Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

aka: Gabriel Knight I, Gabriel Knight: Die Sünden der Väter, Gabriel Knight: Les péchés des ancêtres, Gabriel Knight: Lucha Contra Las Fuerzas Sobrenaturales, Gabriel Knight: Pecados dos Pais, Gabriel: Zikhronot Afelim
Moby ID: 116
DOS Specs
Buy on Windows
$5.99 new on Steam

Description official descriptions

Gabriel Knight is a wise-cracking bookstore owner and would-be author. He is the last in a long line of Shadow Hunters, those fated to fight supernatural forces of evil. Tormented by terrifying nightmares, he must spend every waking moment scouring the side streets and back alleys of New Orleans for the key to his dark past. One day, a blood-chilling murder shocks the inhabitants of the city. The police detective assigned to investigate the crime is Gabriel's friend. In the beginning Gabriel collects evidence in hope of using the material for his new novel; but soon he finds himself personally involved in the investigation, and plunges deeper into the world of secret societies and murderous cults.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a third-person puzzle-solving adventure game. Created by Jane Jensen, the game differs from Sierra's Quest games (e.g. Space Quest) by having a realistic setting and focusing (despite its supernatural elements and humor) on mature themes and detective work. In this way it is more similar to the company's earlier Laura Bow games.

The game's icon-based interface is the same as in Sierra's previous titles, with verb commands that allow interaction with the game world and its inhabitants. Though the game still has plenty of inventory-based puzzles characteristic for classic adventure, its gameplay is heavily inclined towards dialogue. Typically, Gabriel will have to interrogate other characters, choosing conversation topics and thus gradually finding clues and advancing towards the mystery's solution.

The game's locations are done in hand-painted style. The CD version of the game adds full voice-overs to the dialogues, as well as narrator's voice to text descriptions.

Spellings

  • גבריאל: זיכרונות אפלים - Hebrew spelling
  • 狩魔猎人 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

99 People (91 developers, 8 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 307 ratings with 18 reviews)

Gabriel Knight is proof that computer games can be an artform.

The Good
Computer games rarely have an incredible story behind them. Most ignore the concept completely. Others try their best to catch you with some ideas and some witty dialogue. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a well crafted tale from start to finish. The concept is fairly original, the characters engaging, their dialogue well written, the pacing well done, and the intricacies of the plot woven beautifully. Every character seems human and you'd be hard pressed to find one three dimensional (personality wise) character in a game, much less the five or so well-rounded main characters in GK. The legendary aspects, the voodoo involvement, the mystery and suspense all are done just right.

The graphics, though of low resolution, are the epitome of Sierra's 2-D painted graphics. They capture the scenes and people exceptionally and will make you question the 'benefits' of full 3-D graphics. The cutscenes unfold in very high-caliber graphic novel formats and carry the story wonderfully.

On the CD-Version, the voice acting was all done well. As GK came out in the early days of CD 'Talkie' games, it's remarkable that the voice-overs are done so professionally. Some people disliked Tim Curry as Gabriel, but I felt the over-done 'N'awlens' accent was perfect for Gabriel, who was an over-the-top character with a roguish heart. Mark Hamill, as usual, does wonderful voice-acting as Gabriel's friend, Det.Mosely and Michael Dorn puts in a good performance as the threatening Doctor John. The rest of the actors all put in a good job as well.



The Bad
In its original form, the game was buggy, to the point where it could not be completed. Fixed in patches, it was still an annoyance that you would have to start all over again. Fortunately, this won't be an issue for someone who digs up a copy of the game.

The pacing of the game itself wasn't as good as the pacing of the story. Days passed only when you completed all the mandatory requirements. While usually this is better than having a game clock that forces things along even if you're not resolving anything, you would often find yourself exhausting every possible location before finding that one remaining obscure clue. Or, you would be lucky and uncover everything you needed to move on and have the day move quickly with little chance to see any of the voluntary side-bits.

Pet-peeve: The CD version box. While cool looking and unique in shape, it looked very warped and out of place on the shelf...well, maybe that was the whole point. <g>

The Bottom Line
An incredibly well-crafted adventure game with a superb story, interesting characters, and a fresh environment. Fans of classic adventure games, lovers of good stories, or those interested in voodoo should take a look.

DOS · by Ray Soderlund (3501) · 2000

Once in a while, Sierra manages to get everything right.

The Good
I don't think there's a whole bunch to not like about this game. For starters, Jane Jensen's masterful writing will keep you on your toes until the very end. This is backed up by great character design, a good MIDI score with lots of memorable themes, beautiful character portraits, and the best voice acting that I've ever heard in a computer game. Tim Curry absolutely makes the role of Gabriel Knight his own. The game also includes lots of other stars and people of note: Leah Remini (Grace Nakimura), Mark Hamill (Detective Mosely), Michael Dorn (Dr. John), and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr (Wolfgang Ritter). The ending is rewarding, the game drips with atmosphere, and the story will stick with you long after you've finished playing.

