There's a Gabriel Knight Remake On the Way

...cool?

Remakes of point and clicks make's no sense to me. Do it like they did Monkey Island, update it with some new graphics and make it run on modern computer's without emulators. So that the people who like the original will get a simple way to re-play it, and those who are new will get a up to date looking experience. Don't remake it, it's still the same game. A remake with any serious changes will only tick fans off.

Cool stuff. Love me some Sins of the Father..

@ravelle:

I would certainly recommend all three games but they are very different and each has it's strengths and weaknesses.

The first game is an absolute classic with a good story, a great voice cast and beautiful pixel art. Just be sure to have a walkthrough ready because some objects are hard to find and some puzzles are somewhat far fetched. The version on GOG is based on the windows version and features higher resolution interface, close ups (in conversations) and inventory. It's too bad Sierra didn't upgrade the background and characters while they were at it. A cool feature is the fact that Gabriel carries a tape recorder with him and records every conversation he has. From the menu you can access every topic you've ever discussed with any of the characters. Unfortunately objects that you can pick up or use are in no way highlighted nor does their name appear when you mouse over them (hence the walkthrough - it's easy to miss something).

The second game features a lot of FMV scenes which are luckily well acted. The story is also interesting and focusses on king Ludwig II of Bavaria, his relationship with the composer Wagner, castle Neuschwanstein and his mysterious death. There are also a lot of wolves in the game which tie in to an exciting, though too action-orientated ending. The tape recorder is back (a dual mount!) and can once again be used to access earlier conversations. You can also watch some of the cinematics you've already seen from the menu. The game isn't entirely made up from FMVs but uses photographic backgrounds with filmed characters on top (a bit like early Acces games like Tex Murphy and countdown).

The third game is done in 3D and once again has an interesting story about the lineage of Christ, vampires and the lost treasure of the knights templar. I would have preferred a 360 view 2D game (like Harvest of Souls) but the graphics look alright (but very low polygon). Instead of animating the faces in 3D they've used animated 2D textures for the faces which looks pretty good. You can crank up the resolution by editing the register which will make the game look better, but it will grapically screw up some scenes which only use 2D (doing research on an in game laptop). Though Gabriel still carries a tape recorder you can only use it for certain puzzles so there is no way to replay any dialogue.

You can get all three games for about $ 18 at GOG.com which is cheaper then the remake of part 1 will be.

Thanks to Brad everybody seems to be focussing on the fact that Tim Curry won't be reprising his role. But according to the official website none of the original voice cast will be involved in the remake. The original recordings have been lost and rehiring the original voices would be too expensive (according to Jane Jensen) and off course some actors have died in the past twenty years. This means that slightly less known actors like: Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker on Star Wars, voice of the joker in many, many cartoons and games), Michael Dorn (lt. Worf on Star Trek The Next Generation), Leah Remini (Carie Heffernan on King of Queens), Virginia Capers (Grandma Hattie Banks on the Fresh Prince of Bell Air), Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (voice of Alfred, butler of Batman in countless cartoons), Jim Cummings and Jeff Bennet (voice actors who've done more cartoon voices since the eighties than I care to repeat here) won't be in the remake as well.

So this means that a great cast of experienced voice actors will be replaced by a group of cheap to hire voice actors who probably don't have of half the experience of the original cast. I think I'll pass on this remake and just replay the original game.

For all their flaws, I still consider most Sierra adventures classics, but GK1 is probably the only one I feel really stands in the same tier as all the Lucasarts masterpieces. (To be fair, I never did get to play 2 or 3, despite having the installer for 2 from GoG sitting on a hard drive here for years now). Brilliant atmosphere, great characters, great setting, you could die but in tonally appropriate ways a la Fate of Atlantis, and only late in. I don't believe it could ever be because you fucked up several days earlier either since the different chapters were smartly contained into different days.

The way you could literally ask everyone about every topic of interest was a goddamned masterstroke. Really made it feel like you were doing some proper investigating.

That said, this remake looks... I dunno, disappointing. All the proper 2D art looks fantastic as ever, but the 3D character stuff is just not working for me at all, making it look like every other low-budget 3d-rendered adventure from the last 5-10 years when it could have been beautifully high-res stuff that all matched the fairly realistically-rendered art in the cutscenes and character convo portraits in the original.

Ah well, still glad this is a thing that's happening.

Man, this is exciting mainly because I'm thinking that they might also remake the 2nd and 3rd game. This is definitely a buy for me and here's hoping for a line of remakes. The 3rd game was nearly unplayable for me mainly due to that horrible 3D graphics engine they used.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Fucking yes!

If we get an actual proper sequel to GK3 out of this, I will shit my pants.

The sheer amount of research that went into the GK series is mindblowing. Jane Jensen really tries to ground the supernatural into something almost plausible.

I had the floppy version of 1 as well, didn't get a cd rom until 96, for daggerfall. Never did go back and get the talkie version.

"What do you know about..................voodoo?!"

20 years!? Man I got this new with that stupid F'n Sierra Hint book with the red filter. Great for those moments when a Sierra game just wants to mess with your head. But yeah. Nostalgia instabuy. Even though I just replayed the original 6 or so months ago, first time with Tim Curry cause I wasn't cool enough to have a spec'd up PC to play the talkies and had it on.. like 12? 3.5"ers.

