Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

The Good
What's not to like about this game?

The graphics are beautiful and rich. I really liked the close-ups when you're interviewing people, and the in-game graphics are nicely done. Also, there are several comic-like cutscenes scattered throughout the game, which in my opinion add a lot.
The sounds are breathtaking. Music-wise, I've never heard MIDI sound this good, and it fits the story and world perfectly, contributing a great deal to the general atmosphere of the game, which can give you actual goosebumps. The voice acting is superb, and is my favorite to this day. Tim Curry (as Gabriel Knight) delivers a stellar performance, mixing just the right amount of sarcasm and cynicism in the everyday events in the game, but manages to convey a real sense of warmth, urgency or despair when they are called for. This is not to detract from the phenomenal voice acting of the other characters: Leah Remini (as Grace) is probably my favorite game character other than Gabriel himself, and Michael Dorn (as Dr. John) has the perfect voice for the role. Honestly, each and every actor does the job brilliantly.
The game's interface is Sierra's known point-and-click with icons, but the icons have changed slightly, to make your interaction with the world even richer. For example, there are two separate icons for general chatting and for asking specific questions. Or different icons for pick up, move, and open.
The puzzles are interesting and original, and more importantly fit surprisingly well into the plot, instead of being mix-and-match-items puzzles or the give-this-to-this-guy puzzles. They are there to advance the plot, not just to tease your brain.

And finally, we have the story.

Ah - the story.

Gabriel Knight has the best writing in a computer game ever, bar none. Once the plot grabs you by the throat (should happen by the beginning of day 4 or so), it simply does not let go of you, and you will not be able to let go of the game, until it's over.
What makes it so good? First of all the big story is a solid, interesting, suspenseful story. It's got twists and turns, and it even manages to surprise you several times. But more than that, Jane Jensen got everything done just right. The dialogs are crisp and brilliantly written, with quite a bit of humor mixed in, giving the voice actors real meaty roles to work with.
What's most contributing, at least for me, is the amount of backdrop the player receives. As early as Day 2, you'll find yourself learning a great deal about Voodoo, most (if not all) of which is absolutely correct. You'll even get to hear a lecture about Voodoo, detailing its rituals and customs further in the game. Most of what is said about New Orleans is true as well. Visiting it just a month ago, I actually knew my way around. The game world is so rich, diverse, and detailed, that you feel as though you really know the world and the characters and actually care about them.

Yes. That about describes the game. Perfect in every respect.



The Bad
I'm hard pressed to think of anything seriously wrong with the game.
I did encounter several places where the voiceover was "clicky" or slightly buggy, and some of the puzzles might be a bit annoying (the one with the police officer in the park on day 1, or the arcade-like sequence in the catacombs). But these in no way tarnish the great experience that is GK.

The Bottom Line
I'll use my one-line summary again: Flawless. Simply flawless. Everything, from music to voices to dialogs to story to every other aspect, comes together here.
10 years and countless games after first playing Gabriel Knight, it's still the best game ever from where I'm sitting. An ever-shining gem.

The Good
Being there for the original release of the first Gabriel Knight game sure was a bizarre moment in videogame history, sure, at my age I wasn't fully aware of what was going on behind the scenes, but even a kid of my age couldn't help but wonder about Sierra's newest franchise. After all, most of the games Sierra was famous for were the kid friendly King Quests and their assorted collection of comedic games. Heck! Jane Jensen's previous work as full-blown designer was that thumb-suckingly sweet acid trip known as King's Quest 6! So what gives? A SERIOUS game? (before you start annoying me let me note that I don't even bother counting the Police Quest series).

Yes, a serious game. And not only that, but remember this were the days when cds and interactive movies were all the rage, so Sierra released GK1 not just as another floppy title, but also in a cd version complete with a funky box that seems to be some sort of ninja weapon, slapped fully professional voice acting for all characters on it, and even included a self-congratulatory making-of video! Obviously Sierra placed all the chips on their golden boy not only with the hopes of getting ahead in the multimedia adventure race, but also to firmly establish another franchise from which to reap profits ad infinitum by churning out endless sequels as usual. A part of me always will delight in the tought of Sierra fucking the whole thing up and self-imploding from the failure, just because I'm that kind of sick sob that loves watching dreams crash and burn, but quite frankly I have to admit that the result was much more fulfilling for the gaming community as not only things worked out like a charm for Sierra, but us gamers got rewarded with one of the best and most original adventure games ever conceived.

