After hearing my whole life how great this adventure is ( always at the top 5 or 10 on many lists), I downloaded the game and started playing it. I would just like to point out a few misleading traps in DAY 1, (if there are this many traps in DAY 1, why do I want to continue?) ------SPOILERS Ahead!-----


1st trap. After examining EVERYTHING outside the farmhouse, I still couldn't get the cement, and really didn't know I needed it. I had clicked on pawprint and then forest etc. When I came to the cement it wouldn't let me take it. So I wandered aimlessly for one WHOLE afternoon and gave up. The next day I tried again and wandered with no results until I had to resort to walkthrough. I laughed so hard whenI read that I needed to get the cement. WTF? So I opened my game and went to the pawprint first, then to the cement directly afterwards and lo and behold, I could take the cement! Okayyyy...not cool. Then once you do get the cement, you get a bunch of scenes of Gabriel working on it, but then when finally used, you feel cheated due to the lack of info you get from the University scientist! Meaning you don't know what to do next!!!

2nd trap. Still DAY 1. If you don't know that you have to splice the tape, you'll wander aimlessly again forever! There is only one reference to getting a voice recorded, but in the game it doesn't let you know that you can splice and edit conversations. I believe the manual has something in it refferring to this, but not everyone reads the fine print. Once you do the splicing of the tape, things do kick in a little bit, but then it all comes to a grinding halt again when you click on HINT and there are two sites still blinking!

I am guessing that there will be more splicing to do, more triggered scenes that have to be done one after the other, etc.

These problems do not make this game fun at all. I had just finished Tex Murphy UAKM and thouroughly enjoyed it. But this? Should I stay or should I go??? Why is it one of the best games ever??????

I can't handle bogus lists.

Sorry, I can only agree to 50 %.
I'm a noob in Adventure Games and have only played a few recent ones (Edna & Harvey, Secret files 1 and 2), so obviously I'm not genre savvy enough.
I had no problem with the cement segment. when I started to play the game myself, I didn't found the paw print at all. And, obviously, because I didn't know there's the paw print to begin with, I didn't feel like the cement was important.
Then, thanks to some pixel hunting, I did found the print, inspected it and knew, that I might need a print of it.
Besides, ever carried a bag of cement with you? They are heavy. (Though granted, Grace carries a giant sign with her and stuffs it somewhere in her coat.)
It didn't feel like a trap at all.

The spliced tape, however, was mean. I'm german, so my english isn't that good and I didn't know what this button did. So I ended up looking up for a solution.
Oh, and that's the only splicing you have to do. Ever. You do need to record a conversation later on, though. during day 3, if I remember correct.

The game gets a lot easier after that, because there are no other riddles, like the spliced tape. Not as pathetical easy as Phantasmagoria, but still.

Also, I don't consider those things to be "traps". Yes, old Sierra games like to kill you, if you do something wrong, that is something I know.
If this makes the game unwinable, because you don't have a certain item with you or used it in a wrong place and can't make it further into the game without restarting, THEN it would be a trap. Your examples are not. The tape splicing might be a term of "Solve the soup cans" or "Moon Logic puzzle". I mean, the guard tells you, that the director gives him orders per walkie talkie, so if you DID pay attention to the conversation, you might get the solution or a vague idea.
The cement is neither. Yes, being allowed to carry an item only if you need it is a weird idea, but once you found and examined the print the solution becomes obvious.

I have to clarify what I mean when I use the word "trap". When you have to resort to a walkthrough to continue the game, I feel that the sequence with the cement was a trick incorporated into the game. I did click on it after the pawprint discovery and still nothing happened. Maybe you need to start getting results from the scientist BEFORE you can get the cement. That is what I consider a trap, when you do everything you possibly can and cannot continue. You said you had no problem with it, so maybe it was just a bug or it really does depend on what sequence you click.

As for the splicing, the mirror, etc., I DID know that I had to do some sort of tape edit job, but never would think to do it at that time or which place. You must edit at the FARM!

If Chapter One is so damn hard, why was Chapter Two such a breeze? Those were my major concerns: That a game with it's popularity can either turn you off in Chapter One or get you going so crazy that you spend your whole day trying to figure it out without the help of a guide. I don't know what is worse.

P.S. If you can even call it a game. It's basically the biggest interactive movie, I've ever seen.

i didn't splice the tape at the farm and i definitely could use the cement after discovering the pawprint so i'm not all that sure what are you talking about

Well, even the walkthrough says you have to do the splicing in the farmhouse, but I believe you when you say you did it elsewhere. Still doesn't explain the cement problem I had.

What is the deal now with the cuckoo clock. I talked with Von Glower first off in the chapter. Does that mean I can't buy the clock? The game won't let me buy one and the walkthrough says I can. What now??? This is only Chapter Three and how on earth would I know to buy a cuckoo clock? Why can't I buy it? See, these are the TRAPS I am refferring to. Please don't misunderstand again. Just when I was starting to enjoy the adventure, it gives me this awful TRAP!

