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imunbeatable80

Sometimes I play video games on camera, other times I play them off.. I am an enigma

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What's the Greatest Video Game(s): Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father + 20th Anniversary

This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

CategoryCompletion level
CompletedYes
Hours Played?12-15 OG <10 Anniversary
Points334/335 OG 357/362 Anniversary

I am going to do something a bit different with this entry and it was really only an idea that popped into my head when I was playing around with my Steam Deck. Yes, I was one of the lucky ones and was able to secure a preorder for Q1 of this year. While I don’t want to get into the weeds of everyone going back and forth about whether or not it is good, I will say that in my experience the Steam Deck has been phenomenal and it works exactly how I want it to work for the games I want to play on it. I am sure Valve didn’t think that someone would order a Steam Deck and 3 out of the first 4 games they installed on it would be 90s adventure games, but then again it is very on brand for me, so I will not apologize. STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME APOLOGIZE!

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What started off as a test to see how well the Steam Deck would play a low-stakes mouse centered game, became an idea for my next post. What if I play through all of “Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father” and then upon completion, immediately play through the remake and do a fun little comparison and contrast while ranking the same game twice? Could be fun, or in the words of my wife “A complete waste of time,” those are just the kind of odds I like to play. A little warning up front, I have a feeling this will be a longer post. All of my write-ups/reviews are done spur of the moment, but I have a nagging suspicion that I might blather on this game more then say “Elli” or “Down in Bermuda.

I may have mentioned this before, but I grew up a huge fan of adventure games. I almost exclusively played console games, because as a kid that is just easier. My family had one computer that was used by the whole household to do not only whatever adults did back in the day (is it taxes?), to helping my older brother and sister do homework (probably preparing them for a life of tax filings), and then seldom allowing ONE person to unwind with a game. This mystical computer was a treat to get to play it, because it didn’t happen often. As the youngest kid in the house, I was at the whim of playing games that my family had already invested in on the computer. Those games tended to skew more adult, at least in my eyes, because everything seemed more adult then Mario, Kickle Cubicle, or Bugs Bunny. My family really went all in on adventure games, and to this day I don’t really know why. I have to assume it was because of my older brother, as I never saw my parents playing them, but I attempted to make my way through all of the classics. We never had complete sets, but we had games from every adventure game series: Space Quest 4, Police Quest 2, Kings Quest 5, Monkey Island 1 & 2, Quest for Glory 1 and eventually when I started expressing interest in playing these games, my parents bought both Eco Quest games for me, 7th Guest for my sister, and my brother got a new game called Gabriel Knight. Eventually as I got older I would make my way through all of these games, but I would gravitate to 3 series that still to this day are my pillars of Adventure Games. The Monkey Island series, the Quest for Glory series, and Gabriel Knight 1.

Two things to note about that previous statement. Yes, I know that these are not the originators of the genre and that they were cribbing a lot of stuff from other adventure games, so you don’t need to tell me how we wouldn’t have series X without first having Zork or whatever game you want to bring to the table. I know, and I don’t care. This is revisionist history that I am engaging with 100%. The second thing to note is that I do not include the series of Gabriel Knight as a pillar, and just the first game because… I have still never played the 2nd game in the series, and the 3rd one I have only played once, and it was….ok. However, we are only talking about the first game here, and it left such a lasting impression on me, that it will remain on my list until I die.

Now, I was only 6 when Gabriel Knight came out, far too young to play it at that time, so while my parents were pretty relaxed with suggested ages, I can’t imagine that I was diving in upon release day. Sidebar I remember trying to play 7th guest upon release, being so scared of the ghosts (which is comical upon replaying it) that I ran upstairs (the computer was in the basement), and refused to go back down to even turn off the computer. You all can rest easy knowing that I have since beaten 7th guest without running away from my computer at least 2 times since that incident. This is, not a write-up of 7th guest, so we should probably stop talking about it.

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Gabriel Knight is a Sierra point and click adventure game that has you playing amateur novelist and rare book store owner, Gabriel Knight. Gabriel is doing a little research into the world of Voodoo, because a string of gruesome murders is dominating the news in New Orleans (where the game takes place), as an attempt to help him complete his next novel. If you are unfamiliar with just adventure games in general, the gameplay is going through a story, solving puzzles along the way that can either be inventory puzzles (an item you pick up that is then used on something in a scene), Dialogue puzzles (Puzzles solved through conversation, asking the right questions at the right time), or puzzle box puzzles (A singular full screen puzzle, that asks you to solve a problem, usually without the use of an inventory item). Think of one of those gas station puzzle books, you buy because you are going on a road trip and need to occupy your mind, but create a story around the puzzles and make them all fit a set theme (of course I’m still waiting for an adventure game that brings in the “jumble”).

