Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within

Psh, saw that in the 7th Guest

The second game in the series and this one is a FMV-game... and one of those good ones. Although it still shows the limitation of these kind of games. Looking at the same film clip over and over gets irritating as well as prolonging the game. My story is the same as the first game, they came in the same pack. And it took me ages to get past the first CD since I didn't have the necessary instructions to solve one of the puzzles. And after getting past that and playing the whole second CD the game crashes. If the reason was a bad CD or a bad computer I can't say. Later on I got it again as a birthday present for the Mac and could actually play through out the game. Difference was that the colours was a bit off and I believe one soundbite was missing on the second CD (which could also means other bites was missing as well, but I couldn't tell due to not being able to play that far). Later on with a stable internet compatibility I was able to get a free program to make a "DVD"-version where it pretty much assembled every CD and put it on my old PC drive with something like 2 GB. It was a rather good site. Also, the box came with the soundtrack for the second game. Great tracks, especially the opera scene.

The Scary parts of the games

The game starts with Gabriel in Germany as he tries to take up the mantle as shadow hunter after his great-uncle Wolfgang, but some villagers of Rittersburg arrive at night with a request to stop a werewolf. The supposed werewolf had as it latest victim killed a nine-year old girl and her father was able to get a look from the wolf and see its, as he called it, human eyes. So Gabriel heads to Munich in search of the werewolf. He starts by looking after the supposedly escaped wolves from the ZOO that are accused as the murder wolfs. As he finds out it's no ordinary wolf. It's paws are way to big and the hair sample he can get doesn't match that of a wolf. The curator of the ZOO is connected to some strange hunting lodge and with his blue blood Gabriel sneaks in and joins with the help of the owner Fredrich von Glover.

Meanwhile back in America

Grace is left in New Orleans and decide she has had enough when Gabriel sends a letter describing his current situation. Here is the problem with the timeline. She gets the letter that was sent at the day and the very same night she appears in Germany. And is not a telegram since it's an actual letter. And she herself sends a letter the very next day, that somehow appears the same day to Gabriel. And it gotta be the same day since the last thing in the first chapter is that he would return to the club the next day. Which he does. Still, now as Gabriel hunts the deadly wolf Grace does the research on werewolves which makes her look up the Black Wolf, a noble man the Ritters arrested and executed due to his werewolf curse. A curse he got for assaulting a gypsie woman and the matriarch of the clan cursed him. And they appeared again during the times of Ludwig II of Bavaria, the fairy tale king who built Neuschwanstein and Richard Wagner who did all those operas. It's a tale of political assassinations, cursed monarchs and a lost opera. Somehow I find the Grace episodes easier, might be to me liking history and such. And basically the Gabriel parts where the scarier ones.

Why is Gabriel undercover at some café in Seattle?

So Gabriel pretty much bumbled unto the murderer, but who could it be in the hunting club? Is it the doktor? The Lawyer? Politician? Butcher? Or the aggressive bank person that snaps at any thing? Well, obviously it's Von Glover that turned von Zell, the banker into a werewolf. Now, some LP I watched argued that von Glover didn't do anything worth killing, but that was missing the bigger picture. First, over 100 disappearances have been reported over 30 years alluded to be the work of the black wolf. He turned not only von Zell, but also Ludwig II of Bavaria as well as an officer in South America, which was subtle since it was mentioned in one of the books Grace read and sent to Gabriel about the officer, but in the same chapter von Glover shows of a mask he got from South America... hinting pretty much that he was responsible for that as well. And he probably have been doing it since his father's day, the original black wolf that was killed in 15th or 16 century. Well, Gabriel gets invited to join a hunt, and due to Fredricks fascination of the Ritters since they killed his father, as well as some means to get rid of von Zell who couldn't control his werewolf form. And that was the reason he gathered these very people in order to form a wolf pack by the best in every speciality and use their talents like law, politics, money and so on. During the trip Gabriel get proof of von Zell as a werewolf and prepares to kill him with von Glover during the night, but in the end Gabriel gets bitten and afterwards firing the killing shot when von Glover can't (hinting again he is the real bad guy since he is the alpha male and can't kill any of his beta). As Gabriel starts to turn and Grace picks him up and looks for the opera Wagner constructed for Ludwig II which sound and stage would somehow destroy von Glover. After an amazing cheesy opera scene a Gabriel in wolf-form hunts von Glover in the basement and puts him in the boiler rooms he pushes him into the fires, killing von Glover and with that releasing Gabriel from the werewolf curse.

