Do you think I'm the kind of person to know of the Grabriel Knight series of point and click adventure games? I'm not the kind of person to know that Gabriel Knight is a name that is even associated with video games, let alone that it's the name of the lead character in a bunch of point and click adventure games.
If I don't know that, then there's no chance in Hell that I'd know that The Beast Within, the second game in the series, went down the full motion video, interactive movie route, putting blue-screened actors inside digital photos where, somewhere, there exists the thing you need to click on to progress the plot.
After reading that it was indeed a point and click with real people, I was interested in playing it. The introduction movie gives me no ideas as to what's going on, but what's new there? It's got fire and German folks in it, that's about all I gathered before being introduced to Gabriel Knight himself.
Fun Times
For as dated as these video clips are, it wasn't long before I got swept up in them. Well, no, swept up is too grand a phrase. Carried away? No, not even that. Gah, what words am I looking for?
I let them be, I guess, and just went along with them.
Let's all pretend we're in Germany. Let's all pretend there's such a thing as werewolves. Let's all pretend that villagers actually look like this and all go around to the home of a mystery writer who has, with his recently inherited castle, inherited the title of 'Schattenjäger' or 'Shadow Hunter'.
Natürlich, when a bunch of villagers come up to you asking for help in tracking down a werewolf, you drop everything you're doing and get hunting. Not so with Gabriel, for he's a bit new to all of this, despite apparently being here for a year now...
When you're finally able to point and click, you find yourself searching around an old farm house. Clicking on this and that will allow you to hear Gabriel's thoughts about the subject, which will, of course, be handy in figuring out just what it is you're actually looking at.
Pretty sure I can figure out what this is, though...
You can read letters, newspapers and even listen back on previous conversations with the people you meet. Interacting with everything, asking questions, trial and error... you know point and click's schtick by now.
Your first puzzle is to find the car keys.
Didn't take me too long.
Hook by the door, in case you're wondering.
Ahem...
Frustrations
The Beast Within does a great job of having a character act pretty much how the player is acting - at least it seems that way with me. I'm a bumbling idiot who doesn't know what he's doing, and Gabriel Knight is a bumbling idiot in a foreign country that doesn't appear to know what he's doing either - he's navigating the city by car with a train map for God's sake.
But he does comment on everything worth commenting on, and frustratingly, none of it appears to be useful to me. I'm not picking up any obvious pointers, despite the game being written with the story standing taller than the gameplay.
I did see a glimpse of this guy, though. Shame Gabriel noped out of simply walking into the zoo to have a closer look, otherwise, the case of 'the child killed by a wolf' might be solved a whole lot sooner...
Time to find someone to talk to, and I eventually stumbled into my lawyer in town. At least I think he's my lawyer. I'm not trying to kill him, by the way. I don't know why I have the knife equipped.
Conversations are split into subjects where you can ask them about whatever it is you deem to be the most important thing, and as you learn something elsewhere in the game, coming back to previously met characters can shed more light on the situation.
Was any light shed onto my situation? No. Did I want to stop playing The Beast Within? Yes.
Final Word
Why the abrupt end? The videos had kept me going. The acting wasn't incredible but nor was it God awful either. I wanted to see more of it, even if it meant putting up with Gabriel's southern accent. I wanted to see him struggle through learning some German or caught in an awkward conversation with the parents above, who tasked you with finding the werewolf that I've no hope of finding. I want to see what the other chapters involve because I know you play as another character for half of the game too.
I want to experience all of this, but I sure don't want to play it.
Were the controls bad? No, not at all. The cursor changed when something of interest was beneath it, the inventory is easily managed, the actions were largely obvious - clicking an 'Exit' would change scenes, equipping keys and then clicking on the car would start the car and so on...
All of this, designed to strip the gameplay down to the essentials, so that you forget about the gameplay and actually focus on the story, and here I am getting too bored by having to work for the story and having to think in a point and click.
Why are point and clicks so hit and miss for me? Why do they sound great but end up annoying me, or losing my interest? Why am I so stupid? Will I ever find a point and click that just clicks with me?
I'm going to watch some more of The Beast Within because I can't fairly judge it on this 'attempt' at playing it, and I don't think I'll have the patience to play it, even with a guide. That's on me, not the game because the game clearly knew what it wanted to do and made sure to do it.
The game is a highlight of the times when all this new technology promised great things yet delivered few of them before the fad changed and full motion video was rarely heard of again. Games were becoming games, not movies.
Huh. History has a funny way of repeating itself sometimes.
Fun Facts
Due to budget restraints, the actors were told that they essentially had to nail their take on the first attempt. There was no real time for rehearsals, nor for lots of additional takes - if it's not in the can by take two and it's not an important enough scene to focus on, then you better be able to live with what you've just given.
The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, developed by Sierra On-Line, first released in 1995.
Version played: DOS, 1995, via emulation.