Many times before analyzing a remake, we ask ourselves what criteria we should follow: should we demand innovations beyond a facelift? Or maybe keep the same note that he had, because if we see ” The Godfather ” in HD it continues being the same work of art that when we saw it in a VHS video a thousand years ago? In addition there are “remakes” and “remastered”,
and simple face washings in HD that marked the last generation and are on the way to mark this . But it is not the case that concerns us. ” Gabriel Knight“Is in the Olympus of graphic adventures for what it meant in his day, it was probably one of the first
games of markedly adult theme that you could find: gave the starting signal to include in games something more than fairies and princesses, or situations funny Something like what ” Twin Peaks ” meant to modern series. Something serious.
Twenty years have passed since a very young Jane Jansen , designed and wrote this adventure for Sierra Online . Traditionally, the Californian company was created under four strong pillars as they were mainly ” King’s Quest ” and ” Space Quest””
With fantastic worlds and clearly fantasizing dialogues, and two titles that sought adult audiences like” Leasure Suite Larry “and” Police Quest “.
But Gabriel Knight arrived and we would have a world of serial crimes, of flirting with the supernatural, of travel, and of a sinister world that we have seen as it had a tremendous influence on future games and even series .
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We must bear in mind that Gabriel Knight arrived in the golden age of adventures. Currently, unfortunately, the adventures have so little budget that we are greatly limited especially in places to visit. We have lots of current adventures where we solve the
whole plot in just a dozen locations , getting adventures that are relatively short and that on a good afternoon of vice fall like flies. In contrast, Gabriel
Knight lets us visit a number of important locations, opening the adventure to all sorts of situations and with his intelligent puzzles he manages to keep us in tension for a handful of hours in a way that only the adventures of yesteryear could achieve.
Jensen created with her husbandPinkerton Road Studio , to be able to continue creating without the limitations of the big distributors. Along the way they met the talented people of Phoenix Online Studios (Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller where
Jensen was the script consultant) and fruit of the association already launched a few months ago the first title of Pinkerton Road, “Moebius”, that it did not work as well as could be expected in the generalized criticism. And that will change with
Gabriel Knight “Pecados de los Padres” 20th anniversary , or at least it should, because despite being an adventure with all those years on
their backs, it continues to be terribly modern, both in its plot, as puzzles, or elaboration of characters.Sometimes we wonder if we have made very little progress in the adventures, or Gabriel Knight was tremendously ahead of his time.
After much searching Jensen finally reached a good agreement with Activision (current owners of the IP) to return to work with Gabriel Knight.
Why not a fourth installment instead of remodeling the first one? Well, probably because for a fourth, before they have to show that there is still interest in Gabriel Knight, so in the words of Jane Jensen: ” everything will depend a bit on sales and criticism .” But the mere idea that there is such a possibility, well worth an effort.