The werewolves looks bad though, in more than one way

I love this game. It's scary, the music is fantastic, and even though the graphics at times shows it's age I can't help but feel immersed. It walks a fine line between education when it comes to things like Ludwig and Wagner and fantastical. Sadly, as most FMV-games by Sierra it seems like the end game was rushed due to going over budget and the game getting to big. Apparently the final CD would be divided in two with the search for the opera following Ludwig hiding it instead of watching it as a cut-scene. The box also came with a demo for the third game in the series that was about to be released. Looking awful due to the decision going all 3D. Progress isn't always a good thing.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

Oh, this is gonna be good!

For some reason my dad wanted to pick up this game series, but I payed for it. We got it in a double combo of the first two games as a promotion for the third game. And due to the computer we didn't get it working... and the second game actually had a scratched CD (nr 3 of 6). So a bit of a downer, but the games are fantastic. It also came with a novel of the game... aka a walkthrough. I actually read it and it was rather interesting to see how the story worked in a coherent way compared to my try anything and see if it works. Of course I was able to cheat on some puzzles, like the cemetery code, the drum code and the clock code. In short a lot of codes. Funny enough it has a picture of the actor from the second game on the front.

My walkthrough

It is actually worth reading even if you played the game since it is more creepy at times than the game. For example near the end sneaking in to the police station nothing out of the ordinary happens, but the book hints that all the police in the office is actually controlled by the voodoo cult and if no one is there, they are lifeless zombies. It's a really creepy moment. But before I get a head of myself, let's start from the beginning. You play as Gabriel Knight (amazingly voiced by Tim Curry) who has constant nightmares since he began researching the so called Voodoo Murders that are plaguing New Orleans. He is helped by his part-time co-worker Grace and police officer Mosley (voiced by Mark Hamill) who gives him inside information on the cases. As he gets deeper he finds out about this ancient voodoo cult that lurks in the shadows and how it ties together with Knights own family, the Ritters of Rittersburg. The family is an ancient family of shadow hunter... or shattenjaegers which translates to Shadow hunter. For two millennia the Ritters have hunted the paranormal until one ancestor used the powers in their talisman to save a voodoo witch by empowering her leading to the death of a settlement in the new world and stealing the talisman. The loss of the talisman have lead the Ritters to ruin as Gabriel is the only one left since most Ritters die untimely death, including Gabriels father and grandfather. 

I'm already remembering being to scarred to play as a kid

If you don't get it is the same voodoo cult so he has get the talisman back and stop them. And if you wonder they are basically drug smugglers so they are obviously evil. The music is by Robert Holmes and is fantastic, creepy and atmospheric. The voice acting is amazing... except maybe for the narrator and some minor roles that just sound off. There is a remake, but I haven't played it and since it lacks the original voices I don't feel inclined to. The graphics of the old game is still good, but it might be my taste. It's also rather informative on both the mythical voodoo, but also it's real life origins. New Orleans history with Marie Levou is gone into detail and I get that the recreation of New Orleans was kinda good (well, at least before... Katrina was it?). I highly recommend it.

King's Quest VII: The Princless Bride

Well this look nice!

King's Quest VII is actually the first game in the series I ever played as a kid. We got it for Mac with a CD drive and you know it was gonna be something special when it opens with this intro:

This doesn't look that nice

Story is that one day princess Rosella and her mother Valanice is out walking, talking about marriage since Rosella is getting to that age. She detest the idea and instead focus on something in a small pond and decides to jump into it... I know this is a fairy tale, but what? Valanice follows and sees Rosella being grabbed by something and she ends up in some desert area.

Great, I HATE deserts!

So this game is divided in chapters with chapter 1, 3 and 5 following Valanice and 2, 4 and 6 following Rosella. Valanice is trying to find Rosella and it takes her from this desert to a magical forest where the guardians been transformed by an evil fairy and a town of weird animals. All this is on the borders of the were-beasts forrest and the land of the dead where the lord of land takes Valanice to Etheria where the fairies lives... I don't know why, the story pretty much lost me on chapter 5. All I get is that the evil fairy came from around here and some dream fairy could show her Rosella? It doesn't seem to matter that much since the important story is actually Rosella who was kidnapped by an ogre king and by some strange magic turned into a ogre herself. So first she has to revers the spell, then escape the land of the ogres to the land of the dead in search of the real ogre king that was trapped by the boogy man by the evil fairy who want's to let the volcano the ogres control destroy Etheria as revenge. Rosella finds him and a magical wand, escapes to the weird animal town and a secret passage down back to the land of the ogres where she confront the fake king and as the kings duke it out turn the fraud back to it's true self, Edgar, the prince Rosella saved back in the fourth game. I know, I didn't know who he was either first time getting that far.