Establishing itself as the first in a (hopefully) long-living series of games, "Sins of the Fathers" introduces us to the life of Gabriel Knight, your typical suave, charming and witty adventure game hero that barely makes ends meet by running one of those chic specialty bookstores in New Orleans's French Quarter (the kind cooky university professors with bushy beards and fuzzy sweaters love to get themselves lost into). Meanwhile he tries to cook up a novel about voodo stuff and somehow puts up with her clerk/assistant Grace, the typical serious and controlled female counterpart that in turn, somehow manages to put up with Gabe's annoying attitude (but secretly we all know they both want to jump in the sack -Ho HO HOW CLEVER!! ARE WE STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL??)... Anyway, par for the course I guess, but everything changes from the moment Gabe's police buddy Luke Skywalker, er... I mean Mosely (voiced by Luke himself) tips him off to a strange ritualistic murder that could serve as material for his book. From that point on Gabe will traverse the city looking for clues trying to uncover the strange voodo murders and taking the player into a downspiral ride into the underground cults and lore that have populated New Orleans since colonial times. Rich in urban legends and mysteries, New Orleans's african lore proves to be a tremendously fertile ground for Ms. Jensen to stretch out her writing legs, and thus she sets the grounds for what would become the staple of the series: meticulously researched historical facts and supernatural events as a means to carefully construct a world in which the player has no problem immersing himself and which also manages to craft a believable context that makes the action that takes place in it much more frightening and appealing.

These settings aren't constructed with lame expositions however, as Gabe is just as versed in the voodo lore as we are and takes you around New Orleans gathering facts and myths about the ancient religion, uncovering a pretty real underworld in which simple charms and rituals are everyday occurrences for some social circles, and other groups that deal with much more frighteningly deadly occurrences such as human sacrifices and assorted weirdness. By visiting scholars, cultists, shop owners, wealthy socialites and several other characters using the classic Sierra adventure gaming template, Gabe helps you construct the game world and it's inhabitants effectively immersing yourself into the mystery at hand without turning things into bland "The more you Know!..." moments as the sequels eventually developed into. It may sound cliché to say that the original is better than it's sequels, but at least on this account it's true: GK1 never lost that sense of urgency and "fuckedup-ness" that drove you forward, meaning the exposition and historic accounts were a part of the action and not just a pet-peeve of it's creator. Save for at least one sequence, the game's historic and "educational" background was firmly integrated into the issues at hand. Be it because of the carefully constructed murder conspiracy, the romantic interest involved in the middle of it, the search for Gabe's own relation to the murders, the bloody trail left by the many victims in the game, etc. The story and it's carefully researched background moves you forward and never lets down.

As I mentioned earlier, Sierra also made this game quite an event in terms of production values, and it remains as one of the best produced titles of the classic point'n click adventure genre. A class act of style that features a streamlined interface (based on the classic Sierra top tool-bar but done completely anew for the game with new actions and options [such as dialogue replaying] and it's own gloomy look), beautiful (but unfortunately pixellated) hand-drawn graphics that don't stop at illustrating the game's surroundings in vivid detail, but also incorporate rotoscoped animation for smoothly natural character movements as well as uniquely drawn character art that take the center stage whenever you trigger one of the many cinematic cutscenes that slice the screen up into edgy comic-book panels and that just ooze coolness.

Also as advertised , the CD version is a fully "talkie" product, but unlike the "recorded in the toilet and starring the programmer's parents" talkie "enhancements" of other multimedia products of it's time, Gabriel Knight features a full ensemble cast of professional figures, including Luke, Worf, King of Queen's Leah Remini, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and even Darkness himself: Tim Curry! Furthermore, the moody soundtrack of Robert Holmes is amongst the most memorable collection of tunes ever assembled for an adventure game of that era and not only fits the game like a glove but also delivers a compelling experience on it's own.

Plus the game comes with an artsy printed graphic novel that serves as a prelude for the game! Don't you miss the days when developers did that? Now you are lucky if they remember to include the manual in pdf form...

The Bad
I can only note two problems with Gabriel Knight. First of all, regardless of the nice collection of credible, well-integrated puzzles there are some that are really out there and put the game into that classic adventure gaming mode known as "clicking on everything until you stumble into what the designer wanted you to do". Particularly interesting is reading the novelized adaptations of the GK games written by Jane Jensen herself, as one gets to see that even she has problems justifying some of the more far-out puzzles in a coherent way.

The other issue I have with the game, as another reviewer commented is with the "European adventures" portion of the game. I don't have a particular problem with the story developments or the dragon's dream, but I do feel the art director lost the concept of the game there and trying to make up a cold stony castle ended up crafting the most boring location in the game, and uh... well yeah, the plot developments there seem to be extremely rushed as if Mrs. Jensen herself were always behind a wall telling Gabe to speed things up and get back to the main story "Yeah, Yeah you are a Schattenjäger now get your ass moving!" and the whole sequence has a "wham, bang, thank you m'am" feel to it.

The Bottom Line
In my mind the first really, really, REALLY good title developed by Sierra, who managed to rise out of Lucasart's shadow and prove they had game. Not just by playing coy with comic or fantastic titles, but also by releasing a full-blown adult product that excels at storytelling, immersion, scripting, gameplay and execution. This is one of the adventure genre's best moments and a true classic in every sense of the word, anyone who hasn't played it deserves to be bathed in chicken blood and sacrificed by Lt. Worf for their heresy.

