Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

For me the third part is the greatest of the series. Despite the not perfectly implemented 3D-graphics, it´s a wonderfull and diversified experience. The story is very well told and the end makes this part of the series something real special. Of course it´s a bit far-fetched, but great nevertheless.

I like to solve as much of an adventure game as possible without using online help. There were countless times during this game that I spent hours driving from place to place trying to figure out what to do. When I eventually caved and checked a walk-through my response was always the same. "How could I possible have known to do that." The great adventures make you feel smart when you think of the solution to a puzzle. This game just makes you feel stupid for trying to figure it out for yourself. However I will say that I found the story to be very interesting and the twist and the end is well worth playing through the entire game. So I do recommend playing the game, just go straight to a FAQ when you get stuck.

I just completed this game, and the feeling I walked away with was how wonderful this game was. It had wonderful puzzles, an emotionally involving plot, beautiful music. Then I remembered that I almost quit playing after the 6 hours or so because of how dull and tedious the game had been up till then. The last straw was a puzzle involving a "swollen" window that you could only open *spoiler, but I recommend you read it* by squeezing Lady Howard's hemorrhoid cream onto it. Is it a pun? I don't know. Swollen window, swollen anus. It's baffling and disgusting. And far worse than the famous cat's moustache which was at least well clued. Another glaring problem in the game is the shoehorning of Mosley from the first game into the plot. It's a bit of a mystery in the game why he's there so coincidentally, the solution to the mystery does not satisfy. There are a few scenes late in the game that he adds some interest to, to the point that I don't want him out of the game, I just want his existence in the first part fixed. That's whole game, everything is broken in the first half and everything works in the last. The overall problem with the first half of the game is that what you are doing is so far removed from the plot. The plot goes like this: You've been hired to protect an aristocrat's baby from having its blood sucked by vampires. You epic fail, and the baby is kidnapped. You manage to follow the kidnappers to a train where for reasons I'm not sure of, you wait patiently till the train gets where it's going, the kidnappers step out and then knock you over the head. You wake up the next day in a hotel, where you were brought by a taxi from the train station, and here's where I really object to the plot: You proceed to investigate everyone at the hotel you were randomly brought to (there are even other villages in the area), despite the fact that the kidnappers got into a car at the train station, and drove away to who knows where in the night. And no, none of the people at the hotel have a similar vehicle. You spend days in the game and hours and hours in the game investigating these people who have nothing to do with anything, clearly. And none of them are the least bit interesting. It's mind bogglingly dull. But then the last half of the game is brilliant and you can't walk away. Grace finally returns and although she isn't initially much more interesting than Gabriel, she eventually steals the game, much like in 2. It's almost a bit sad that you have to control Gabe in the finale :-P The puzzles all greatly increase in quality, even surpassing the second game. And they all fit well with the plot. There is a sort of meta puzzle called Le Serpent Rouge which Grace has to solve which is the best multilayered puzzle I've seen except for the Fool's Errand. And this is just one part of the game whereas the Fool's Errand was its entire game. From the uninteresting characters and plotline of the first half, the last is very dramatic as well. There are several scenes which are a bit complicated emotionally -- perhaps not so much as in the second game, but they really strike a chord and are make you care about what you're playing. In short the second half of the game is some of the highest quality gaming and story-telling out there, but this is a very long game. It might be longer than the second GK and that was enormous as well. I feel caught between the two parts, It seems wrong to average them and to give the game a three star review. The first half being easily a one and the last a five. And finally I decided this: the game at the end of Gabriel Knight 3 is so good that it's worth playing though a one star game to play. I suppose it's just part of the price of admission. So I've given the game the five.

I couldn't play this game. I wanted to, but GOG did not allow it to me. - first thing is, you need CD-Rom or any optical drive. If you don't have one, you have to install virtual one. Otherwise you will stuck on screen saying "Insert CD1" - then is not enough, except for optical drive you also need NEW exe file which can be provided by GOG after you raise a ticket or search in forums - then you start the game and your screen will be flickering like crazy. After you disable some graphical options it will stop however game will slow down in certain moments. This was never solved as far as I know. - even when your game is running and not flickering it will crash, freeze or get fatal error quite frequently. I did not even try to fix this one. I lost patience with this game. One would except a game to WORK straight away. I spent 30 minutes fixing stuff and then I uninstalled it. These issues are here for years. I found people reporting this back in 2013 and all these problems are still present till this day.