What made Gabriel Knight stand out, was that it was a game that struck a darker tone then other games Sierra was working on. Kings Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Eco Quest, were all fairly family friendly games. Either the games brought in a lot of humor, or the setting was fantastical and made you think of storybooks, or even in the case of Eco Quest, being designed for kids. Police Quest was certainly more adult and featured themes of drug use and investigating crimes, but it’s story felt more like an 80s or 90s action movie. Gabriel Knight had elements of a horror movie, it had the ability to make you feel fear and genuine dread.

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So I am going to do my best to mark out spoiler warnings for this game, because if you haven’t played it, I would encourage you to do so, and I don’t want to spoil the game’s story, but what makes this game special is its story that builds and builds into the finale. You know, even going into the game, that at some point Gabriel is going to come face to face with the party that is responsible for committing these murders. Anyone with a working brain, knows that the story has to end with your character attempting to conquer evil. The build up and the slowly unraveling of clues that are left behind is where the game is enjoyable. It is a wonderfully slow build as GK takes place over the course of several days, and each day can’t be progressed unless a set of specific puzzles are solved. It’s a good system that lets you know that you are on the right track, and that you have accomplished what the game wants you to accomplish that day. There are some puzzles that stay unsolved across multiple days, because perhaps you need a clue or an item that drops later, and other puzzles that you can solve the first day they are available, even if you aren’t sure what it means. It’s a semi free-form style of adventuring that also alleviates a concern that I, and probably others, have had with Sierra Adventure games of the past.

I hated playing Kings Quest or Space quest games, where because I missed an item in the beginning of the game, I would be screwed for the one puzzle that pops up late game. It was infuriating to me, and something that should be banned for all time. (Personally its why I gravitated towards Lucas Arts adventures in the adventure game war). Gabriel Knight didn’t feel like that type of game. The crime scene that you get to investigate on day 1, is still an available location on day 5 or 6 in case you realized that you missed something you need to go back to. Need to keep visiting the house of an old lady, because you aren’t getting the item out of it, well she will keep letting you inside until you figure out the puzzle. Despite the old motto of Sierra, “Save Early, Save Often” Gabriel Knight seemed to be able to buck that trend and allow you to just keep one save game going throughout the whole thing. Sure there are parts where you can die, but none of it felt cheap, and even if you just saved at the start of every day, a death wouldn’t mean too much replaying. Death was there to keep the stakes high, Gabriel Knight is dealing with a force he doesn’t know about and a party that is responsible for murders around the city, of course Gabriel Knight is at risk during some of the story.

EXCEPT The end game.. While I didn’t personally try skipping every puzzle to see if it would eventually lead to a potential dead end, I didn’t find any puzzles early on that could prevent you from finishing the game. At the end of the game, however there is not 1 but 2 potential lock out moments that can cause your one save to be finished forever. For instance you can fail to hide both the tracker and the snake rod for Mosely to locate the hidden temple, which results in an end series you can’t win. There is also a potential that if you don’t grab costumes for yourself and Mosely before stumbling upon the room the people are keeping Grace in. Once in the room, you can’t leave it, which should you foolishly save in that room, means you are screwed again. I would hate to be the person who falls for the first dead end, plays through the game again, and then falls for the 2nd dead end 10 minutes later and then just snaps the game in half. I don’t know how I feel about it, because the game lulls you into a false sense of security, by allowing you to play through 95% of the game without worrying about dead ends, and then potentially drops two in your lap in quick succession, but I suppose the adventure game motto of having multiple saves really comes into handy here.

