2D adventure maybe. The game interface works smooth and isn’t gonna bother you.

You control Gabriel Knight some days (chapters), and his female buddy Grace Nakimura the rest of time. She kind of steals the game. Makes the game feel up-to-date with today’s equality ideas and is a nice touch, too bad you have to control Gabe in the final.

High fun factor overall, specially thanks to many of the puzzles are not too hard, so they won’t make any players feel they want to leave the game b4 they finish it. Also, the in-game help feature is a fine touch and in 1999 meant designers where keeping in step with the times.

Plot and replay value - what works

Well, you have a quite long thriller story full of things to do and surprises. Many interesting characters and locales too. It’s at least 20 hours of playing, maybe 30. Replay value is OK, as you’re gonna miss some hidden things in your first playthrough, and the score system provides the grounds for trying again and get everything.

The Bad
Graphics and sound - what doesn’t work

Quite everything is perfectly ok with the graphics and sound, but some of the art sucks, the voices are campy, low-res textures were applied across large areas.
Anyway, you still get into the game.

Gameplay - what doesn’t work

A big issue is the infamous cat mustache puzzle. This puzzle, as other reviewers said, is difficult not because its clever but because your simply left stumped by the idiotic kind of solution. Issues with some puzzles, so tough some of you may quit and leave the game. Even the research material into Grace’s SYDNEY computer can confuse some people. In-game hints are available only sometimes, so maybe go straight to a FAQ whenever you get stuck.

Plot and replay value - what doesn't work

To say it bluntly, nothing’s wrong with the plot and replay value. Anyway you don’t have achievements to collect, and they should be there IMHO.

The Bottom Line
After great experiences with GK1 and GK2, I was quite looking forward to playing the third game and in no way it let me down.

In a nutshell, what you gonna get with Gabriel Knight 3 is around 20 hours of pretty decent, streamlined, fleshed-out adventure gameplay for $6. That’s a fine deal. The game is often on sale, which sure makes it a bargain nobody wants to miss.

The Good
I have been a Sierra adventure game fan for 15 years, since the release of the original Kings Quest. I have purchased and played every game they have put out. In recent years I had moved out to other companies due to Sierra's (uh-hum) lack of quality. But with the third release in the GK series Sierra has reclaimed the crown (or at least showed that it still remembers how to put out a good game when it wants too).

Gabriel Knight 3 is a revolution for adventure games. While modern machines have far surpassed the traditional adventure game layout the genre has stagnated, urging many to claim that the end was finally near for adventure games (I think this argument started about the time that Kings Quest 2 came out). The game has taken what was best about adventure games, added in the brilliant writing of series creator Jane Jensen, and mixed with a new graphics engine that is close to the one used in Kings Quest 8 but moved beyong just killing everything that moved.

The world is fully 3D and the control of the game is based on a camera system. While I have seen this approach fail miserably in other games Gabriel Knight finally uses it not only well but exceptionally. The puzzles reqire intelligent use of the camera and rethinking of the traditional adventure game approach (pick up everything that is sharper in the background, indicating that it is important). The interface is quick to learn and once learned is very easy to navigate and use.

The graphics are also wonderful. Scaled to adjust to your machine automatically upon startup, the game graphics played beautifully on my Pentium 233 with a voodoo 2 card. On a higher end machine they are even more stunning (Pentium 2, 450 at work).

But even with the graphic and interface this game would be nothing without gameplay. It has that in abundance. The Gabriel Knight series has been the thinking man's adventure game for years and this installment only reinforces that. In addition, Jensen appears to have really had her time to develop the story as it is more detailed and rewarding than the first two games (which is saying a lot).

The Bad
Nothing. Not a thing. Other than it eventually ended.

The Bottom Line
Sierra seems set on recasting their image. With the release of both HalfLife and Homeworld they have demonstrated that they can still make games worth playing. This game is Sierra's demonstration that they can still make adventure games. If you ever were an adventure game fan, this is worth your time. If you ever wondered what the fuss was about, this is your game. If you played Mist (God help you) and wanted more, this is your game. Basically, if you are a computer game player you should check this game out. You will be seeing more just like it over the next few years and will probably hear enough about it to justify a good play through.