A Review of the Gabriel Knight Series

My Fiancée's First True Love
(Classic Games: the "Gabriel Knight" series)

So, my fiancée is in love with another man.

I've got no one to blame but myself, I suppose. I admit I've been a little bit preoccupied with "EA Sports Madden NFL Football 2005." Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention to her lately. But I do what I can, you know? I mean, there was that time last Wednesday when I paused a game against the New England Patriots at halftime - halftime! - to talk to her about…o, something about her mother visiting. And I eat dinner with her almost every night.

In fact, the terrible secret was revealed one night while I was indulging in my latest pastime, trying to push the Budapest Stars back into the Super Bowl with their phenom sophomore quarterback Charles King at the helm. The actual conversation went something like this:

"Os?"

"Hmmm."

"I'm naked."

"Yeah, baby. You son of a…you're supposed to catch the ball when it's thrown to you!"

"Os?"

"Hmmm."

"You really should be doing something else."

"Hmmm. Hmmm…? What? What else is there?"

And she produced a handful of discs.

"What is this?"

"Gabriel Knight."

"Gabriel…? O, you mean Josh Knight, my backup halfback out of Yale University."

A grievous sigh from R. as she puts on a robe, pulls up a chair and pushes in a CD.

"Hey, what are you doing? I still have eighteen seasons left to play!"

Up popped on the screen "Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers."

"Look at this thing, with the little Lego dudes," I said. "What is this, Atari? What is this? How old is this?"

"It's Gabriel Knight, part one. It's a mystery game. They put it out in 1993."

A mystery game? What do I know about mystery games? I'm a sports guy, I thought, but didn't let R. in on my thoughts. Instead, I addressed another issue: "1993? Did they even have computers then?"

"Ha ha. Just play it."

All right, all right, I figured. How long could this take? I might still get in a playoff game or two later…

"GK" (as those in the know are wont to call the game series) part one, it was soon revealed through a short bit of exposition and setup, features the titular character. Knight is an intrepid paperback writer-type who doesn't seem to do much but run a used bookstore no one ever visits. For some reason, overqualified grad student Grace Nakamura stays on his "payroll" as an assistant while blowing his non-existent profits on wine, women and song. In the finest traditions of pop culture (think "Murder She Wrote" or any other television show or movie wherein those with mundane professions suddenly take on solving crime as basically a hobby), Gabriel soon finds himself embroiled in a complicated plot involving voodoo and the history of the city of New Orleans itself.

With graphics and "sound effects" more than ten years old and concomitantly intensely dated, the storyline had better be good. O boy, is it here. The point-and-click "Sins of the Fathers" takes you through facts and information about The Big Easy, the history of slavery in America, voodoo spirituality, Cajun French and even a bit about Germanic myth. (More on this later.) You'll also hear "When the Saints Go Marching In" a hell of a lot more often than you'd like. Think the old Robert DeNiro/Mickey Rourke flick Angel Heart without DeNiro. And if you're not careful, you just might learn something.

In terms of character and dialogue, "Sins of the Fathers" ranks quite high. A potpourri of notable names, some of whom apparently weren't doing too much back in 1993, make up the voiceover cast. Knight himself is voiced by none other than Mr. Rocky Horror himself, Tim Curry. Mark Hamill uses the force to do the archetypical fat slob cop Detective Mosely, while the mysterious Dr. John is given vocal color by Michael Dorn. (Holy K'Plah, Batman, that's Lieutenant Worf!)

Jumping through the hoops of "Sins of the Fathers" is of moderate difficulty, with some puzzles almost too easy and at least one insanely difficult solution. (Yeah, try and get that piece of paper from between the bars in the town square.) The challenge of this point-and-clicker aside, this long story never gets boring. Indeed, you may find yourself wondering as I did just what may be next. And if you are ever stuck at an impasse, you can just insult Mosely or be insulted by Grace, a hilarious feature sadly missing from the next two parts.

