Educating the shadow hunter

I won't explain this post's title, and hopefully it's cryptic enough, so that I won't give anything away to those of you new to the Gabriel Knight series.

I have just finished Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within. What an absolutely fantastic game. I had never played a full motion video game before, and I can imagine that these types of games can easily go awry with bad acting. But the acting in GK2 was fairly solid with a breakaway performance, in my opinion, by Peter J. Lucas. Lucas played the role of the mysterious Baron von Glower with both sensitivity and sensuality. Very intriguing!

The story itself was well told, with Gabriel going back to Germany to explore his roots and discover the true nature of his identity, which had been revealed in Gabriel Knight 1: Sins of the Fathers. Back in New Orleans, Grace Nakamura overcomes her logic and good sense and decides to join Gabriel in Germany to help him with her research skills (or is it for some other reason, hm...?).

You get to play the game both as Gabriel and Grace, which I found to be a nice break from the first game.

Most of the puzzles in the game weren't too difficult, but there were a few fairly illogical puzzles that gave no clue as to their solutions whatsoever. And yes, Mr. Cuckoo Clock, I'm looking at you.

There is some debate over how well the final puzzle fits into the mold of the rest of the game. I honestly felt it was somewhat out of place, but satisfying nevertheless.

I'll be taking a break from the Gabriel Knight series and will probably start with Nirvana: Road to India just to take my mind off of some things going on in my life right now.

Comments

Mike said…

Hey NellieGamer, great insights, as usual. Whats up with you and cuckoo clocks though?

9:31 PM

nelliegamer said…

Cuckoo clocks, Mr. Mcgogo? Whatever do you mean?

5:05 PM

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