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The original Gabriel Knight had great voice acting?  That’s news to me.

chrissie - 09 October 2013 11:58 AM

It’s the last of The GK series I got around to playing & struggled through playing it in a window on my monitor with very retro pixellated graphics which were hard to see!!

I think Sins of the Fathers is far better looking and better-aged than it’s successors. I’d be twice as happy to see a remake of the awful looking low-poly style of GK3. GK1’s art may be pixelated but it’s done brilliantly. Pixel-art is a trend now and GK’s visual style stands out among the most recent games in that style.

Anyway, I don’t mind a remake. I’m even ok with the characterless 3d models of Gabriel. It’s all the other things beside art that I’m worried about.

Lambonius - 09 October 2013 12:04 PM

The original Gabriel Knight had great voice acting?  That’s news to me.

Well, Tim Curry and Mark Hamill comes to mind and that combo is good enough for a great voice acting. If you refer to the quality, yes it’s poor. But if I had an option I’d play the remake with the old lo-fi voices. Every word coming from Gabe will shout to me “well, Tim did it better”. I’m very sad that they didn’t recast him.
Well nothing left but wait. GK1 is one of the most atmospheric games I’ve ever played. Hope they catch at least half of that.

Lambonius - 09 October 2013 12:04 PM

The original Gabriel Knight had great voice acting?  That’s news to me.

Subjectively you can say ‘I don’t like’ while many others disagree. But objectively Tim Curry, Mark Hamill and Michael Dorn are pretty well-respected actors in the industry and deserve some respect.

I would have had almost no interest in the game 20 years ago if Tim Curry et al in it. None, zip, those actor got me interested, and the game got me hooked. And as result got me interested in Sierra Games-thanks Jane, thanks Tim

Now I’m getting this game, that’s sorted, and people should buy this if they ever want to see GK4. I mean there’s literally NO chance of GK4 getting made if this don’t sell.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad that one of my favorite elements of the game, and the one that first appealed to me, are gone.

It’s like one of my favorite elements of Monkey Island 1 was that night-time atmosphere on Melee Island. I love it. Now if for the remake they had decided to set the Melee Island sequences in daytime, with no option of switching… the game would still be hilarious and well designed, but something I loved from the original would be missing, and unreplacable

badlemon - 09 October 2013 12:54 PM

chrissie - 09 October 2013 11:58 AM

It’s the last of The GK series I got around to playing & struggled through playing it in a window on my monitor with very retro pixellated graphics which were hard to see!!

I think Sins of the Fathers is far better looking and better-aged than it’s successors. I’d be twice as happy to see a remake of the awful looking low-poly style of GK3. GK1’s art may be pixelated but it’s done brilliantly. Pixel-art is a trend now and GK’s visual style stands out among the most recent games in that style.

Pixel-art is a trend now? Is it? I’ll get on with it to support an Indie developer but it’s not a trend for me! Yeah, I know what you’re saying about GK3. The look of it I thought was better but the problem with it for me was the interface - it was far too ‘whizzy’ for anyone like myself that suffers from motion sickness. From a graphical point of view I could possibly agree that GK1 in context is better than GK3 - so maybe there needs to be a remake there?   

Lambonius - 09 October 2013 12:04 PM

The original Gabriel Knight had great voice acting?  That’s news to me.

badlemon - 09 October 2013 12:54 PM

Well, Tim Curry and Mark Hamill comes to mind and that combo is good enough for a great voice acting. If you refer to the quality, yes it’s poor. But if I had an option I’d GK1 is one of the most atmospheric games I’ve ever played. Hope they catch at least half of that.

I agree that GK1 is a very atmospheric game & I’m optimist that will be reflected in the remake but as much as I love the voice of Tim Curry, Mark Hamill etc they are only actors, there are plenty of others, so I don’t hold a torch for them!

I actually think GK is one of the more painful games to listen to, acting-wise.  Yes, Tim Curry was a known actor, but his bad N’Awlins accent and slow-talking cadence makes me want to stick a sharp object into my ears whenever I hear it.  Don’t even get me started on the narrator…*shudder*

Mark Hamill is a great voice actor, but his performance as Mosley really isn’t a standout.  It’s passable, sure—but when you compare it to his other performances from the 90s, like the Joker, it’s nothing special.  And Michal Dorn is as wooden as ever.  Just because the names are known, doesn’t mean the performances are great.

None of the voice acting in GK even comes close to the brilliance of something like Jon Rys Davies’ QFG4 narration.  I could listen to that all day.

I am honestly really excited by this but torn.  GK has always been on the top of my list of games I haven’t played but want to.  Until today I was planning to skip Sins of the Father and go straight to the Beast Within.  My primary reason was that I didnt like the aged graphics of Sins of the Father.  A Sins remake puts me in a dillema.  On the one hand I would like to start the series with the first instalment on the other I dont really want to weight until the middle of next year to play Beast Within.

