In the scariest moments in video/computer games thread the Gabriel Knight series of supernatural mystery games from Sierra came up, and I thought there seemed like enough interest to warrant starting a new thread. So if you’re a fan of the GK games, post here!
I’d been interested in the first two Gabriel Knight games when they were released, but was young enough at the time that I was considered too young to play them! Two years ago I happened to see Gabriel Knight III: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned at my local secondhand book and media shop, and picked it up. I was hooked right away. What a great game! What great characters! But I knew there was a lot of backstory I was missing out on, and after I beat the game I wanted something similar to play. I was determined to track down the first two games.
Thanks to various online vendors I eventually got them all, although tracking down Gabriel Knight I: Sins of the Fathers took a while. I wound up having to play the series in reverse order, but that was okay because it meant I saved the best for last. GKI is, IMHO, the single best computer game ever made. I spent most of my free time during the summer before my senior year in college playing and replaying the whole Gabriel Knight series. On a personal note, I’ll just mention that for family reasons this was a very difficult period for me, and these games were really the only enjoyable things I had in my life at the time.
So, what makes these games so great? For me, it’s both the characters and the mysteries. Unlike most other computer games, the characters have…character. They aren’t just there to dispense information or to provide comic relief, they seem to have real personalities. Unusually, this is true even of the protagonist, the sort of guy who (as we learn in GKI) would spend several weeks’ work of grocery money on a black leather jacket, and then wear it in the summer. In New Orleans. Most games try to leave the main character as much of a blank as possible so the player can easily insert themselves into the role, but in this series it’s clear that Gabriel is Gabriel and he has his own desires and flaws that may not match up with yours. I learned this early in GKIII, when Gabriel visited the local scooter rental shop. There was an awesome motorcycle parked outside, but the clerk said the only thing not spoken for was a rusty old moped. I would have been happy to just take the moped, but Gabriel Knight was not having with that! He’s the sort of guy who’s going to get the motorcycle even if he has to work through a fairly silly and complicated inventory puzzle to do so. This is for the best, as later in the game you have reason to want to make a quick getaway that the moped wouldn’t have been able to handle.
But my favorite character is Gabriel’s sidekick/partner Grace, with whom he shares a somewhat Mulder-and-Scully-esque relationship (although I believe GKI was released before The X-Files premiered). Grace may be the single coolest female character ever to appear on the computer screen. She’s almost certainly the best educated – she’s got an Ivy League graduate degree. She’s also attractive without being a bimbo, nice without being a pushover, quick with the witty comebacks, and not afraid to unleash her “inner bitch” when necessary. I want to be and/or marry this woman!
I won’t say much about the mysteries now because I don’t want a lot of spoilers in the OP, but I found them all to be well-written and well-thought out blends of history and fantasy. Each game has you explore various exotic real-world locations, and the puzzles are challenging but (usually) logical. I enjoy mysteries but have never cared much for mystery novels, mostly because I read faster than I can problem-solve and thus reach the end before I’ve had the satisfaction of figuring things out on my own. The beauty of a well-designed mystery computer game is that you can work your way through the mystery story rather than passively absorbing it. I have yet to find any other games that did this anywhere near as well as the Gabriel Knight series.