Interestingly, both game series have a stallar 1st chapter, somewhat disapointing second chapter, and iffy third chapter which experiments with 3d. The relationship with the female sidkick in both series is rather similar - are they in a relationship or aren't they? The main characters also have a similar personality, though Gabriel is much more developed.

Personally, I find that hard puzzles are bad for me in adventure games, not because I don't like the challenge, but they can really mess up the pacing of the story. So from a gameplay perspective I have to say I much prefer BS1 - it just flows so smoothly, and once the story picks up, I can't stop playing until I reach the end. GK, I tend to stop playing every time I am stuck or not sure what to do next, so it can take longer to get through the game, and the story suffers a lot for that - I lose the momentum.

Games less about story, and more about funny jokes, like most of the lucas arts games, I am more lenient on with regards to tough puzzles, but GK kind of irritates me. Still couldn't pick whether I prefer GK1 or BS1, like both games a lot.

Gabriel Knight 1 is much better than BS1-2. I played it again this summer and was really impressed. Best voice acting I've ever heard in any game from any genre. Both Gabriel and the narrator do take a little bit of getting used to with the accents, but ultimately they're awesome. I generally hate a lot of dialogue in games (I think it's one of the biggest problems with adventure games today), but in GK1 it was a pleasure.

I can see how at least one particular puzzle would be pretty obscure/difficult. Luckily I remembered it from my original playthroughs. Don't be ashamed to look up hints, but don't cave immediately either!

I've always thought of Broken Sword as a "poor man's Gabriel Knight". I don't know how much BS was influenced by GK, but it's always felt like a cheaper knock-off. Both series are about solving historical mysteries, both have the tension between the male and female characters, which also look disturbingly similar.

Mainly the difference is that the GK series (at least the first two games) is fantastic while the BS series is.. just okay. The storylines and characters are a lot blander in BS. GK has tension, BS has barely any. GK has a lot more depth and historical accuracy, and IMO deal with the historic/supernatural mysteries in much more interesting and original ways.

The BS games are more comedic than GK, and easier than GK1 which is a fairly challenging game. GK2 was less so.

Question:

how big is the game? in comparison to BS?

I'd say they're about the same. Medium-long for an adventure game.

In my opinion Gabriel Knight is by far a superior game I never fell for BS, and consider it's status as an adventure game "classic" to be very much undeserved - It's decent at best, nothing more.

Well Broken Sword 1 and 2 are two of the games that I grew up playing. I think the only other point-and-click adventure games I'd played before that were a quick go at Day of the Tentacle and the first Discworld game. I liked them both, but they both seemed to have absolutely ridiculous logic and an almost perverse desire to make no sense whatsoever. That's how it seemed at the time anyway. Also, the characters were more like caricatures, and while nicely done, you couldn't really identify with them like the BS and GK characters.

From what I've seen of GK - and I may soon find this is a load of crap since I'm still right at the start - but both games seem pretty similar as it goes, so it's simply down to if you prefer the types of characters in either game, or the settings in either game. I can imagine George seeming to "clean" for some people, but that actually made it feel like a normal guy getting pulled into extraordinary events, which mirrors the player's experience and creates a bond there. At least that's how it worked when me and my brother played it.

Gabriel seems a lot more cynical and I get the feeling (only being at the very start of the first game) that Gabriel is linked to the events through his family, so while that makes him a more textured character, perhaps, it means that it feels more like your watching a very different person deal with his own problems rather than you and the protagonist going through the same things together.

I know this is a bit of an old topic.. but I just wanted to comment on the two games Export mentioned in their last post.

Day of the Tentacle is meant to be rather campy, though I've not played it to any great lengths. The first game, Maniac Mansion, was incredibly frustrating but also quite amusing. It was meant to have a warped or unorthodox way of thinking, as a result.

Discworld is based on a very good and very popular book series, and so if you're unfamiliar with the characters you're obviously going to find the ones in the game a bit odd, to say the least. Same with the logic, if you don't know how things work in the Discworld, some of the puzzles aren't going to seem that obvious. In fact, this was actually something that even fans and experienced Adventure genre gamers had an issue with. They addressed it during the first entry in the manual for the second game, and flat-out told you how to solve the really difficulty puzzles on the chance you were still playing it.

While I've never played the Broken Sword games, I've been interested in them for some time. now that they're on GOG, I may look them up once I have a bit more money. As for the Gabriel Knight games? The first one, I think, had some seriously difficult puzzles. Not so much because of poor logic, but usually something unforgiving like not being quick enough or because the clues were just a little too obscure at times. This was resolved in the second game which felt a good deal smoother insofar as plot-to-puzzle pacing went.

In fact, I really wanna play the first two games again. Damn it, and I don't have a working disc drive anymore...

I've played every BS and GK game. BS very blatantly rips off GK, thematically, story-wise, puzzle-wise, character-wise, etcetera. I still played all the BS games (they've made so many now, and yet we can't get another GK, even though Jane Jensen is ready to go).

I don't think we'll ever see another adventure game at the Gabriel Knight level of quality (for me, I love 2 the best, then 1 and 3), unless Jensen is able to dust off her design books and make the game we've all been waiting for.

I'd say the difference is this: I played the GK1 about the time it was released and it left me a lasting impression like some of my favorite books. I also played BS1 about the time it was released, and even though a very enjoyable adventure, it did not leave me such a deep impression as GK1.

I just finished the GK1 remake and it reminded me why I liked the original so much - the writing is just so good.