Gabriel Knight - Final Rating

Written by Michael

Circumstances came up, and I wasn’t able to finish the rating in time for this post.  Morpheus helpfully offered to take care of it for me.

...heh.  I joke a little.  This is one of the few times the two of us almost agree about a game.  Although, based on his comments, he would still score it lower than myself.

Humor aside, let’s get to the task at hand.  This is going to be tough for me.  I’m not known for covering top-10 games, and certainly didn’t expect Hand of Fate to crack the list.  The titles that I prefer, such as the humor-infused Sam & Max, are not universally acclaimed as high art.   I’m writing this introduction before I’ve figured out the score, but if the readers have any say, this game will blow those titles away.

Puzzles and Solvability

Certainly, a strength of the game, there were a variety of puzzle types and generally sufficient clues and prompts without being overtly revealing.  Adding into the mix were puzzle types not usually seen in Sierra games before this time, such as using dialog choices to encourage character actions.  There were multiple puzzles involving decrypting or using different codes, but one was solved by logic (using one decoded message to translate a second one) while the other was a little harder, translating the messages from the rada drummer with some white noise added.

Other than the riverside crime scene, none of the locations from the first few days of the game were intended to be visited just once; there were reasons to revisit each one, either for inspiration or a new puzzle.  I suspect most people didn’t find all of the clues the first time around at the lake scene, so revisiting it would have been necessary.

The tape recorder system, which is more a topic for “Interface”, provided all the important topics talked about to be easily replayed, much like some later games in the genre would allow the replay of previous cutscenes.  This helped a lot, because the game is very dialog-heavy and a lot of clues were given.

The downsides are minor, but worth noting.  First, a reflex-timing puzzle that, even back in the day, caused problems if your computer was too fast.  This was getting past the desk sergeant at the police station after Mosely had disappeared.  I found Usenet messages back in 1994 confirming problems with the solution; a patch was released by Sierra, but it seems if you were fortunate enough to have a Pentium (just barely a year old at that point) it still wasn’t good enough.

Then, was the “arcade” sequence of getting past the zombies in the snake mound.  That was just plain inexcusable.

The game featured no apparent dead-ends, and the character deaths were fair and not too common.  More importantly, dialog clues generally provided hints ahead of time, so if you paid attention to the dialog, you didn’t have to learn from death the way Sierra games often had a reputation for (whether it was earned or not).

Our record holder in this category is Fate of Atlantis, and the arcade sequence keeps me from topping that score. So, it only gets an 8.

Interface and Inventory

Gabriel Knight uses the newest incarnation of the standard Sierra interface.  A few new icons were added; while I sometimes chose the wrong one (say, “push” instead of “use”), the game sometimes would accept multiple different choices, making it more forgiving than Sierra games of the past.

This was a deliberate choice by Jensen.  When the proposal for this game was first made, Sierra had just gotten into the point-and-click arena:

“When we did Gabriel Knight, I made a conscious choice to have a more extensive interface. I think King’s Quest V had recently come out, and there was a lot of backlash against it being so point-and-click [driven]. I made a decision to have a more intricate interface.”

The icons had a hot spot on them, a different-color pixel that told you where to click the icon on other objects.  This wasn’t new to this game, having been used in both the recent titles from Al Lowe, Leisure Suit Larry 6 and Freddy Pharkas.  There generally weren’t any pixel hunts, the closest to that would have been when you had to look for books in either the bookstore or in Wolfgang’s library, but it wasn’t overly challenging.

The cassette recorder interface was simple and allowed playback of a lot of information.  Had I not been taking screenshots twice every second, I would have made great use of it.  

The only real misstep in the interface, to me, was when you needed to use the drum code books or the translated crypt messages.  It didn’t seem obvious to me at first that you needed to (or could) switch books or translations to access all your sources.  A minor quibble, but it stuck with me.