Congratulations, you just described every adventure game ever made.

Seriously, though, I think the major problem comes from the kind of character you are forced to take control of. Gabriel is a person who uses trickery and unconventional means to achieve his goals, something many people are generally unused to. This makes certain inferences that would come logically to Gabriel much harder for some players.

Take the clock, for example. Gabriel wants to investigate the club's basement because he thinks that there might be a connection to the werewolf case he is investigating. To do that, he either needs a key, a lockpick, or a battering ram. The ram is out because it would arouse suspicion, the lockpick isn't a viable option (unless Gabe happens to have a, um, colorful past), so the only solution is a key. Xavier has the key, but he isn't budging. Most people in that situation would either give up (which would end the game), try to convince Xavier to open the door (which, even if you are so inclined, is ineffective), or knock Xavier out and take his key (which, again, would arouse suspicion and quickly get our hero locked up, if not killed). Gabriel, being the trickster, opts for using the cuckoo clock to make Xavier check out who is knocking on the rear door, distracting him long enough to take his keys.

That's kind of the problem with every adventure game to an extent; it's like being locked into a certain role in a roleplaying game that clashes with every one of your normal sensibilities, creating a sort of mental dissonance that makes it harder to think like your character.

Now if the game includes a puzzle involving syrup and cat hair to make a mustache to impersonate someone who does not have a mustache, that's just poor game design, and you are screwed out of the gate.

I agree with you that you need to think in certain way to solve many puzzles of Gabriel Knight games. However I think that the second one had the easiest puzzles. GK2 can occasionally feel annoyingly limited and linear (which is a direct consequence of making the entire game with expensive FMV)

And I don't really understand why people hate that cat hair puzzle from GK3 so much. I actually liked it. If you think the entire puzzle then the false mustache actually make sense. Sure it took some time to solve it, but it felt good to do so without using a walkthrough (I didn't even have Internet back in 1999, so finding walkthrough would have been more time consuming than actually solving the puzzles myself).

The puzzle is bad for a multitude of reasons. First, you are trying to make a mustache to impersonate someone who does not have a mustache, and when trying to impersonate someone without a mustache, the absolute last thing that would cross any sane mind is to try to create a fake mustache. Second, the masking tape should either result in a couple of cat hairs getting stuck to it or the tape getting stuck to the cat, *not* the abundant supply of cat hair it captures in the game. Third, maple syrup is not an adhesive if such strength as to hold together the metric buttload of cat hair you use for your nonsensical mustache; at best, it might get them stuck together, and if you are lucky, a few of them might still be sticking to your face after going outside and encountering a light breeze, or, for that matter, after you move any of your facial muscles. Fourth, no person who looks at a passport that has a mustache drawn on it with a bloody sharpie wouldn't immediately call the cops or at least gets suspicious enough to warrant asking you to take off your hat to confirm your identification.

I could keep going on, but I'll just leave this link here instead: http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/79.html


Don't get me wrong, I love the first two games in the series, but this was the last straw for me. Even the friend I borrowed it from who is more of a diehard than I am admits it is a badly designed illogical mess. Even if Jane Jensen somehow gets the rights to make a sequel to GK3 to tie up the dangling plot threads, for me, 3 will be the Leisure Suit Larry 4 of the bunch in that it never happened.

This just shows how different people's tastes are. I have finished more than a hundred adventure games and GK3 is in my top 10. I especially enjoyed Grace's chapters and Le Serpent Rouge puzzle. I'm not alone with my opinion, because adventure gamers I know in real life, all seem to like it and most think that the second game was the weakest because FMV limited it too much. For that reason I find it so intriguing that there's so much hatred towards GK3 in the Internet.

I'll point out some other rather"poorly designed" puzzles in GK2- For example:

The clock that you need to click on looks broken and disassembled on the counter. Why would I want to buy that one???? But that's the only active pixel to advance. This took me two days to figure out.

The lily in the lake - why would anyone know to throw it in the lake if it's connected with the Madonna?? (who is never mentioned before or again, i'm assuming) and how hard it is to get the darn thing in the lake (you have to click in the right spot). But why would you spend the time clicking there?? Nothing tells you to go there in the first place.

After "handling" some straw he puts the straw back and then you need to get something out of the tiger cage again?? It looks like the straw you just put back in the cage, so that was hard. You can't really see what it is, I thought it was just some more straw, but a shinier type. Figuring out that it's the two wolftags. Hmm now what would a tiger eat besides me?

Normally after secretly recording a conversation you would be able to play the tape back, but when Chapter 5 started I went to retrieve the recorder and tried to play it but there was no conversation to play. I only saw the "new" tape in my inventory AFTER I tried to play the tapes in the archives library that does NOT include the tape I wanted. Ridiculous.


