Rating: Summary: Storyline stinks Review: I played the previous two Gabriel Knight games, and really liked them! I got this game for Christmas and was excited to play it. I was extremely disappointed! I was expecting vampires, I expected them to be on a similar level as the werewolves in GK2. You only see the vampires in the Gabriel's dreams, and a tiny bit at the end, and then you never get to confront them directly. I wanted "pound a wooden stake through their evil hearts and chop their heads off to keep them from coming back" vampires. I got, "drain their blood to somehow gain the attributes of the people the blood came from" vampires. Pretty lame, pretty boring. They made Jesus part of the story, but made Him an immortal man because of the stars that were aligned at His birth. This really disgusted me. I want vampires! This was such a farce! I would normally give this type of game away to friends after I am done (you know, recycling):) I will never do that with this game! I fact, I am thinking of just trashing it, so that it is not even in my house. Maybe I could pound a wooden stake through it, at least that way I could have the satisfaction of doing that once in this game! Besides the stupid storyline, the graphics were ok, thought they would be better. I also had some trouble with getting the game to play on my PC, even though my computer easily passed all the games requirements. Spend your hard-earned money elsewhere. Try King's Quest 8: Mask of Eternity, that was a lot of fun.
Rating: Summary: An entertaining and fun adventure game Review: Gabriel Knight 3 (GK3) is a challenging and entertaining game that is both aesthetically and technically pleasing, proving to be an all round triumph by game designer Jane Jenson and Sierra Studios. The player is immersed in a compelling, convoluted murder-mystery in a remote French village, gets to play as two characters and gradually unravels a complicated web of mysteries, suspects and, the key ingredient, vampires. The aforementioned aspects of GK3 make this 50-hour, 3 CD extravaganza a true delight to play; however, one may find that the plot is a little too complicated, which proves detrimental to the pace of the game. The player assumes the roles of Gabriel Knight and Grace Nakimura, both private investigators, in a small village called Rennes-Le-Chateau. The village is steeped in history due it being the suspected locality of the Holy Grail. Gabriel has been assigned a mission by Prince James, a wealthy businessman, whose son had been kidnapped whilst in the vicinity of the area. As Gabriel gradually uncovers more about the mystery of the kidnapped child, he concomitantly delves into a turbulent, violent world of treasure hunting, vampires, religion, riddles, shady characters and murder. It is a real pleasure to witness this fantastic story unfold, despite it being rather slow in unraveling. The marvelous, although slow moving, plot is incorporated into a fully interactive, 3D environment, which the player is able to investigate thoroughly due to a camera that is able to be manipulated. The player can move the camera around much like the camera in a 1st person shooter, allowing investigation of intricate spots such as under a desk or inside a dumb waiter shaft. What makes this locale-investigation so delightful is that each of the environments looks absolutely gorgeous, barring the occasional obviously 2-D tree or clearly polygonal hill. The sound is pretty good: the character(s) can eavesdrop on conversations and engage in conversations with striking clarity, to name but a few features. Although the voices come out crystal clear, the actual sound of the voices is quite terrible. Tim Curry (of Rocky Horror fame) is the voice of Gabriel Knight, and his feigned southern drawl quickly becomes irritating. Grace's voice is average, as are some of the other characters, and the script can sometimes be quite terrible. None of the characters, despite how life-threatening the predicament, seem to realise just how endangered they are. Gabriel even goes so far as to wisecrack when a razor-sharp pendulum is about to chop his head off. But despite the minor problems with voices or a rather sluggish plot, GK3's good points far outweigh the bad. It is full of challenging problems and provides hours of great fun and excitement, which is exactly what a game should do. GK3 amalgamates innovation with traditional murder-mystery storytelling, so if you're looking for an adventure game triumph, then look no further than Gabriel Knight 3: it's a real winner.
Rating: Summary: Just plain great! Review: The interface is very simple. You click on whatever is there, then some options pop up, and you click on the button you want. The graphics, while the character models may not be great, are overall pretty good. The character animations were great...almost as good as real actors! The textures in the game are even cooler. I've never seen a game with such detailed textures! The story is even better! The story starts out as one thing, then as you go through the game it slowly becomes something totally different and so much bigger! The puzzles are fun and rewarding when they are completed. I just have one complaint about the puzzles though...one in particular is painfully hard and long. Overall, this game is great! Get it!
Rating: Summary: cool game, cooler story line Review: this game is great! The grail as done here is something that has always fascinated me. I won't give the plot of the game away but I will say that it is very historicaly accurate. The game draws you right in, you have to do a lot of looking aroud and talking to people but as you progress more opens up to you , I really like this type of interface it makes you feel like you are really there. If you liked gabe 2 then you will really like this it takes a bit to get used to gabe in this but once you do it seems very natural. So if you want an adventure game that you can't stop playing than get this one.
