Gabriel Knight 20th Anniversary
(Didn't see an existing topic for this, but might have missed it.)
Jane Jensen's Mystery Game X is revealed: http://www.gabrielknight20th.com
I'm going to be honest here. I think this GK remake project has flop written all over it. Why is the Phoenix Online Studios logo on the website? What is their involvement? I have no respect for Phoenix Online Studios and won't give them a penny. Their record of apparently exploiting famous names for their own benefit, and some members of their team's history of unprofessional behavior speaks for itself. Their "King's Quest" game (I refuse to regard it as an actual KQ) was amateurish dreck and might have slammed the door shut on us getting any new official KQ games in the near or distant future.
Though the backgrounds look quite nice, I don't like the new look of Gabriel. He looks so girly and fake. Almost like a little girl's doll. See attached pics for comparison.
Also, what is up with the theme's new recording? Sounds like some pans are being dropped every few seconds. See here:
http://www.gabrielknight20th.com/wp-content/uploads/GK1_Main_Theme.mp3
Anyway, if Phoenix Online isn't involved, then I will be relieved and more willing to give this remake a chance.
Old and new pics of Gabriel below. I prefer the original.
https://forums.replaygamesinc.com//download/file.php?id=165
Comments
You did miss it, but that's because I decided I was going to try and be clever and failed horribly.
Hehe. I just want to say that I actually did searches for "Jane Jensen" and this lovely new website gave me error message after error message. It is difficult to find information with this new setup. Just wanted to be clear that I made an effort to find existing threads, so as not to create a duplicate one. :-)
So, what do you think about how the game looks?
They haven't yet released a trailer, have they? We haven't seen the animation yet?
I will tell you that I had been greatly anticipating this game. I pretty much expected it to be some kind of Gabriel Knight remake, but I had hoped that it would be developed by an in-house Activision studio. I had heard rumors quite awhile ago suggesting that Activision had begun work on the game.
Anyway, I was a Kickstarter backer. When it was announced that Phoenix Online Studios would be developing Moebius, I was not happy. There had been no mention whatsoever of Phoenix Online Studios during the Kickstarter campaign. It was like a bait and switch. But at least I could still look forward to Mystery Game X.
Now even that strand of hope has been yanked away. Feels like a punch in the gut.
I'm going to be completely honest here. I am sick to death of remakes. There has to be a bloody good reason for it to exist, otherwise it is pointless to touch the original. A great example of this is the Monkey Island special editions, in all honesty, they were pointless. A rerelease on GOG and Steam with voice recording would have been just fine, but instead they made a rushed recoating with cut material (the dancing monkeys in MI2), pixel residue and badly programmed iMuse. Initially, I was thrilled with those games, but after playing them a few more times, the problems begin to become apparent, so I stick with the fanmade "talkie editions" of the original VGA. I also played the director's cut for the first Broken Sword and even as someone not familiar with the original it didn't impress me, especially the added Nico plotpoint which was frankly a bore.
In terms of GK, I do like what I see in terms of the art but nowadays I can't trust game developers not to cut something as basic as the aforementioned credits sequences or rush some of the backgrounds (the latter may be less of a problem so long as they don't have a "switch to classic mode" feature). However, the biggest problem I see here is this, and yes, this is happening....they are recasting all of the voices. That alone concerns me, from what I hear the voices were some of the best in a game (I haven't actually played it), and with people like Tim Curry, why wouldn't they be? It sounds like a terrible idea, and that makes me wonder what LucasArts would have done with their older talkies if they couldn't get quality audio recordings for SEs (Fate of Atlantis springs to mind).
You make many excellent points. I agree with pretty much everything you said.
I would say two things, though. First, one reason for supporting remakes is that they could make the classics more accessible to more people. Not everyone is going to go through the efforts to play the games with DOS box or would even be willing to play a very pixelated game.
Second, I remember reading that all of the Sierra VGA remakes of previous EGA adventures were terrible sellers. Sierra had actually planned to remake more EGA titles, but canceled those projects after seeing the disappointing sales of the others. Your feelings on the subject seem to agree with the feelings of game customers back in the early 1990s.
What people really want are new adventure games. Perhaps other genres of games are better suited to remakes. For example, there seemed to be a lot of excitement for the remade DuckTales game.
If Jane Jensen had the opportunity to make a new Gabriel Knight game, but instead chose to remake the first one, she made a huge mistake.
Reminds me of the LSL situation... It is my understanding that Replay Games could not make a new LSL game under the terms of their license, and so had no choice but to remake the first one. Apparently a new game is still in a possibility, depending on sales.
I may be facing the wrath of the adventure game gods when I say this but, personally, I don't think replacing Tim Curry will be a big loss. And I say that as someone who loves Tim Curry. His voicework in Gabriel Knight just wasn't very good. I didn't think so anyway. Most of the rest of the cast was excellent, though, so they'll be missed. Especially Leah Remini as Grace.
I like the remake trend when it's done well, simply because it allows me to play some of my favorite old games without jumping through any hoops. I thought the Monkey Islands were great. Broken Sword, not so much (though being able to play it on the go on my DS - even without voice work - was fun). And Leisure Suit Larry unfortunately just highlighted everything that was outdated and annoying about the original game in the first place. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but I don't think bringing these games back is ever a truly bad thing.
I also thought Curry was wrong for the part.
He still could be announced as the voice in this one. That would be crazy, but it's possible. Apparently he had some kind of stroke last year (hope he's ok) and is over 65 years old, but it could happen.
Maybe they're waiting to announce it to get headlines?
I think it's interesting they decided not to show a trailer or any animation. I predict the character animations are going to disappoint people, as they did in the Moebius trailer.