This title introduced Gabriel Knight and his able assistant, Grace Nakimura, to the computer screen. But I did thoroughly appreciate the music which, even though I've never been there, seemed to conjure up a perfect New Orleans atmosphere. Though, I must admit, I turned the commentary voice off very quickly on the two occasions I played this game, it grates after a while. There are voices for all characters and, I'm very pleased to report, text translations throughout, even for the commentary.
GABRIEL KNIGHT SINS OF THE FATHERS PLUS
Still on the interface, Sins of the Fathers has a scrolling inventory where you can obtain useful descriptions of objects and combine them if necessary, plenty of save game slots, easy access to game controls, plus a scoring system that signals when you are on the right track. Somehow, it gives the impression of so much more control rather than having a super smart cursor taking over and interacting with an object on your behalf. You can open it, or move it (maybe something is hidden behind). In this game there are icons for looking, opening, talking, questioning, moving, operating and walking, which means that you can get information about an object before you interact with it and then you have choices as to what you might like to do with it. I suppose you could call it a 'dumb' cursor as it doesn't automatically highlight when passed over hotspots and, sad to say, I love it because it makes the play much more involving. It harkens back to the time when a selection of icons were provided to perform different actions instead of having a single changing cursor to 'do' things. It's what I see as an 'older' style graphic adventure of the sort that the publishers, Sierra, don't make any more.
I recall thoroughly enjoying it when I first played it back in 1993 and, though I was surprised at how 'dated' the graphics looked this time around, I have enjoyed it every bit as much. I wouldn't have parted with it even if the packaging was in pristine condition. On to the game then, and I have to say that it is a very good one. If you can possibly avoid it, don't purchase a game with odd shaped packaging because it's bound to come to grief. There's a lesson here somewhere for unsuspecting gameplayers. It 'lost' its packaging, by the way, simply because it was so impractical, a fancy box with all acute angles that was impossible to store, and fell to pieces in no time. It now shares a home with its younger sibling, Gabriel Knight II, so it tends to get overlooked when I rifle through the cupboard to find an 'old' game to review. Review by Rosemary Young (July, 1997) It's fortunate, indeed, that this game made it into our reflections as it is one of the few games in our collection that is minus its box.