[i][/i]jonesy89: Congratulations, you just described every adventure game ever made


I have played hundreds of games like these and never have needed to get feedback from a support group as to why a game was so popular, when I think it sucks, from beginning to, now at Chapter 5- (end?)
Don't misinderstand, I think it runs great looks great, his acting isn't too good, but for a 7 disc game, I am glad that it made it to this format. That's the only reason I played it. So I don't give in to lists of popular games, I like to make my own decisions, but always wonder what made people like it so much. Grim Fandango wasn't as great as everyone thinks it is, so I know there are people out there who would agree. I'm going to finish GK2, but if I fall asleep during one of the FMV scenes (some are epic) don't castrate me.

One of the clocks is being repaired. The one you are supposed to click on, however, is, by all appearances, intact.

The lily was reaching a bit, but makes a modicum of sense as Grace is trying to make some contact with Ludwig, who is insinuated to be playing some kind of role from beyond the grave. I do concur, however, that it could have been handled much better, to say the least.

The straw was hardly "hard". It was an exercise in pixel hunting to a certain degree, but so is a good deal of item location in any adventure game.

As for the tape... the whole point of the archives section is to have conversations available in a format designed for perusal by the player. The problem with the recorded tape is that it is in German, and having the tape in this section would have made little sense, as Gabriel cannot understand the language. Might it have been more consistent to have it there regardless? Maybe. But at worse, it is an inconvenience so minor as to be negligible, as a failure to find it in the archives should have served as an immediate prompt to locate it in the inventory.

I would attempt to intelligently address your post's final section, but it is so garbled and disjointed that I cannot be entirely sure what point, if any, you are trying to convey. Instead, in response to some of the statements included in that section, I am glad that you attempt to be objective when playing a game (even if your analysis seems to indicate a tendency to make a proverbial mountain out of molehill proportioned design decisions) .

Also, I think you may have misinterpreted the language that you quoted from my post. My point was to demonstrate that adventure games are, by their very nature, interactive movies to an extent. They consist of a visual/audiovisual media in which the plot is on a pre-determined course in regards to the decisions to be made and general narrative to be followed, and require interaction from the player in order to move forward. I am aware that "interactive movie" was used to describe the slew of games that had no gameplay to speak of that revolved around the gimmick of FMV technology, but using this term to describe GK2 hardly seems to be an apt comparison. GK2 requires thought and planning from the player in order to bypass obstacles, where as a so-called interactive movie would require little more than pressing a generic use key and praying you have the right item.

The clock that let me advance was the one on the counter laying face flat. Please point out the woodpecker to us, obviously, less intelligent folks. In order to know that the clock would produce a knocking sound you would have to see a woodpecker.

As for all adventure games being FMV, in a sense, I don't agree.

You must be a complete idiot to think you need to explain to me the plotlines and design concepts - the condescending way you just did in your previous post. Everything you stated was obvious. However, that doesn't mean that everyone is allowed to advance as quickly as YOU seem to have. Your way ahead of the line. Congratulations JONESEY! Glad you like the game that I dislike....Now go blow.

And here we have an example of "modern gamer thought":
If the game doesnt tell you what to do at all times then it must be wrong.

I apologize if I seemed condescending. I only meant to point out that your points were not the best you could have made. Goodness knows, there were other aspects of GK2 that impeded my progress (no, i did not make my way quickly through this one back when I first played it 5 years ago), but the points you chose to harp on were mild by comparison (final scene in the church with the surprise screen scrolling, anyone?).

I do like the game, but I do not like it blindly. I know it has numerous problems, including the oft times hammy acting and occasional headscratcher that grinds the narrative to a screeching halt, and they will always keep me from finding it perfect. It's a good game, but hardly flawless, and one that I would not recommend to everyone.

Since you did ask, however, the cuckoo clock is the small one on the counter, next to the giant one that is in pieces. By looking at the owner's stock, he brings it out and leaves it on the table, immediately after saying that "there is a thing in there that makes a sound, like in the morning to wake up", following a practical demonstration.

Also, I never said that all adventure games utilize FMV technology, but that their narrative structure is fairly similar to that of a film, albeit requiring limited interaction from the player in order to progress, and that in this sense, they might be referred to as "interactive movies".

Thank you for clearing all that up. The reason I started this post was just to point out the problems "I" was having and was refferring to them as traps due to the fact that even with a walthrough it wasn't letting me advance in the game. I didn't want to imply that everyone would have the same issues with the game. In fact, the problems you had with it, I probably didn't have etc. so basically we have judgement on which problems were not a problem for you. That's not what the post is about.

So if I may continue, could someone please tell me how to get the fireplace lit at the lodge? I have done everything the walkthrough said to but nothing is making it happen. I have entered every door and window and woods area..found the shears and the cave...all prints and have the lantern. It's sad when you know what you need to do in a game and it won't let you. Even when the walkthrough says it will work. What other word for TRAP do you want to call it?? I wanted to finish this game last night but all day long I couldn't get the fireplace lit!!!!!

And BTW, I have NEVER had this kind of problem with ANY game EVER!!!