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I really hate to do two spoiler tags in back to back paragraphs, but we need to talk more about the plot. To this day, I think the opening and overall premise to Gabriel Knight is worthy of having a movie adaptation. That isn’t the highest bar, but what I mean is that I think it’s such a good premise that it would adapt easily. Gabriel is just a novelist, he isn’t a detective, he isn’t a fighter, he isn’t a super genius. He goes around New Orleans interviewing any and everyone he can regarding the stories and items he has found. In fact you can ask your Grandma about the voodoo murders, as if she is going to give you insight you can use. A fun game to play, after you have beaten it, is that you can talk to one of the baddies, before you know they are bad, and show them clues you have dug up that point in their direction just to see their response. You can be as bumbling a hero as you want to be, and all of it plays. The game starts to reach a crescendo where Gabriel has maybe dug a little too close and is now in the crosshairs of the enemy. Then it is at its most creepy/best when a man posts outside your shops window and stares at you all day and refuses to move, you decipher a code that specifically says your name, and you realize the drummers around the city that you have seen everywhere, are secretly sending messages to everyone about everything. You feel like you are trapped and that Gabriel’s time is up, and that the whole game was working towards this mystery…. And then it whisks you out of New Orleans, tells you that you are not the schlub Gabriel Knight, but a “shadow hunter” who naturally deals with evil, and then makes you investigate a temple where mummies come to life and you have to be Indiana Jones. All the good will of the story is ruined, the momentum is taken away. I don’t want Gabriel Knight to secretly be a “shadow hunter” who is pre-disposed to dealing with the super-natural. I don’t want to go tomb raiding and complete some of the most annoying puzzles in the game. And I certainly don’t want to leave the interesting story behind, so we can setup a future series in the middle of the game. Obviously everyone is going to approach this differently, but the story turn in the back 4th of the game feels like Jane and the writing crew weren’t confident in how they were planning on ending the story and needed some magic explanation as to why Gabriel can deal with this evil. The game picks back up upon your return and then proceeds to keep your pulse up. You know there is danger, you know you aren’t wanted. Locations are closed, Grace is in danger, people are missing, and it’s up to you to stop it. The remaining 30 minutes of the game, while certainly hard, is a great send off that even plays out in two different endings. It wasn’t until this time playing through the game, that I discovered the alternate ending, which if I am being honest I might prefer to the “good ending.” There is something more poetic about that ending, then the canonical ending.

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How are the puzzles you ask? Well for the most part I didn’t really find them that bad. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but a lot of puzzles can be solved simply by making sure you exhaust talking to everyone about everything, and visiting each location and combing through the whole area picking up whatever can fit into your pockets. I will call out two puzzles specifically that I think kind of railroad your progress and even my memory of playing the game in the past was not enough to allow me to skate through these puzzles. The first one you come across is there is an antique clock at your grandma’s house, that you can toy with and eventually open. However in order to open it, you need to set the time in addition to setting a dial around the edges that have different symbols. Here is the sequence of events that SHOULD help you solve the puzzle but are not things you would normally when playing a game.

  1. A man named Ritter calls you and leaves a message asking for you to call him back, but Gabriel won’t call him back because he doesn’t know who he is.
  2. You stumble upon the clock and clock key by visiting your Gran’s house but can’t solve the puzzle and she is of no help.
  3. If you click to read books at your shop on ALL THE BOOKSHELVES, you will eventually stumble upon two books. A book of German Poetry written by Hans Ritter, and a German to English translation book.
  4. Read the poetry book, it is completely in German and not translated.
  5. Upon reading the Translation book, Gabriel will comment on one word at a time at random.
  6. Re-reading the translation book will eventually get him to translate the words: Dragon, 3, and midday.
  7. You can then re-try the clock and set the dragon symbol at the top and set the time to 3:00, and turn the key and it opens.
  8. You eventually learn that Ritter is a family name associated with you, and that is why the poem and clock work together.

It is an incredibly stupid puzzle for a couple reasons. The books on the shelf are not highlighted or called out in any way shape of form. In fact other shelves will have books that Gabriel decides are not important and the narrator says something along the lines of “Gabriel has no interest in [topic].” You would be right to believe that these other shelves will return a similar answer and not keep trying to read books. Also, since you can’t translate the poem 1:1 in the game, it is possible that Gabriel translates a word that does not apply to the puzzle. There are some decoy words there, that if it happens to be your first word he translates you again might think you are going down a wrong path. Finally, Gabriel never writes down the poem, nor does it become an inventory item, which would tell you that it is an important or key item, this again makes it easy to bypass this line of thinking.

