I finished GK 1 having to check a walktrough for around 2 puzzles, the rest was fairly good to deal with.

However, I'm now starting GK 2 and and I'm already stuck on the first chapter! Already had to check a walktrough 3 times and now there's this splicing tapes sequence which I probably would never find out without help.

My question is: do the game gets somewhat easier or tends to get worse? The gamer sense inside me hates to check walktroughs.

In GK II it's sometimes harder to find out what'll trigger the action to continue.
Puzzles themselves aren't that hard when you find them : )

and the pixelhunting in the museum. stuff like that was annoying in the second one.

I think GK1 is harder with a bit more pixel-hunting and one particular dead end if you don't do something near the end of the game.

I think GK1 is overall harder. I had to use a hint book more for GK1. GK2 is designed to be easier in some ways.

Some parts of GK2 are hard. The hardest parts of that game are knowing exactly what to click on. Although the "Try Again" option for GK2 will take you to a point before you screwed yourself, GK2 has dead ends too:

-Not picking up the duct tape before putting on the costume
-Not fogging up the mirror before the opera singer walks in the room
-Closing the basement doors wrong. There are several ways you can close them where the game won't immediately end, but it will be impossible to get the black wolf where you want him (and then all you can do is restore or continue until you die and then try again)

Well, GK2 is one of the easiest adventures. GK1 is one of the hardest. Your question easily gets answered.

I don't agree that GK1 is one of the hardest. With the exception of the Beignet puzzle and the mummies, all the puzzles in that game are pretty fair. And that's a rarity in Sierra games. Plus there are very few dead ends, also a rarity in Sierra games. There aren't even that many deaths. And there are no mazes or winding pathways where one misstep will kill you. And there's no typing, so you don't have to think of absurd things like "Put Gem in Mouth."

If you think any Gabriel Knight game is one of the hardest games you ever played, all I can see is stay away from any Sierra game that's even older than GK.

Odd. I found GK1 to be a super-breeeeze. Like, no challenge at all almost. GK2 has challenging things and is what I consider medium difficulty for adventure games while GK1 is EASY. GK3 is medium-hard-hard.

Definitely GK3, but in a negative way.

True. Gabriel Knight 2 doesn't have any really hard puzzles, but it's very linear and you'll have to do things in exactly right order so you can advance. Really? That very long Le Serpent Rouge puzzle is one of the best puzzles I have ever seen in an adventure game and I have played hundreds of them (I've been fan of the point and click adventures since the early 90s).

True, but with one brilliant puzzle come like dozens of bad ones. For instance the whole sequence of puzzles involved in creating the "cat hair-moustache" is just plain stupid.

nonsense!!!! It's just a bit hard (not too hard though, can be done with some hard thinking and no-walkthrough required), but all the puzzles are great and it is a great game. Why do you think it is in a negative way?

I never really understood why people hated this puzzle. I admit that the solution is bit silly, but I don't think that I paid much attention to that silliness back in '99. It was just something what you expected to see in Sierra games and it wasn't even a particularly bad case of Sierra logic.

My general opinion about GK3 is that the story is good and puzzle difficulty is on a decent level. There are some puzzles which may stop you for a while (as they should), but nothing which you can't figure out by yourself without walkthrough.