What is it with the animation?

Yadda-yadda-yadda, Rosella turns the evil fairy to a baby, she and Edgar hooks up and they travel back home... I think, the ending isn't quite clear on it. And this is if you save Edgar who takes a blast to the face from the evil fairy. 

The heroic act of prince-what's-his-name

I do have nostalgic memories of this game, and sadly most is remembering how impossible it was for me as a child since I couldn't understand what to do since I didn't know english. And the game is probably best just remembering. The animation is best remembered since your mind will fill out the lacking art for you, the music... fine, but the intro song isn't girl in the tower. Voice acting... passable. As you can see, not the best in the series and there's a bit of a problem with it. And it's also the last King's Quest game I played. Well, except for the Silver Lining-games, but i'm still waiting for the final episode and it's been 6 years already. Someday I might play the new King's Quest-game with Cristopher Lloyd, but I just doesn't have the computer for it or the internet to download it. So we shall see... and I won't be playing the 8th game. Although I like the intro music.

King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

I must have made a wrong turn somewhere

King's Quest VI, said to be the best of the series and I gotta agree. It is the most polished of the old Sierra games (one might argue the animated style of VII is better, but that's debatable), the voice acting is the most superb with people like Tony Jay behind it and the story is lovely and the music... is a damn masterpiece. But we don't begin there, instead to the end of the last game. As shown in there prince Alexander of Daventry tried to get it of with princess Casima that helped Graham defeat Mordak. Casima is taken back home to the Green Isles and Alexander waits... and waits. Until a horrendous cutscene with computer generated graphics where the queen comforts her son and suddenly the magical mirror shows Alexander Casima trapped in a tower with a star lit sky behind her. With the stars burnt into his mind he sets out navigating the seas with a loyal crew until they hit a storm and the ship sinks (the game goes out it's way telling the player that every crew member survived in the life boats). Alexander awakes on the shore and sets out to save Casima.

Great, at least not the beaches of Normandy.

That's the set up, and the story is that the lands of the Green Isles are in turmoil. Each island blames the other for some stolen artefacts and the king and queen died before Casima arrived home so the Vizir is ruling for the moment. Of course he is evil and the one that sent Casima to Mordak as well as murder the king and queen. As well as taking the artefacts and blaming the islands so to ensure no one tries to oppose his rule. Since Casima come back the plan have changed, especially with Alexander following, and he gotta marry her in order to keep the throne. And Alexander is about to stop him. First order is to get of the island by getting your hands on a magic map and survive the traps on the different islands, some natural and some imposed by the viziers genie that you recognise by the glowing eyes. The main island of the Crown is middle eastern 1001 Night-style, the island of the beast is basically a Beauty and the Beast island (even more fun that the voice of Alexander played the beast in the Disney animated movie).

Best movie ev... wait, that's the wrong one!

Much better!

There's an Alice in Wonderland-island and an island mainly based on greek mythology with angels and a labyrinth with a minotaur. The last island is the land of the druids which you can't access until later in the game. So you basically goes around and collecting items to solve different puzzles. Most important is getting a spell book and later finding a nightingale that sends message between Alexander and Casima to deepen their love for each other. As the vizier gets desperate he is gonna force a marriage between himself and Casima and then kill her to get the throne so in order to stop this Alexander travels to the lands of the dead where he find Casima's parents and the truth of their deaths. The vizier murdered them... the shocker, I know. He continues down to the underworld and challenge the lord of death to a duel and by showing the magical mirror to the lords face it forces the demon to shed one single tear as he faces his own horrors. It's a fantastic scene. You bring Casima's parents back and as they start a rebellion Alexander infiltrates the castle with the help of the castles clown and finds the artefacts and, like a good story interrupts the wedding and chasing the vizier up the tower where a duel of swords follows. As Casima throws a dagger in the Viziers back Alexander knocks him out with his sword. Alexander and Casima wed each other and the best cheesy love song plays.

Can't stop crying/laughing at the awesomeness!