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The other puzzle that is infuriating is also probably the part of the game that causes the most death. At some point you… and I’m tiptoeing around spoilers here, find yourself solving a puzzle that causes “enemies” to attempt to kill you. Every screen you enter, there is an enemy that if they get their hands on you will end up killing you. It is a puzzle that requires (actually requires) you to adjust a setting that speeds up Gabriel’s walking, because at the default rate will almost certainly cause more death then if you speed up his walking animation. Even with that adjustment, should you walk onto the wrong screen you will die instantly. Instead have to go to a very specific screen, and click on something on screen that is clearly set dressing so that Gabriel, pretends to be Indiana Jones just to get through the puzzle. What makes this puzzle annoying, is not only that it is timed (stand around too long and you will be killed) but that you are expected to have Gabriel Knight act out of character in order to progress. Again, I have played this game previously, I have beaten it previously, but I stumbled on this puzzle for too long, because I was trying different items, going to different rooms, and it was because I wasn’t thinking Indy.

I highlight the two bad puzzles, because it is rare for an adventure game of this era to be completely free of nonsense, and while GK has nonsense as well, these were the exceptions instead of the rule. Other people might call out a puzzle where you need to send a message on a wall, but if you are paying attention when you plant a bug on said item, the narrator calls it out by name and says something along the lines of “now if only we can make sure they take the sekey madoule” which gives you the name (and spelling) of the item you need to talk about in your message. I’m not saying other puzzles are easy, but I don’t feel they are unfair.

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I would be doing a disservice to GK 1 if I didn’t talk about the excellent voice acting. Gabriel Knight is voiced by Tim Curry, Detective Mosely is voiced by Mark Hamill. Other voice actors include Leah Remini, Jim Cummings, Michael Dorn. We can look back now and realize that this is a great voice cast, but when you place the time frame as early 90s you realize that these are big names that are lending their voices to not only a unknown video game series, but a rather new medium as voice-overs in games did not really come into its own until much later. Tim Curry alone, with his really heavy attempt at a New Orleans accent gives character to Gabriel despite the fact that he is a bit of a womanizer.

When we get to the end, I will talk about where GK 1 ranks for me on an all-time list, but to put a bow on the discussion for now, I love the game. I can’t completely separate the nostalgic feelings I have for the game with the game itself, but I think the game still works as a whole. The music, the voice-acting, the sound of solving a puzzle are still ingrained in my memory. I can still play the game in 2022 and feel the story is engaging, the dread is real, and that the characters aren’t dull and flat like other games. I found myself, like with any good book, getting to a point in the game where I couldn’t put it down, regardless of the fact that I knew how it ended and what big steps I would be doing next.

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So how does the remake compare, well for one it came out 20 years after the original, so we are talking 2013.. and they wanted to update the game to not only celebrate the OG, but to also modernize it for new gamers. The updated graphics make the characters more fleshed out in 3D, the backgrounds are now much more detailed, and the music has been redone to make it pop more. There is now a hint system built into the game that allows the player to get a little guidance in case they feel stuck about what to do next. They have also split up the content to be more even throughout the game, so Day 1 doesn’t feel huge while day 4 feels empty. They added some new puzzles to the game, added cut-scenes and added a lot of behind the scenes content regarding the making of the original game and the new one.

However, not all of these are good changes, and I am trying to not let my old man nostalgia get in the way to unfairly criticize the new version, but the comparison and contrast has to go in that direction. Let’s play a game called Positive/Negative..

Positive - the backgrounds look much nicer, items pop off the screen more, and what items might have been a mess of pixels are now clearly defined.

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Negative – The new 3D characters come with the issue that has plagued 3D characters back in the day. They sometimes break, and I had instances where Gabriel would slightly levitate off the ground, or walk where he wasn’t supposed to go. My favorite (even though its not really breaking) is every time Grace locks up the shop and leaves for the day, her animation causes her first step out of the office to look incredibly awkward as it for a second gets stuck on another object (either the door, or her other leg). They also made Gabriel look a lot more like the character from the 3rd game (which attempts to make him look similar to the actor that played him in the 2nd game), despite the incredibly strong look of the original character. It is, not a look that I think is an upgrade.

Positive – The hint system and behind the scenes content is great for new comers and people who played the original. I will look at concept art and listen to interviews because I find that stuff fascinating, and being able to look up hints when you are stuck on a puzzle, while still in game, alleviates that feeling that you need to play these games with a walkthrough printed out beside you.

