Adventure Hall - Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers

Sierra Online hits the adventure gaming scene hard with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, a new release under writer Jane Jensen. Under her wing, this title is the first in a series that tell fictional stories based on true events. With careful attention to detail, Jane Jensen creates a new dimension in story authenticity for a true immersion into the game. Production is solid, with a crew of Hollywood voice actors in this top tier production. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a perfect example of how other developers should create their adventure games.

The game consists of one main character, Gabriel Knight, who is a slick, booze loving book shop owner who has repeated dreams of a woman dying during a witch hunt. He is not familiar with the woman’s face or his nightmares connection to a bunch of voodoo murders around New Orleans. Showing inquisitive instincts, he begins a trip of self discovery and fright that takes him to different eras and different regions of the world. Gabriel is helped by his lady friend Grace Nakimura, Detective Mosly, and Dr. John. Towards the end, Gabriel experiences a revelation where his ancestry is very much linked with the voodoo culture. He discovers he is the last member in a long line of Ritters called the Schattenjagers, who are shadow hunters that fight against bad demons.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a loose representation of the voodoo lifestyle. This new age adventure game combines explosive fiction with a historical element. The story narration is unique, as it presents the tale with still artworks in comic style along with cut-scene animations. A prologue is even included in the game and has the look of a comic book. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is available in CD-ROM and the ancient floppy disk versions. CD-ROM allows Sierra On-Line to add genuine digital voiceovers and really pack punch to the series. As mentioned before, Hollywood actors make up the cast of voiceover artists for the game. They include Tim Curry from the Horror Picture Show (as Gabriel) and other stars like Mark Hamill from Star Wars (Detective Mosly), Michael Dorn from the Star Trek series, and Virginia Capers from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as the narrative voice in the story.

Stuart M. Rosen is the voice director for Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. He has won numerous accolades for his directorial talent, including Emmy awards. Tim Curry and Mark Hamill also contribute their voices to secondary characters in the story as Gedde Butler and a jeep driver, respectively. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers has the reputation of being one of the last games of its kind using traditional animation before converting full force to Full Motion Video. Video captured actors and the innovative rotoscoping technique is used for the animations of characters in the game. A point-and-click interface is used to control the game, which is a significant upgrade over the text parser. Icons scattered throughout denote actions, such as viewing and walking. The player can also carry more than one object using the games built-in inventory system, similar to the Goldeneye and Resident Evil series. Traveling between spots is made simple with a New Orleans map, and a score display in the form of an icon bar highlights the player’s progress throughout the story.

Points are given after key sequences are completed. The story itself takes place over a number of days through chapters, with a subtitle option. Many gamers are known to want to get right into the action, so non-interactive scenes can be eliminated. Estimated finishing time for this game is 40 hours, more if you are a rookie to the gaming world. Puzzles appear like clockwork, and most of them are inventory based with some action included. One of the games exciting features is a tape recorder which allows gamers to play back dialogues made with characters in past chapters and scenes. This is pretty useful, since dialogues are the key to clues that might not be discovered on the first hearing. All game animations are sharp and clean, and its comic book format is a welcoming refreshment to the story. Whether it’s through the screen or on paper, the concept is pretty solid.

Sound does not fail to disappoint in this game. All sound effects are in 16-bit format and contribute to the deep, dark atmosphere of the story. However, the background music is composed with MIDI which makes it sound choppy. To the gamers surprise, Sierra On-Line provides support for both “Base-Level” and “Extended” MIDI synthesizers under the Windows multimedia program.

Channel assignments from 1 to 10 are for “Extended” and channel assignments from 13 to 16 are for “base-level.” 8 years ago, a soundtrack CD comprising of both Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery is packaged together with the again-released Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition package. Starting out, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers might have puzzles that are too difficult. The one where voodoo code is used to write a message and translate the drum code is pretty challenging. Both puzzles have different interfaces made especially for that purpose. Jane Jenson has to be praised for implementing real life history into a fantasy game. It adds for more realism to the game which by name alone is making an impact. You can tell plenty of research was done on the voodoo culture and New Orleans during game development. Just look at the extensive bibliography in the game booklet!

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers has an excellent voiceover cast. Curry is amazing in his role as Gabriel– along with Capers the narrator. All in all, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a perfect blend of voodoo culture history and murder mystery sure to impress any player.

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