1218: Sins of the Fathers

I’ve been replaying Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers recently. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time now and have in fact restarted it several times, but never got around to finishing it for various reasons. This time is “the charm”, though, and I intend on running through the whole series — I can’t remember much about The Beast Within (except, bizarrely, for the puzzle solution “Thomas? Thomas? Herr Doktor Klingmann here. Show our wolves to Mr. Knight.”) and I’ve never finished Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. Perhaps more impressively, I’ve managed to survive this long without having the latter spoiled at all, though I do know it ends on an apparently-infuriating cliffhanger that will likely never be resolved. Oh well.

Back to the subject, though: Sins of the Fathers is still a cracking good time, and one of the best adventures that ever came out of the Sierra stable. Sure, it’s not quite as elegant as LucasArts’ best work — the lack of smart cursor is still somewhat exasperating when hunting for teeny-tiny interactive hotspots on the screen and the game has a peculiar habit of adjusting its animation speed seemingly at random occasionally — but the important thing is that it tells one of the best stories ever seen in video games. And it’s a well-written story, too, because having a good story and being well-written aren’t necessarily the same thing.

I first played Sins of the Fathers when I was but a teenage whelp. I enjoyed it a lot and have thought back fondly on it and its successors ever since, but playing it now at the age of 32, I find myself wondering how much I truly appreciated it when I first played it. Playing it now, it’s abundantly clear that it’s a genuinely mature game, written for adults. This doesn’t mean it’s full of sex, violence and bad language — though it does contain all three to varying degrees — but that it doesn’t treat its audience as idiots. The characters are written in such a way as to be realistic and believable, even once the plot starts entering its stranger territory in the latter half of the game.

It’s also a wonderful example of pacing. By splitting the game into “days”, it has a somewhat episodic flavour that helps structure the story and gradually ramp up the intensity as it progresses. The activities you’re doing on Day 1 of the game are rather mundane — they’re the interactive equivalent of “establishing shots” — but by the end of the game, you’re thoroughly immersed in the game’s small world, feel like you know the game’s cast of characters extremely well and you’re emotionally invested in seeing things through to their conclusion.

The amount of detail in the setting is impressive, too. The topic-based conversation system allows you to quiz most of the game’s characters on any of the subjects Gabriel has found out about throughout the course of the plot, and most people have something to say about most of them. Whether it’s discovering Gabriel’s family history or delving into the historical roots of Voodoo, there’s a massive amount of obviously well-researched material in the game — much of which can be safely skipped past if you just want to get to the meat of the plot, but much of which provides some wonderfully flavourful background information on the game world, plot, characters and real-life concepts on which the narrative is based.

Also, mid-’90s all-star voice cast? Tim Curry! Mark Hamill! Leah Remini! Michael Dorn! Efrem Zimbalist Jr!

In short, if you haven’t yet played Sins of the Fathers, you should rectify this as soon as possible. It costs just $5.99 over at GOG.com, so there’s really no excuse. Get to it, Schattenjäger!