The Good
When we say "adventure", we often think "comedy adventure", and the reason for that is simple: the greatest classic adventure games are comedies. "Serious" adventure games have always been much less popular. Sins of the Father is not the first attempt on this field, but it is the first one that takes hardcore puzzle-solving gameplay and charming humor that made comedy adventures great, and uses it to create an amazingly intense, atmospheric experience with touches of horror, an intricate narrative, and an unprecedented (for adventure games) degree of realism.

Sins of the Fathers succeeds where most others failed, before and after. How to make an adventure with puzzles that are hard enough, yet do not distract from the realistic setting of the game? How to combine humor with horror? How to write a story that is supernatural and natural at the same time? How to create lovable characters that resemble real people in everything they do, without becoming dull? This game solves all these problems.

The unique atmosphere of New Orleans fascinates the player from the very beginning. Every corner of the city oozes mystery, yet at the same time the city is so realistic. You'll meet typical inhabitants, old French catholics, Haitian voodoo specialists, black people who talk with that wonderful Southern accent, and many others.

The heroes of the game, Gabriel and Grace, belong to the most charismatic and memorable characters the adventure genre has ever produced. Their witty dialogue provide the necessary comic relief and give the game a wonderfully light personality, despite all the horrors that occur in it. By the way, be sure to get the CD version of the game - the voice-overs are fantastic.

A deeply involving story develops in New Orleans, written by Jane Jensen, the master story-teller. Detective mystery, educational trip into the realm of occult sciences, information about a region and its inhabitants, religious fable of sin and redemption - it is hard to say to what style this story belongs, but one thing is sure: it is good in everything it does.

The outlines of the plot follow a classic detective/mystery pattern: a crime takes place in the beginning of the game, and you have to find out who committed it and why. But of course, this is not just a regular crime, and soon you'll plunge into the world of ancient cults, superstitions, and magic. What is so great about this story and about Jane Jensen's style in general is not the abundance of supernatural effects to stun the player; it is rather the extremely natural approach to everything that happens, which makes it so credible, no matter how incredible it actually is. All the supernatural things grow out of a realistic setting, so that the player never feels they are forced. One of the techniques Jane Jensen uses to reach this high level of credibility is the correctness of the cultural material used in the game. She gathers historical details to meticulously reconstruct the picture of voodoo cult, and because of this scientific approach, the player is convinced the whole thing is real.

This is the background for a game that was developed by a company that already had years of experience in making quality adventure games. But even for Sierra, the gameplay of Sins of the Fathers was a rare achievement. The biggest problem that creators of serious adventure games have to face is the fact tricky puzzles aren't realistic and usually don't fit in an involving story. Either you fill your game with hilarious item combinations and get a comedy; fill it with mind-breaking puzzles, stop the action and make it a dull Myst clone; or reduce the gameplay to a minimum and get a shallow "interactive movie".

Sierra chose a different approach. I believe their early games like Colonel's Bequest employed the method of "detective simulation" - and probably there were text adventures that did it even much earlier. In any case, this is the path Sins of the Fathers followed. It is based mainly on investigation and dialogues: you talk to people to find out more about the topics you are interested in, then ask other people about the new topics you learn in process, etc. But at the same time, the game is full of hardcore puzzles that are very creative and that are equally far from Myst-style riddles and insane inventory orgies of comic adventures.

When playing a semi-serious adventure such as Fate of Atlantis, I still felt very strongly I was in a game. Sins of the Fathers never evoked in me this feeling. One of the greatest achievements of its gameplay is the fact it is a challenging game with real puzzles and serious detective work, yet it is not a collection of brilliant puzzles that are there just for their own sake.

Sins of the Fathers is also one of the last masterpieces of hand-painted graphic style. If you want to see how beautiful a 2D game can look without resembling a cartoon, take a look at this game. That was the "serious" graphics style that matched the game perfectly. There are many dark colors, especially brown, to make the game world look more mysterious and sinister, yet very cosy at the same time. Character portraits that appear during the dialogues are excellent. In addition to that, the game is accompanied by one of the best MIDI music scores I have ever heard.

The Bad
Not all the puzzles in the game are great; some just made me scratch my head, wondering why they were inserted into this game. Worse are the dreadful moments of "irreversible" situations: I believe that there are a few instances where you can get irrevocably stuck in the game because you forgot to do something before. This still reminded me that it was a Sierra game, after all.

There is also a bit too much of "triggering" - walking around and talking to people over and over again, going through all the locations in circles, clicking on everything on the screen, etc., in hope of triggering a scripted event and being able to advance the story.

The Bottom Line
I don't know what kind of voodoo magic they did here, but Sins of the Fathers proved that adventure games could, in fact, tell serious, involving stories, create dark, atmospheric worlds, and even throw at you educational material without boring you to death - all without sacrificing the gameplay. Truly a timeless classic, Sins of the Fathers is required gaming for those who care for the genre.