Negative – The great voice cast is gone and replaced with the dollar store replacements. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this anniversary edition was done on a budget, and it was probably even harder to get greenlit, but you can feel that lack of money most in the voice cast. Everyone does an adequate job of trying to sound like the character they are replacing, but if you played the first game it doesn’t even compare. Tim Curry attempting a New Orleans accent, can’t be replaced with guy doing a Tim Curry-attempting-a-New-Orleans-accent impression. Despite recording the exact same lines of dialogue, the new cast sounds stiff and lack character that the original had.

You can't tell me this Gabriel design is better than..
You can't tell me this Gabriel design is better than..

What can’t be simply classified as Positive or negative are the new scenes and puzzles that accompany the game. They vary from a roaring success to annoyance that gets in the way of the story. For instance, late game in the story has you going to the police station and entering your buddies office when he is not there. In the original game, you basically just walk through the front door and use key on door, and not a single cop stops you, which is “Un-realistic” at best. In the new game, you can’t just walk right in, and actually have to approach a different way, and when you complete the puzzle at the police station you are rewarded with a really creepy cut scene that helps keep the mood going at that point in the game. It is an example of a really well done addition to the game.

THIS Gabriel design
THIS Gabriel design

On the other hand there is a puzzle in the original game that requires you to earn some money so you can purchase an item at a shop. In the OG game, the shop owner tells you its $100 bucks, you earn $100 bucks and can then go buy it. In the remake, you are told the item is $100, you earn $100 from the same method as the OG game, but when you go to buy the item, the shop owner tells you the price changed to $120, and now you have to go find an additional 20 dollars. Where is that $20, well in a place you would almost certainly never look for it, and thus you had to go on an additional walk-about because apparently they felt the original solution was too easy.

All the additions fall on the lines between these two points and I appreciate them trying to add some new content for us veterans, most of the new content I would describe as fluff. Rarely are the additions impactful to the story, as they are more often just another barrier or puzzle put in front of you for no reason. Now when you show a lady an item, instead of helping you with it, you have to prove worthy by solving a puzzle on her desk first. Then she will help you.

The biggest element to get used to in the remake is that they divided up the days so that they are more even. Locations open up closer to as the story requires them to open up, and it prevents you from getting overwhelmed early on in the game with having too many choices. For instance, your Grandma’s house which originally is opened up on day 1 if you talk to Grace about ‘your messages’, now does not open up until day 5. This prevents you from solving the clock puzzle outlined above too early and getting a pivotal plot point before it makes sense in the story, but Grace still mentions your grandma on day 1, just now Gabriel looks like an a jerk for waiting a week before actually visiting her. Jane Jensen during an interview, included in the game, said that this was done so that if they sold this game on Ipad they could sell the days individually and they feel more even. Insidious? Yes, and they did in fact do that. The days aren’t sold individually but in packs. Day 1 is free, first pack is days 2-3 etc. I don’t play nearly any games on Ipad, so I don’t know if that is normal, but I can’t imagine buying this game in pieces. You don’t get any resolution to anything by day 3, the mystery is barely opening up.. so to stop there and then ask for more money is strange to me. If you bought the game on PC, you don’t really have to worry about that, thankfully. I found that limiting days, almost made the puzzles seem easier, because you knew if a location opened up on a day, it was a pretty good tell that you needed to do something there to move forward. However, in the original with so many locations open on day 1, you didn’t know exactly what location was key to moving forward. Its possible to see this as a positive, I personally found it more neutral.

A new Puzzle for the anniversary edition.
A new Puzzle for the anniversary edition.

What is more telling is that there are some things that remain completely unchanged that I think needed change. The puzzle about opening up the clock still exists, and still has the same solution (reading books to translate one word at a time). Sure now you have a hint system, but its still a bad solution to a puzzle that needs more tells. The only change they made, is that when Gabriel looks at a certain section of his bookshelf, an new screen pops up that has those two books next to each other. They even kept the puzzle that previously required you to change the speed of Gabriel’s walking, outside of the speed setting, that puzzle stands almost unchanged.