The top-rated incarnations of the Sierra interface have netted a score of 7, but the addition of the icon hot spots and the tape player bring my rating to an 8.

Story and Setting

Gabriel Knight, using family money, opens a used bookstore in the heart of the famous Louisiana French Quarter, an area known for extravagance and maybe even a little mysterious Voodoo power.  Either consciously or not, he opens this store in the name of his family’s patron saint, and having been surrounded by certain iconography his whole life, decorated his store with symbols that would later become relevant.

He’s a currently down-on-his-luck author, writing a new tome about that mysterious Voodoo around him, when suddenly there’s a string of murders possibly related to it.  With some inside help from his childhood friend Mosely, who is now a police detective, he starts researching even further, until it turns out that his family has a secret backstory involving the supernatural.

This looks familiar.

Yes, even this puzzle-convenient location exists in real life. 

Back in the days before Google and Wikipedia, every aspect of this story and setting was reasonably well-researched and planned.  Real-life locations were represented truthfully, with just a small helping of artistic license.  The picture above from the overlook is one such instance, the chessboard tables at the Napoleon House another, and even the cemetery looks the part.

Another strength in this game.  Jane Jensen was perhaps the best writer in the Sierra arsenal.  I think it deserves a 9.

Sound and Graphics

Starting with the graphics, they are another high point to this game.  Sure, we’re going to see higher resolutions in the coming years, but this game worked with the capabilities of the time and pushed them pretty far.  The artists lit each scene appropriately to set the mood, and there were appropriate background animations that added to the feeling of the game, also bleeding into the next category.

The music was also strong, with the title track setting the mood.  Each room, each location had a matching theme, and while looking for videos with the soundtrack, I found an easter egg I hadn’t noticed in the game: you could turn on Gabriel’s radio in the game, and it had its own tune to play as well!  Impressive, because normally, Sierra games would use that as an excuse to recycle one of the other tunes.  Perhaps this was an extra, from a deleted scene?  Regardless, a nice touch.

I’m torn with scoring this category.  It’s not significantly better than Fate of Atlantis, which got an 8, but other games of lesser stature got a higher score, so I’m unsure what to do here.  I’ll round down this time, to an 8.

Environment and Atmosphere

The darkness seeps out of every scene, except when it doesn’t, like in the bar or at Grandma's house.  

That’s a good way to start this section.  The places felt comfortable or not as appropriate, and the tension was building gradually from start to end, where much like a blockbuster movie, I couldn’t bear to put the mouse down during the last sessions.  Only exhaustion and this inconvenient thing called a “job” forced me into taking a break every now and then.

When this game first was started, the comments section exploded with predictions.  Many of them, including Laukku, Will, and bigfluffylemon, to name a few, predicted the score for this category, which is the coveted 10.

Dialogue and Acting

Having a star-studded cast doesn’t guarantee success.  (2022’s Amsterdam shows up on nearly every list of movie failures, for example).

That’s not the case here.

Some may argue that Gabriel himself was over-acted, and I think Tim Curry laid the southern drawl on a little too thick at the start, but either I became immune to it or it mellowed out.  The narrator was incredibly appropriate for the game, one of the very rare instances that I’m glad the late, great Gary Owens wasn’t called.  No characters really stood out as “bad” the way that the Icelandic researcher in Fate of Atlantis was, and the only real complaint I have was that sometimes, Leah Remini’s Grace was a little unenthusiastic, especially during her final speech in the end game.

What helped overcome this?  Well-written, believable dialog.  Gabe came off as a sexist cad without crossing the line, Mosely as the not-to-bright detective that wasn’t a complete lummox.

How many snakes above this door?  I count 9.

Back when the intro post was first made, and before I took over the playthrough, I had made a score guess of 81.  My reasoning?  “Nah. A good game, and arguably the best in the series, but not THAT good.”

I suppose I’m going to eat those words, because my opinion of the game changed based on this playthrough.  It *is* that good.