Most of the classic Sierra games have ScummVM support now though, which makes them run natively under modern Windows far better than the old Win 3.1/95 versions ever would. Sadly, Gabriel Knight is one of the few games that aren't properly supported yet, but if you want to mess around with Space Quest or Kings Quest again, ScummVM is definitively the way to go.

I've only played GK 1 and 2, but to me those two games were THE best point and click adventure games in their respective art styles. The first one had the loveliest pixel art to come out of the nineties (plus Tim Curry and Worf dang), and the second one was FMV done right. Of course both of them had their fair shares of insane nonsense puzzles, but I just accepted as the norm as far as 90's adventure games go.

If this were a remake in the spirit of those Monkey Island remakes that let you toggle between the old and new art styles, I might be tempted to support it. Otherwise, not worth it.

Really liked all three gabriel knight games, even if they had silly puzzles and GK3 was a buggy mess. Might have to get this, depending on what special stuff they put in there.

I've been meaning to play these games for years, having watched the originals on YouTube. Pretty great news really. There's a lot of old games that I'm really interested in, but might be a tad awkward to play now.

Gabriel cannot do that!

I put a ton of hours into this and never finished it. Maybe I could give it another go...

Looks like the original backgrounds which is cool.

Chills. Fucking chills. I could not be more excited for this.

Fun fact: When this game first came out, I played through it until the beginning of Day 10 where I experienced a game-crashing bug. I had to wait for Sierra to release a patch which I downloaded from their BBS. Then I had to start over the beginning because the patch broke my saves. It was totally worth it.

I don't know if I could play the game over again-but I would buy the soundtrack. Loved the main theme and music for the first game. Wonder if they would release that?

OMG i remember being like 12 buying this game for my first ever computer and i never knew what the hell to do I would just walk around.

I remember as a kid I let my friend borrow Super Mario RPG for a Gabriel Knight game...and then he lost my Super Mario RPG somewhere. So fuck Gabriel Knight.

The lack of Time Curry does not make me shiver with antici...

Awww, man. Thanks for the downer. Curry's one of my Favourite actors, and I wondered why he hasn't done much in the past few years.

At least we'll always have that Frankenstein FMV game. And this:

@cornbredx: Actually, Tim Curry returned for Gabriel Knight 3, so it is a little egregious not to have him be in this one, considering the only reason he was replaced in GK2 was because it used FMV cutscenes and he really doesn't look much like Gabriel. (They also recast Grace Nakamura's actor for that game as well because Leah Remini is very noticeably not Asian >_>)

Holy crap! That's actually one of my favorite adventure games... I'm totally going to pick this up.

The voice is definitely off, but honestly I'm more weirded out about how Gabe looks in general... The hair seems all wrong...

Actualy, he was just in Ribbit, and Axel: The biggest little hero, i was just looking him up on imdb so i could make a very accurate Clue Movie joke, but no need to, i have facts.

I've been meaning to get into Adventure Games for a while now. The original GK was always high on my list on where to start. Here's hoping this one turns out ok

Just putting it out there - the first one had some silly puzzles too (eg. apparently the only way to wash your hands is to rub "off-color" snow all over them...)

Anyway, despite some not-so-great parts, overall, the first is definitely worth playing (I haven't played the other two though).

Holy crap, that's terrible. I had no idea.

All this really makes me want to go buy the original on GOG. Too bad the only Sierra games you can get these days are the DOS versions.

What? No Tim Curry. Internet Rage!

I'm just kidding.

The first Gabriel Knight is really boring, to me, and Tim Curry doesn't really change that. The only interesting thing about Tim Curry being in it is that he does a thick Louisiana accent throughout (or at least, he tried to).

It would be cool if they brought him back, but he isn't necessary to the experience (given that he was only in the first one- so there's already precedent I guess).

But ya, I never found the first Gabriel Knight to be all that good. Maybe remaking it will make it more interesting.

Cool!, I'm a huge fan of point and click adventures. I'll go check them out over the weekend.

@ravelle: Yes! I don't have any nostalgia for the era and went back to play this game (and the sequel) last year. I quite liked both, and one day I'll get through the mess of GK3 as well...

\

Graaaaaaaace? Where's mah... newspapuh...?

ten dignity bucks gettin' bet that this is a tablet game first with a pc pity version, it sure as hell looks like one at least

In my opinion yes, although there are some silly puzzles in the later ones. I'm actually re-playing them at the moment and having as much fun as the first time. If you enjoy point and click adventure games then you should enjoy them a lot, and they're fairly cheap over on GOG. I have to say that a remake seems redundant to me, from what is on display here the original had a lot more character than what is becoming the generic style of Phoenix Online Studios' work.

Ugh, don't care for the art at all. Better to just get the original on GOG.

I never played the previous games, are they still worth playing?

That's too bad. I love me some Tim Curry.

What can you tell me about... Sintjauuunseeeve? Do you know what... cabrit sans cor means?

Mr. Curry had a pretty bad stroke a couple of years back and hasn't really done any work since. Voice acting's probably low on the list of what he's capable of at the moment.

No Tim Curry?

Well it best be Dean Erickson then or screw it.

It's only just recently came to my attention to how old Tim Curry is. I mean, he's 68, so he's not pushing 80 or anything. But still, it was a little shocking.

Seems alright. It's a shame that mound action sequence seems to still be in tact.

Also, it's for the best that Tim Curry is gone - his accent was inconsistent and just generally bad...