The Bad
In terms of pure gameplay, I can't think of anything bad to say aboout GK. There are a couple of rough spots as far as technology goes, though. There is a patch available for the game, and as I recall you do have to download and install the patch in order to be able to finish the game. Do it before you start playing, because once you run the patch you won't be able to use your old saved games. Unfortunately, the terrific voice acting wasn't always well recorded. There is much more clipping than there should be in a professional product. (Clipping is the digital version of analog recording's distortion; it means recording levels were set too high.) Also, sometimes the recording levels were set too low and you have to do some quick audio adjustment to hear what people are saying. The game will only allow subtitles OR speech, so you can't both read and hear what people are saying. However, it would take a lot more than this to have taken away from my enjoyment of the wonderful acting. This game is from an era where diskette versions of games were still shipped; in fact, they often shipped quite a long time before the CD-ROM versions were. Make sure you get the CD-ROM version. I still rated the game a 5 in every area - except for graphics. The comic-style cutscenes were a cool idea, and the high resolution character portraits (I believe these were only available in the Windows version of the CD-ROM game) easily rival, and often surpass the 3D graphics of today. However, the in-game 320x240 graphics could have been better.

The Bottom Line
If you're an adventure gamer and you haven't played Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, shame on you. Go out and buy it right now. :)

DOS · by Eurythmic (2663) · 1999

Guybrush Threepwood gone detective!

The Good
Well for one, this is one deep story. Other Sierra adventure games had this "surface level-fun kiddies" kinda of story line. This is the first Sierra Adventure game with a really serious-adult like approach to a game. The mysterious but not so creepy storyline gave a constant adrenaline flow, but not so much to give you a heart attack.

Our main character appears to be a favorite among "men with minds like boys" : a cool, mysterious laidback kinda guy, but always seems to be a corny and horny guy in the background. Gabriel Knight is yet the most "real character" most blokes can relate with. One thing that is probably memorable is the various "useless actions" that ol'Gabriel does especially when he interacts with his lovely secretary. It may not have to do anything with the overall plot, but it certainly was the most memorable ones.

The graphics in this game is astounding, coincidently enough it's about the same period to the breath-taking graphics in Hero's Quest III. I remember just stopping and notice on how "smooth" the graphics were compared to previous Sierra adventure games.

One of the best things about the game was the Sound and the Music. The sound was totally aligned with the game-play: the sound of the motorcylce racing along is one of the most memorable sounds you get. The music cool and mysterious, certainly shall be a reminder of the best music compositions around in gaming history.

The Bad
Can you spell: B U G S?

Unfortunately, the reason why I didn't finish this game was the multitude of bugs which often cause the dang game to crash. Bugs appear to be a favorite feature among Sierra adventure games...don't know why.

Something I've noticed about this particular Sierra adventure game compared to other Sierra adventure games was the lack of "places"...in games like King's Quest there are many places which may or may not have something for the hero to do. In Gabriel Knight there usually is something to do every area you visit, although more than often it's just one of two things. After that, you barely visit them again. It's like the church in the game, the only thing you do there is to get some pastor's clothes. That it. Ho-hum. Oh, well.

To my recollection, the puzzles were one of the toughest I have experienced, even by Sierra's standards. Funny that it was tough despite the it was the "point and click" adventure types. My IQ must've have been not very high back then...not that much has changed now...:p

The Bottom Line
Certainly one of the best mystery adventures around.

DOS · by Indra was here (20756) · 2004

[ View all 18 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Gabriel Knight Multimedia CD-ROM Edwin Drost (9295) Feb 4, 2017
The game gets stuck at day 5 Nowhere Girl (8680) Apr 28, 2016
A GK remake and no one's talking about it chirinea (47504) Nov 11, 2014
I really dislike the narrator SnubPollard (62) Feb 8, 2013

Trivia

CD version

The CD version of the game includes a 20 minute behind the scenes avi file depicting the creation of Gabriel Knight. The file also included interviews with most of the cast, lead designer/writer Jane Jensen and others.

Covermount releases

  • The full, original game on CD was bundled with the 1/2001 edition of Computer Gaming World magazine.
  • The full, original game on CD was bundled with the July 1997 edition of CD-Rom Today, a Brazilian computer magazine.

German version

The German CD-ROM version has a major bug, which causes to crash the games at at least three points during the game. The program obviously hangs, because of a corrupted soundfile. Turn off voices & music in the crashing scenes and you can go on playing.

Leilani Jones

Leilani Jones (Malia Gedde) seems to like the Voodoo Priestess gig. She also plays one in LucasArts' Curse of Monkey Island.

Novel

Jane Jensen> has written a novelization of the game, first printed in February 1997, through Penguin's ROC imprint. The game's sequel was also given the novelization treatment.

References

  • It could be a coincidence, but there is a real life blues musician from Lousiana, named Dr. John. Perhaps the character's name came from a fan.
  • On day 3, you’re able to attend a (pretty boring) lecture at the Tulane university. Take a walk in the lecture hall and read the bulletin board. After looking at it a few times, you’ll get the message “There's a notice for a lecture on Investigative Reporting techniques to be given by octogenarian Pulitzer Prize winner Laura Bow Dorian." This refers to two game characters from the Laura Bow II – Dagger of Amon Ra adventure: Laura Bow en Steve Dorian. In the game, they fell in love. An octogenarian means someone between 80 and 90 in age, so this assumes the two of them got married in the end.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • June 1994 (Issue #119) – Adventure Game of the Year (together with Maniac Mansion 2: Day of the Tentacle
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #7 Best Way To Die In Computer Gaming (get the heart ripped out by a zombie)

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, chirinea, Chris Mikesell, Isdaron; Pseudo_Intellectual, Sciere and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Eurythmic.

Windows added by Picard. Windows 3.x added by MAT. Macintosh added by Katakis | カタキス.

Additional contributors: MAT, Andrew Hartnett, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Daniel Saner, chirinea, Sciere, Xoleras, Boston Low, 1gnition, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger.

Game added May 13, 1999. Last modified January 21, 2024.