(8 + 8 + 9 + 8 + 10 + 9) / .6  = 86.6667, which I will use my discretionary point to round down to 86.

Part of me wants to say this feels a little high.  But I think it’s because some other games were rated too low.  Fate of Atlantis should have been closer to this score, I think.  But remember, even though we have a system with guidelines, it’s still rather subjective.

Then again, maybe this is right.  The critics at the time agreed.  Computer Gaming World thought highly of the game.  “...unlike most computer games even today, Gabriel Knight is top-notch, Hollywood-quality entertainment. If we are lucky, it might be the start of a trend.”

The closest guess was Laukku, with a prediction of 88.  His guess was the highest, but a third of the guesses were in the 80s.  Some of the people who guessed lower did so only because their chosen number was taken (although the rules say more than one can win).  That implies that there would have been more higher guesses.

Usually, I compare my opinions to fellow editor MorpheusKitami, and if we disagree, I know I’m probably right.  But this time, he guessed an 80, so I’m confused.  We never see eye to eye on these things!  Fellow admin Will Moczarski was the one I disagreed with the most, who low-balled the guess at 74.  That’s still a decent score for a game (it would be a top 5 game on the blog as of this writing).

Hey -- bonus points for anyone who can tell me what the heck the photo of young cadet Mosely was for?  Was I supposed to use it to search for him when he went on “vacation”?

CAP Distribution

100 CAPs to Michael

• Chosen One Award - 100 CAPs - for blogging about Gabriel Knight for our enjoyment

60 CAPs to Busca

• Second Set of Eyes Award - 50 CAPs - for invaluable behind-the-scenes proofreading and editing, proving that some of us shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard without supervision

• No Glove, No Love Award - 10 CAPs - for teaching us about a curiously-named church in southern France

30 CAPs to Laukku

• Still Not Running Around and Deserting Us Award - 10 CAPs - for cluing us into Rick Astley’s adventure game debut

• Amazin’ Mets Award - 10 CAPs - For many interesting links, including one about a unique color combination

• You’re Gonna See Some Serious $#!+ Award - 10 CAPs - for having the closest guess for the PISSED score of Gabriel Knight

25 CAPs to Bigfluffylemon

• Travel with Friends Award - 25 CAPs - for playing Gabriel Knight along with Michael and sharing many observations

20 CAPs to Zenic Reverie

• Best Foot Forward Award - 20 CAPs - for writing the introduction post for Gabriel Knight 

20 CAPs to LeftHanded Matt

• Carbon Dating Award - 20 CAPs - for starting a side project on TAG researching the release dates of our future games

20 CAPs to Alex Romanov

• Old Flame Award - 10 CAPs - for pointing out how uncomfortably warm Malia’s living room would be with a fire roaring in June

• Past Remembrances Award - 10 CAPs - for sharing many interesting thoughts and remembrances of the game during the playthrough

20 CAPs to arcanetrivia

• She’s A Doll Award - 10 CAPs - for comparing the portrayal of Voodoo in various video games to real practices

• Drawn Out Drama Award - 10 CAPs - For blurring the lines (so to speak) between the two biggest adventure game publishers.

10 CAPs to PsOmA

• All Bets are Off Award - 10 CAPs - for placing a bet that didn’t count (since it wasn’t in the introduction post) but we wish to encourage others to place bets in the future on the blog

10 CAPs to Melfina

• As the Turtle Flies Award - 10 CAPs - for finishing reading our back catalog, despite being sidetracked by re-reading the entire Discworld series

10 CAPs to Adam Thornton

• Faithful Re-enactment Award - 10 CAPs - for scouting the locations in the game in advance of Gabriel’s arrival, and making sure the drinks are safe

10 CAPs to MenhirMike

• Forehadow-hunter-ing Award - 10 CAPs - for a well-placed joke about Malia’s intentions that would foreshadow the endgame sequence