Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition

by Vivendi Universal

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00001NFUA
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,749 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Get two critically acclaimed mystery adventure games in one special-value collection! The new Gabriel Knight Mysteries Limited Edition gives you both of author Jane Jensen's Gabriel Knight Mysteries: The Sins of the Fathers and The Beast Within. Each game features a rich, chilling story highlighted by intriguing characters, challenging puzzles, and an engrossing musical score. New Orleans is the setting in Sins of the Fathers, where you must help Gabriel Knight uncover macabre secrets and his own haunted past. And the Dark Forest of Germany is the setting for The Beast Within, where you must help Gabriel Knight uncover the secrets hidden behind the murder of a young girl.

This special Limited Edition also includes two beautifully illustrated graphic novels: Sins of the Fathers and Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned; plus it gives you a sneak preview of Jane Jensen's next chapter in the Gabriel Knight series: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Third Person Adventure, March 28, 2002

By 

wysewomon "wysewomon" (Paonia, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition (CD-ROM)

What can I say? The Gabriel Knight series is to traditional 3rd person adventure what the MYST series is to atmospheric 1st person adventure: the best of its kind. Briefly put, they follow the adventures and experiences of author and bookstore owner, Gabriel Knight, as he unravels various occult mysteries and at the same time explores his odd heritage.

The stories are incredibly engaging and well developed; the author, Jane Jensen, put a remarkable amount of research into the subject matter. The characters are likable and believable, and the voice acting -- and in GK2, the acting -- is some of the best. Everything about these games is excellently done.

For the collector, the GK series is a little history of the adventure genre. GK1 is made with the 2D animation typical of the early 90s, while GK2 explores the FMV trend popular in the middle of the decade. In both the main action consists of finding and applying inventory items and gathering information by talking to a wide range of characters, with a spattering of arcade type puzzles and brain teasers to keep things interesting. One feature that I liked was that you are awarded points for completing puzzles, but you don't have to complete every puzzle to complete the game. This makes the games highly replayable as you can play through once for the bones of the story and then play again to go back and pick up what you might have missed the first time. There are also a lot of fun easter eggs that you can stumble on by chance.

Though the subject matter is sometimes grim, dealing with murders, conspiracies, and such occult subjects as voodoo and werewolves, there is a levening of humour in the character interactions that keeps the darkness at bay.

I found these games totally absorbing; it was not unusual to play for 7 - 10 hours at a stretch without even realising it. They are also very long -- a plus as far as I'm concerned -- taking a week to ten days to complete. You can be killed, but it happens rarely and when it does you are given the option to try again from a point right before you made your fatal mistake, so if you haven't saved recently it isn't such a big deal.

Die Hard fans of first person, MYST-like adventures may have a hard time relating to the Gabriel Knight series because it's so different, and players of shooters or pure action games will probably not like GK at all. If you like games like _The Longest Journey_, however, you will like these.

The collectors edition pack contains a lot of extras -- books, soundtracks, and the like. That's a plus and well worth having, because I was so sorry when the games were over that I wanted to keep reliving the experience again and again. I'd pay twice the price just to have one of these games. They truly are the best.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gabriel Knight 1 will work on XP, January 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition (CD-ROM)

Gabriel Knight 1 runs under DOS, and will play under XP if you run it under DOSBox, (http://dosbox.sourceforge.net), an open-source DOS emulator. I've tried it and it works, with sound and everything. You need to press Ctrl-F12 a couple of times to increase the speed though. One reviewer mentioned something about having to set the display 256 colors in XP... this is not necessary as Gabriel is not a Windows program.

Overall, Gabriel Knight 1 is a great game, and it really immerses you into the New Orleans milieu. This game made me want to visit New Orleans, even though I live in Montreal, and it's far more French here than in any other city in North America.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Play these games., November 12, 1999

By 

Brett Timperman (Lexington, KY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition (CD-ROM)

I can't say what compelled me to buy the Gabriel Knight Mysteries Limited Edition. Fate, perhaps. But within the first few moments of Sins of the Fathers, I was hooked. The puzzles are traditional Sierra (give this, get that -- not that I mind at all), but the plot is what stands out. I have never been so immersed in the story of a computer game. Game designer Jane Jensen blends together fiction and history so masterfully that in-game research is actually fun. I just wish my term papers were that easy.

Bottom line: both Gabriel Knights are must-plays. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.