The two dead ends at the end of the game have been changed in some fashion. The first dead end where you forget to leave Mosley with key items, is still possible, but now you can recall the elevator at any time as long as the ceremony hasn't started. Gabriel and the narrator also call out that Mosely might not have everything he needs, so unless you really aren't paying attention you get a little hint to finish the end game. The 2nd dead end still exists, going into a room without full disguises, but the tradeoff is that you can't save the game once you are in that room, so you can't ruin your save file. I appreciate the work done to prevent two annoying potential game overs, and I don't feel the changes negate anything in the game.

If I do my best to put my love of the original aside, I think the remake is… serviceable, but that is based on someone coming in with nearly no knowledge of the original, which is probably at odds with who is most likely to purchase the 20th anniversary remake. If you don’t know about the great voice cast, then you wouldn’t notice the switch to the budget cast. If you aren’t coming to the game with the puzzle solutions in your head, then you won’t have any preconceived perceptions about what puzzles seem to be fillers and which are plot crucial. However, the plot remains unchanged, and that is the big draw of the game. If you haven’t solved the mystery before, then you can still experience the same moments through a new lens. Having never talked to anyone who has JUST played the remake, I can’t say either way what the consensus is, but I can tell you that the original is available on Steam and GOG and with a little bit of work, you can get it running on literally any computer now (including a Steam Deck). Even if I really try my hardest to separate out the nostalgia of the original, I have to still recommend the original over the remake. The character design for Gabriel is better, the voice acting is far superior, and the package feels tighter and streamlined over the remake. The remake feels like a movie with all the deleted scenes put back in to the original runtime, occasionally you might find a scene that you think is awesome and feel shouldn’t have been cut, but overall there is a reason that those scenes ended on the cutting room floor. I can appreciate them trying to pad out the game for veterans, and give us something new to see, but adding in 2-3 extra steps on previous puzzles rarely made it feel better. The remake did it's best, but I don't think it can approach the original. It was going to be an incredibly tall task, because simply changing the voice cast was always going to mean it was trying to play catch-up, unless somehow they got an even better group of actors. So then all of it's other choices tell me its 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I like the hint system and some new scenes, but I think the look of the characters are worse, added puzzles are not nearly at the same level as the original puzzles, and it had more "errors" seeing as now 3d models are moving around a space.

I did find this photo online.. And I am all for it. A GK1 Demake in the style of Monkey Island
I did find this photo online.. And I am all for it. A GK1 Demake in the style of Monkey Island

With all that being said, I would encourage people to play the original if they can over the remake, especially if they have not played either before.. but I think the story is very good, that if you have to play the remake to experience it, you should do that as well.

One lasting memory for me around Gabriel Knight, is convincing my mom to buy the 2nd game when it came out, which she did. Unfortunately it would not run on our computer and no amount of troubleshooting was going to eventually get me to play that game. I remember being so bummed that we decided to write an email, and through someway able to get Jane Jensen’s email address. It is 100% possible that it was a press email address, and not her personal email address, but regardless my mom and me wrote an email saying how we were such big fans of the original, bought the 2nd game and were bummed that we couldn’t play it on our computer. I don’t think we had a call to action in the email, I just remember that a couple days later we actually got an email from Jane Jensen. She was incredibly nice, apologized that we weren’t able to play on our current computer, told us she was happy to hear we were fans, and even had a copy of the novelization of the 2nd book sent over to our house free of charge. Again, it’s very possible that this wasn’t the real Jane Jensen, but I remember the email and thinking how incredibly great it was that this “celebrity” took the time out to respond to us. Still to this day, my only experience with GK2 is from reading the novelization that was sent to my house.

Is this the greatest game of all time?: No

Where does it rank: Here is where I get to flex ultimate nostalgia power and say that Gabriel Knight is still a great game. It's not the best game, I don't even think its the best adventure game (there were so many good ones in that era), but I would argue that I think it is the single standout game from Sierra that holds up the best. Sure you could argue as a series, other Sierra series are better, but I would put GK1 up against any Kings Quest, Space Quest, or Quest for Glory game, and almost always pick GK over it. There is something about the story and the real feeling of anxiousness and dread you can get from that slow build up. However, I need to rank two games here. I think the original is good, biased? Yes, but I have it ranked as the 9th Greatest Video Game and it is sandwiched between "Katamari Damacy" (8th) and "Mario and Rabbids" (10th). The remake I have listed as the 25th greatest game and it is sandwiched between "Griftlands" (24th) and "Goof Troop" (26th). These scores are out of 120 reviewed games.

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion).Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for listening

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