Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

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MS-DOS 0 subscribers
Manual

59K plays 1993 #Adventure

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a 1993 point-and-click adventure game, created by Jane Jensen, developed and published by Sierra On-Line, and released for MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Windows on December 17, 1993. The game's story, featuring the voices of Tim Curry, Leah Remini, and Mark Hamill in the CD-ROM version, focuses on Gabriel Knight, a struggling novelist whose decision to use a spate of recent murders around New Orleans as material for a new novel leads him into a world of voodoo magic and the truth about his family's past as supernatural fighters.

Although the game was not a commercial success, it received favourable reviews from critics for its story and voice cast, along with its graphical presentation. The game later spawned a series, with a sequel, The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, released in 1995; the game also received a novel adaptation by Jensen, published in 1997.

A remake of the game to mark its 20th anniversary, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition, was released in 2014 for Windows, Mac, iPad, and Android, featuring a remastering of the graphics and music, along with a new voice cast and minor changes to the arrangement of story events.

From Wikipedia's article Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Pixel Verdict

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the FathersDOS

5.0 Outstanding!

GameRankings 93% (archived)

What the reviews talk about

Key wordsexcitingdisappointingshortchallengingexcellent

What the critics said

  • According to Todd Vaughn of PC Gamer US, "Jensen's hope for a King's Quest-sized success fell a little short of the mark".

    — PC Gamer, 1995 (Todd Vaughn)

  • When previewing the game in November 1993, Computer Gaming World's Johnny L. Wilson stated the opening sequence "was the first time I've actually experienced fear when viewing a computer game".

    — Computer Gaming World (Johnny L. Wilson)

  • He wrote that "Gabriel Knight is an exceptional blend of art, game and understanding. It is mature audiences for all the right reasons".

    — Computer Gaming World, 1993

  • He concluded that the game "is really a preposterous bit of silliness" but "top-notch Hollywood-quality entertainment".

    — Computer Gaming World, 1994

  • Power Unlimited gave the game a score of 79% commenting: "The further you penetrate New Orleans, city of Voodoo, the more exciting it becomes. Although there is a lot of clicking and the music is very disappointing, the game is still very absorbing."

    — Power Unlimited, 1994

From the Reception section of Wikipedia's Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers article, under CC BY-SA 4.0. The words are the critics'; their full reviews are on the publishers' pages.

Scores

  • GameRankings 93% · archived average
  • Adventure Gamers 5/5
  • Quandary 5/5
  • Just Adventure A
  • Adventure Classic Gaming 5/5
  • Adventure Lantern 90/100
  • Power Unlimited 1994 79%

From the review table of Wikipedia's article. The face takes, first that applies: the Metascore for this platform, GameRankings' archived average, our average of the critics (one number per publication, a panel averaged), one review alone, the players' rating. Critics and players are never mixed.

Players' rating: 68/100 · 140 votes

Full reviews

Face key

  1. 1.00+
  2. 1.540+
  3. 2.050+
  4. 2.560+
  5. 3.068+
  6. 3.575+
  7. 4.080+
  8. 4.585+
  9. 5.090+

5.0 Outstanding! · 4.0 Great job! · 3.0 Good job · 2.0 Could be better · 1.0 Wake me up when it's over · A thumbs-up adds half a point. Our own drawings, in the spirit of the faces GamePro magazine used in the '90s.

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