Part two of the Gabriel Knight series is "GK: The Beast Within." This one continues from the first admirably in storyline; within "Sins" is a subplot involving Gabriel's own family, the unspinning of which revealed that Knight is another in the "Schattenjäger" (or "Shadow Hunter," a great German tradition, we are told) line. Part two, therefore takes him, and Grace by association, to Rittersburg, Germany. Again, Gabriel finds himself in the midst of another complicated plot involving werewolves, a Wagner opera and obscure 19th century royalty. No problems here. In fact, the mix of the actual and fantastical helped the "The Beast Within" garner loads of lauds, while bagging "many Game of the Year awards" (according to www.mrbillsadventureland.com) in 1996. The imdb.com trivia section claims that ol' Gabriel bagged the number two spot in Computer Gaming World's list of the top fifteen heroes in gaming that same year. (Can someone confirm this?)

While the mystery of "The Beast Within" is compelling, the true mystery is why Jane Jensen and company decided to make a switch from 2-D graphics into live-action animation, particularly with this lot of actors. Not only did Gabriel lose his portrayer Curry the Great, but received instead as role-filler some dude named Dean Erickson who is, let's face it, brutal in the role. Hampered by another bizarre decision that seems to have removed several dozen IQ points, Knight the character has never been more of a poseur. His seeming refusal to learn two words of German brings Gabriel to the loftiest heights of Ugly Americanism, and his obvious self-love is painful. If possible, he is only superseded in obnoxiousness by Joanne Takahashi's Grace. Bitchy at best, this Grace is absolutely unappealing in the episode in which a little mutual flirtation is promised. Today, Erickson is a real estate broker (see www.deanerickson.net); Takahashi once did an episode of "Babylon Five."

On the other hand, there is Clabe Hartley as the leering alpha male-type Preiss. Much has been made of the homoerotic undercurrent of "The Beast Within," and, amid scores of overly eager blond boys, no one else makes more of the material than Hartley. Check out this bit of dialogue, while imagining a tall dude with brunette locks flowing, wearing a velvet robe:

Preiss: "Why would I want to suppress my urges? If your body wants something, it must be natural."

Knight: "And what if you get the natural urge to rip someone's throat out:"

Preiss: "Well, fortunately, my instincts are to pleasure, of the equally sticky, but less fatal kind."

Hartley is, as they say, fabulous.

"Beast" has a flaw or two in plotline and game play, particularly with the much-derided "dog cam" of the final act (allow this reviewer to add his dittoes), but on the whole, this is a challenging, fascinating second part. Just finish it quickly, because this cast could drive you nuts.

And on to part three, "Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned"! Following the nice three-year pattern established by Jensen and the Sierra folks, "Blood" saw the light of the day (o, a pun already) in 1999. The focus here is vampires; the location is lovely Rennes-le-Chateau, France; 3-D animation is the presentation; Mosely returns; and, yes, Tim Curry is back. Our boy Gabriel and his faithful companion this time travel through history involving the Knights Templar, Pontius Pilate and that cup of cups, the Holy Grail. After much sleep deprivation pushing through the first two episodes, I took on "Blood of the Damned" if only to answer the questions, "Can Gabriel Knight find the Grail before Brave Sir Robin, Indiana Jones and Jeff Bridges? And, if so, will it finally impress Grace enough to take the next step in their relationship?"

After an overly long introduction presented in graphic-novel form (the uncredited artist here must be David Mazzuchelli of "Batman" and "Daredevil" fame) and five minutes' worth of animation, Gabriel is sent on his way to flex those schattenjäger muscles in a plot challenging enough to baffle serious members of the Knight's order. Just be sure and remember your history. In this one, the minutest trace of self-referencing and historical data is probably worthy of remembering. The graphics, though not entirely up to today's standards, must have been something else in 1999; hell, the motion is comparable to the stuff in EA Sports' 2003 editions. And be sure to keep an ear out for John "Q" de Lancie as the wicked Excelsior Montreau…

And onto the fourth Gabriel Knight mystery, which is…Why is there no fourth Gabriel Knight mystery? By pattern, we should have seen Gabriel Knight IV in 2002 and be talking about part five right now. A search at the Sierra Games website turns up nothing but "your search words turned up no matches." What's up with Jensen and company? Don't they know that there are a number of fan sites devoted to this thing? Are they aware that there's a fan fiction site, for Lugosi's sake? Don't they realize there are dozens of European languages our hero has yet to mangle?

Whaddya say, Sierra? Or shall I just return to the waiting arms of my first true love, John Madden?