Personally I hope that they bring Tim Curry back to play GK.

Texas - 09 October 2013 03:21 PM

I am honestly really excited by this but torn.  GK has always been on the top of my list of games I haven’t played but want to.  Until today I was planning to skip Sins of the Father and go straight to the Beast Within.  My primary reason was that I didnt like the aged graphics of Sins of the Father.  A Sins remake puts me in a dillema.  On the one hand I would like to start the series with the first instalment on the other I dont really want to weight until the middle of next year to play Beast Within.

Personally I hope that they bring Tim Curry back to play GK.

If you read between the lines in the FAQ it’s pretty clear none of the original actors are back unfortunately.

Plus Tim Curry was still recovering from his stroke last year.

I agree with the person who suggested Dean Erickson as a substitute. I thought his performance was just fine. Plus it would create a nice continuity in the series to counter the fact that we’re losing some old favorite voices

For me, the quality of GK1’s original voice acting isn’t just the biggest, most recognizable names (though they are great), it’s the casting of the secondary characters. Professor Hartridge, curt and stuffy, but with his own dignity that helps you to like him anyway. Wolfgang Ritter, wise, bold, strong in spirit, but growing frail in body. Malia Gedde (time index 2:54-3:23), proud, guarded, sultry, and wryly observant. The gravedigger, Watchman Toussaint Gervais (time index 3:23-4:02), jovial, easy-going, seeing things that other people are too hurried to see.

There’s too many to find clips for: Grandmother Knight, Desk Sergeant Frick, Willy Walker the store owner, old Madame Cazaunoux, Crash, Gerde, Magentia Moonbeam, Bartender Stonewall King. And that’s not even counting Gabriel, Grace, Mosely, and Dr. John. When I look at this page, just seeing the character portraits conjures the memory of the accompanying voices in my head.

It’s a colorful cast, each role full of personality, no matter how big or small. The writing is part of that, for sure, and a lot the characters are riffs on recognizable archetypes, but the casting is a huge part of making each character unique and memorable as well. If you look at even the minor actors in GK1, you’ll find that they’re almost all well-established actors with lengthy and considerable experience. And they were chosen well for each part with a relative minimum of reusing the same actor to voice multiple characters, except when appropriate. When someone like Monte Markham voices both Hartridge and the bartender, the voices are quite distinct and work in both cases.

I’m not saying Bay Area Sound can’t match or perhaps even improve upon this; I’m saying it’ll be a significant challenge. I hope and trust that the new voice acting will be terrific. But it’s a travesty of the poor state of classic video game preservation that we’ve come to this situation where the original recording sessions weren’t archived. I lamented about preservation a bit on Quest Studios already, so I won’t repeat myself here. I expected this news and understand the reasons, but it does make me sad.

This sadness aside, I wish Pinkerton Road, Bay Area Sound, and Phoenix Online all the best, and I’m looking forward to both Moebius and the GK1 remake. Thanks to Activision for taking a chance on it.

diego - 09 October 2013 02:52 PM

Everything is forgiven if Dean Erickson is cast as GK

I wouldn’t mind!!

I’m looking foward to two things with this 20th anniversary edition:

1) simplification of the interaction icons. I think we can do with just 3 or 4 instead of more. (Talk, walk, use should do it)

2) A nice lengthy cutscene for the Gunther Ritter back story. The original game came with a comic…..I’m assuming the new edition will be download only, so a separate comic book would not be very fitting.

Nobody associated with the cast of GK2 should be approached for any reason.  Ever.

Except maybe the old guy at the beginning.  He was always a pretty good voice actor in his various roles.

tomimt - 09 October 2013 03:25 PM

diego - 09 October 2013 02:52 PM

Everything is forgiven if Dean Erickson is cast as GK

You are kidding right? I’ve seen better actors in porn.

Joanne Takahashi actually did do porn. (Well, erotic movies. Whatever.) I’m sure she couldn’t have been worse in that than as permabitch Grace.

As for Dean Erickson getting anywhere near GK ever again:

That is all.

Lambonius - 09 October 2013 04:48 PM

Nobody associated with the cast of GK2 should be approached for any reason.  Ever.

Anyone who doesn’t think Peter Lucas as Friedrich von Glower wasn’t excellent in GK2 clearly doesn’t deserve to comment about adventure games. Ever.

.

Actually I thought all the members of the hunt club were very well cast and did really good jobs. Some of the other minor characters were a little over-the-top (Leber, the front desk oficer, the woman in the museum) , but that was fairly typical in FMV - the majority were fair better than the quality in most games then or since.

The biggest weakness was Grace - Joanne Takahashi overacted some parts pretty excessively, espeically those with Gerde. Her voice & appearance were fine though. I also had no big problem with Dean Erickson as GK. However GK2 was the first one I played - I think it’s a lot harder to forgive him if you played GK1 first - Tim Curry was wonderfully OTT in that…though TOO OTT for my taste in GK3.