Rating: Summary: Disappointing Review: Honestly, as a GK fan I was expecting far more than this... THe first two games were great. Compared to the first two, GK III is slow and boring. It is also kind of self-serving--some of the things you have to do are random and there is no way to think of them by yourself. If you decide to get it, make sure you also find a good "hints and cheats" site.
Rating: Summary: Great story but annoying interface and graphics Review: I have to admit, though I am a big fan of GK and am an avid adventure gamer, I didn't buy Gabriel Knight 3 right off the shelf when it came out because... man, the graphics are terrible. Come on, face it. This series has never used a single engine more than once.. the first one was plain old tradiational good 2D art (which definitely works, though not fancy). The second one used full video, but it worked surprisingly well. This third one, however... it really really interfered with my gameplay. First, there is the ugly 3D graphics. I guess they can't expect everyone to own super machines so they can't soup it up, but it does not compare at all with anything already out there. Second, what's up with the camera? Is this a 1st person game or a 3rd person game? I can leave my character at home while I (the camera) do all the exploring and still the character's voice is telling me what I am seeing. That just doesn't work, it completely takes the "immersiveness" away from what could be a great game. The lesson is, you don't have to go 3D if it doesn't HELP YOU. Some of the best selling games aren't fully 3D: Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate, Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey... I can go on. Other than that, Jane Jensan pulls it off again with a great story and character development. Too bad the technology side got in the way, if not this could be one stellar game. Buy it now for its price, and then sell it to someone else. The experience is great but it's not worth keeping.
Rating: Summary: SUPER SUPER GAME Review: I paid full price for this game a while ago and it was verymuch worth it then. Now for only [price] you`d be so stupid not to getit. You may need to use a cheat sheet sometimes cause it gets prettyenvolved at times. I hated to see it end. GABE "NO.2" WASGOOD TOO, I can`t wait for "NO.4" I`ll pay full price for ittoo, loved the characters.THE GRAPHICS ARE GREAT. You can stand in aphone booth and turn all the way around see all the walls, go all theway down to the floor or stright up to the ceiling. Believe me youwill really Love this one!
Rating: Summary: This series keep on getting better and better Review: The Gabriel Knight series continues to impress me. The story lines are always impressive, as is the character development. The puzzles are challenging, but not impossible. I have been with this series since the beginning and it is great to see it continue to change and grow. We've come along way from 2D images and 16 colors. The Gabriel Knight series is nice because you can tell that a lot of research always goes into the planning of the game and story. In this, the third installment, Gabriel is finally getting the hang of being the shatennjaeger (Shadow hunter). This time he's up against vampires (in previous games it was werewolves and voodoo). The one complaint I have is that there isn't a lot of freedom of movement within the game. By this I mean that you have to do a certain set of things in pretty much a set order for the game to advance. I sort of wosh that you could take different paths and still have the game work. Maybe this will be an element of the the next Gabriel Knight (of which I really hope there is one). All I can say is that I look forward to the continued adventures of Gabriel, Grace, and Mosely.
Rating: Summary: Where Are The Vampires??? Review: This game is quite shallow compared to the first two. Much hype is made that this is a game about Gabriel confronting vampires, but these are the most bashful vampires in the world. You don't see any until the last scene of the game (except in Gabriel's dreams). And even then Gabriel doesn't ever confront them himself, but it's Mosely and another guy (and you don't get to see it). Also, the guys who turn out to be the vampires are walking around outside in the daylight the whole game, and don't have "vampire teeth". The only thing different about them is that their eyes turn red when they get mad...pretty sorry vampires. Some of the puzzles are silly. For example you have this fingerprint kit. You spend much of the game trying to get fingerprints, and in the end the fingerprinting has absolutely nothing to do with discovering who the kidnappers are (which is what you are trying to solve). The graphics and gameplay are okay but not great. I think they could stand to optimize their 3D engine since this would be responsible for the performance problem many people have had. As far as the story itself, it moves very slowly. Gabriel Knight 2 is my favorite all-time adventure game but this (3) is the first one where I asked, "Is that it?" at the end. Lastly, this game does address religious matters. They sort of take apart the Christian religion (they really do). I am not a fundamentalist by any means but I think that's a bad subject for a video game. Without going into detail, I'd say you should probably avoid this game if you hold any Christian beliefs--even non-practicing.
Rating: Summary: Bring on GK4! Review: From when Sierra and Jane Jensen first started this series; the first game was slow moving and out of sync characters, their second was a 'real time' set of characters in a acual settings, and now the third installment is OUTSTANDING! This game is well thought out, good storyline, original Gab from the first series(Tim Curry) as well as some other topline actors lend their voices to create a believable 3-D Adventure Game. Although the game has been out for nearly 2 years now, I, myself, have played the game now 3 different times. There is always something that may have been overlooked and/or undone. I am still awaiting an ever hopeful GK4 from Jane Jensen!! Not to be missed for all Gabriel Knight fans! If you are a first timer to Adventure games or to Jane Jensen; there is no need to first play the previous two games before playing this game...as it is easy to 'drop-in' on the series. Well worth every penny.
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