It is the best King's Quest game by far. No dead ends and a couple of different endings. As stated a beautiful looking and sounding game. I came a long way without a guide until I falled for french manual that stopped most of the King's Quest-games I played, and that was to climb the Cliffs of Logic to find the angels and fight the minotaur. The horrors of the copy-protection. I probably wouldn't have finished the labyrinth since the terror of knowing the monster is out there would have scared me enough.

Puyo Puyo Tetris

Who thought this was the best multiplayer game for the Switch at release?

In the past I've bought games on hunches, like interesting story, cool concept or better get it now cause later it will be impossible especially with the lacking of internet infrastructure at my current whereabouts. Sometimes I've tried demos, that's how I come to pester my parents to let me buy The Curse of Monkey Island. Others had nice graphics, best example Final Fantasy X, that and I recognised the series from reading about it, but that was pretty much graphics and music. And then you have this game. I dowloaded the demo for this game after recommendation from the local game store just to try it and have for the multiplayer family gathering. It was rather fun. And the demo pretty much had everything you needed, except the reconfirm and reset the choices after every single match. So I ordered this game together with Ever Oasis and you know what? This one had a story mode.

Basically it starts with Ringo who is interrupted by her friends Amitee and Arle after teleporting due to popping puyos. Suddenly Tetris pieces fall from the sky, they pop some more Puyos and end up at the starship Tetra where the captain Tee is trying to figure out how they ended up here. They crash on the planet and try to piece what happened together. Apparently the keeper of Dimensions isn't separating the Tetris dimension with the puyo dimension so they fix Tetra and goes to the edge of dimensions where Ex awaits them, the former captain of Tetra and the ex-king of Tetris. After Tee battles him to remind him why his roll matters everything back to normal, the dimensions gets separated and Ringo and Tee separate.

It's a silly premise and over the top, but I enjoy it. The humour is great at poking fun of the silliness of it as Tetris blocks and puyos fall from the sky. The prince of Darkness walks around being in love with Arle and gets really upset when she accuses him for being behind it since it's something he could do. There's even a singing fish traveling through space. Part of me wonders if some older games have these characters since it appears to be a lot of backstory hinted among them. And it isn't as hard, although I should probably not admit this, but you can skip battles after losing a number of turns to get on with it. And as you can guess, yes, I did it a couple of times, especially on puyo and fusion battles. I can't get the thinking of the puyo portion to work for me. I prefer the mode swap since I'm at least competent on Tetris, having played it a lot on both computers and video games. Best is with 4-multiplayer battles in local mode. And if a console should have a Tetris game, this one covers most bases, even single-player mode.

Metal Slug 2

OH YEAH!!! THE BEST ONE

So they finally released it for the Switch and... it wasn't as fun as I remember. Maybe the slow-down really isn't that great. The moments are still there in the ending level, although it went much worse than it usually does. Could also be due to playing alone since it gets more intense with a friend to tag along. And since I already covered the third game the changes from the first game is that you have 4 character to choose from, you can get fat by picking up to much food, turn into a mummy at a certain stage, more vehicles like a fighter plane, camel and some kind of exoskeleton and a new weapon like the Laser. 

The story, as read from wikipedia (since again, there is no story summery within the game), is that 2 years after the first game the splintered rebel forces are regrouping under a General Morden back from the dead and the old heroes together with two agents from their intelligence agency S.P.A.R.R.O.W must track him down to stop another coup. And in the end it turns out Morden teamed up with aliens who betrays him... for some reason so together with the generals forces you battle the mother ship until it falls down. The ship goes down as one of Morden's pilots flies into the laser conductor or whatever. I think they are homaging the movie Independence Day.

A half-hour game at most. Rather fun, but now I hope they release Metal Slug X to see if it's improves the game or not. Hopefully I can still choose the red blood option.

Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

Great, 9 new characters to second guess during all the game

I just had to get more of the Zero Escape-series after Virtue's Last Reward and since there was no release for the original game I had to go for the sequel. And they went full 3D so the gore is amplified as well as more explicit than the other game. The music is the same and still creeps me out and beckons my interest in the mystery. Pretty much the same premise, 9 people trapped in an underground facility with bracelets on their wrists. The difference being that they are already assigned teams, Carlos, Akane and Junpei in C-team, Q, Mira and Eric in Q-team and Diane, Phi and Sigma in D-team. They have signed up for some Travel to Mars-excercice and after 5 days being locked up by someone wearing a plaugemask offering them a coin toss option. Guess right and they are free to go or get it wrong and play the Decision games with Zero II. I guess red and... wins the coin toss. Everyones put to sleep and let out and credits roll. That was easy.

