Thank you Phoenix Online Studios for sending us a preview code of the game!

The original Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers was released by Sierra in 1993 and had two sequels before the company went under.  I haven’t played the original, but it does have quite a following and hopes of more sequels with Pinkerton Road taking the helm.  I can see why - the story is good and the characters are believable despite being a bit shallow.  

Sins of the Fathers starts off with the main character, Gabriel, suffering from a nightmare regarding his family’s involvement in burning a witch decades ago.  His family line has suffered depression and suicide since.  In his home town of New Orleans there have been several “Voodoo Murders” where the victims are found with their hearts missing.  Fortunately, Gabriel has a detective friend who gives him access to the case files in hope of giving him writing material for his upcoming book.

Cracking this case may solve two problems, one being the writer’s block and the other his nightmares.  In order to understand the murderer, he must understand voodoo first.  Like many adventure games, talking and exploring your surroundings are your keys to success.  There are lots of people to chat with and puzzles to solve.  Most of the puzzles make sense, but I had to look at a walkthrough for a couple of them.  I used a walkthrough from the original game and many of the puzzles are the same, but some changes have been made.    

This remake has new voice actors and improved graphics. The voice acting is good with the African accent (and sarcasm) of the narrator and Gabriel’s Southern drawl.   However the original voice acting was done by professionals including Michael Dorn, Mark Hamill, Leah Remini and Tim Curry. 

Even though the graphics are improved over the original, they can use more fine-tuning.  I found the animations to be choppy and the models are not exactly cutting edge.  The backdrops do look great through.  

The full version of the game has ten days or chapters and I had access to the first two in this demo.  In the first two days it’s apparent that Gabriel is a womanizer whose reputation precedes him.  There are some funny lines between him and his assistant regarding his behavior.   His assistant helps him investigate and gives leads on the voodoo murder case.  The name of the case reveals two more moral issues, one being voodoo and the other being violence which should not come as a big surprise by now.     The last matter worth mentioning is the language which is not as bad as other games, but it’s still present.  Needless to say, this is not a game to be played around or by children.  

Despite the mature and occult content, the story behind Gabriel Knight is intriguing.    I’m not sure when the full game will be available or how much it will retail for.  Be sure to check out Pinkerton Road and Phoenix Studios websites for more information.