dragonrose_1

All the people who are complaining that it's "too much like Lord of the Rings?" How much fantasy have you read? Have you read viking sagas or Greek myths? How about the bible? There are no new stories, just new ways of telling them. It's called Archetypal Criticism and it's one of the most popular ways of looking at literature. And George Lucas and Ron Howard managed to do that excellently in Willow.

I'd rather watch Willow yell at Madmartigan and call him stupid than watch Sam and Frodo "Just hold on a little longer, because everything will be happy because of LOVE!"

There's betrayal, redemption, action, the scariest dragon I've ever seen in my life, love, purposfully corny poetry and lots of jokes. The characters despair, but fight against it rather than just wandering around listlessly saying "woe is me!" People are allowed to be petty and shallow without being influenced by The Greatest Evil Known To Man (tm). There's no one hanging around with no other purpose than to be encouragement- everyone claims Willow won't succeed but he still fights on, and wins everyone over to his side. In my mind that makes him a lot more admirable than Frodo McAngstypants who only keeps on going because Sam keeps telling him he's fantastic and he thinks he's going to die anyway.

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned is the best of all three Gabriel Knight games. The story was immersive, full of details that made the game very believable. Other than a few illogical puzzles, the game was challenging but not insanely hard. The completely 3D world is a pleasure to explore, with memorable characters everywhere. The graphics, however, are horribly clunky by today's standards. Real-time rendered graphics are used for gameplay, and rather poorly done pre-rendered graphics are used for cut scenes. If you'd rather have pretty pictures than an engaging story that will make you think, this is not the game for you.

This is the last game in the Gabriel Knight series, which is unfortunate because you will undoubtedly be left wanting more.