Of course to really get it you have to explore all possibilities so lose that coin toss. The three teams are relocated to separate wards and after 90 minutes put to sleep by the bracelets as well as administrated a drug that erase their memory. Meaning you don't play the game linear as before, but jumps between fragments that appears if everything leading up to them are fulfilled. You all remember the first decision game since you are forced to vote for the two other teams and the team that gets two votes are executed. In the last minute you find that the dog from the training centre can go between wards and carries a container that you can send messages with so C-team who gets it first sends out instructions how to spread the votes. Your first choice is to follow the instructions or chose the other team more or less betraying them. And then you are put to sleep and depending on the decision of your current group and the other groups you get 4 separate outcomes. One of the three teams gets executed or the plan works and you are taken to a decontamination chamber where you again have to decide to either press a button that forces the other teams being showered with some acid that turns them to sludge that disappears in the drains. If no one presses it you end up with a [Force Quit Box] where you need passwords you can't access in that timeline so it's time to jump around.

So who are all these people? Carlos is a firefighter that entered the program to get $ 500 000 to cure his sister. Akane is the old woman from the last game that infiltrated the program with Phi and Sigma to stop the outbreak of Radical-6. A younger Junpei from the last game had tracked down Akane and followed her into the program. Diane is a nurse that tried to escape her abusive ex-husband and Mira and Eric are a couple... with problems one might say. Eric is prone to snapping and be very abusive which probably has to do with his abusive alcoholic father that entered some depression after his wife died and Mira... is a serial killer that rips peoples heart outs while they are still beating. And Q is some child with a huge helmet over his head he can't get off. And this is the simple story elements. In actuality Diane is the person Sigma modelled Luna from the last game after and is pretty much his lover. In this game it's also revealed that Sigma and Diane is Phi's parents that sent her back in time through an alien teleporter that was discovered in Germany in 1888. I see they went and threw away all of Knox commandments when doing this game. And she apparently have a twin brother named Delta. Phi is also patient Zero in the Radical-6 outbreak in the timeline following Virtue's Last Reward, but how that works I don't know since she must have been cured or maybe they didn't give her the disease like with everyone else since she was already infected and the reason she volunteered?  Akane is psychotic and bash Carlos to death at one point for killing Junpei in an AB-game. And Junpei doesn't get it better as he is carved up in different pieces and his head is put on a display in a freezer. And the boy Q is a robot without any head behind the helmet that Zero put there and get's the most tearjerking endings in the game, the first when he stays behind with the chained up dog Gab since he couldn't leave him in the shelter and then when he sends his conscious into a virtual reality where he gets to play out the life of the real boy he was modelled after, Sean who died from some incurable disease. And he gets to live in a happy family, go to school and have friends... oh boy, how can I feel so much for a robot AI within a game?

So you might be thinking, who's the mastermind behind this? Obviously it's Delta, but he is not 20 years old like Phi since both travelled through time to the year 1908, but Phi was teleported to 2008 after that so Delta is 124 years old. And he can read peoples minds and for a short while take control of a persons body. He calls it mind hacking. Apparently he was with Q-team all the time if I guess right, but he sits in a wheelchair and is supposed to be both deaf and blind. His reason is to force them to jump between alternative histories so he assure his and Phi's birth with their powers (Phi's being able to SHIFT timelines) and then making them all regain their memories and take the place of those winning the coin toss in order to fight for a better future since the Radical-6 plan was to stop a religious cultist engaging in a nuclear war killing all 8 billion people by leaving 2 billion people alive after the virus take care of the others. I assume they hint that yet another game where you have to take care of that person. Also Alice and Clover tried to get back to their time and K apparently shifted back in time and changed conscious with someone, but we don't know who. Now I really want to play the first game and I wonder if there will be a forth one.

So story is all over the place, but there is some problems with how the game plays. They made it worse. In the last game I could have the notes on the top screen so I didn't have to switch back and forth when writing passwords or such, but now I gotta switch. That annoys me to no end. Same with files so I can read the instructions while trying out a puzzle. Now I must read the files, jump out and open the notes and write them in. It's almost forcing me to pick up pen and paper like in the olden days. The big downside I gotta say. Otherwise a fun game.