I have no definite idea why, but Hartridge's lecture is honestly one of my favourite parts of the game. It might be because the puzzle slowly begins coming together during that scene. The brush of (mostly, I suppose) genuine research makes the story feel a lot more real too.

Okay, finished the game now and replayed the parts I already knew from the beta. I'm glad to see that the vase "puzzle" is just as fucking retarded in the final game as it was in the beta, only with more squirrel. When Frede brought up the squirrel, I thought to myself "Thank God, they've come to their senses and added a puzzle! Maybe I'll have to toss a peanut into the vase, so the squirrel breaks it!" You know, standard-fare mundane point&click shit? But no way, Jose! It's still the same "read all the plaques to make vase explode"-"puzzle".

 

And the other new puzzles are probably even worse. Rule of thumb: If the most fun addition you came up with turns out to be the goddamn sliding puzzle, you fucked up royally!

 

 

Other than that, eh, wasn't half-bad! I don't get why they used these unbelievably ugly looking speech bubbles for the cutscenes. The cutscenes themselves look pretty damn good, but the speech bubbles really tend to kind of ruin them.

Yes, most of the new additions are characterised by an unforgivable lack of logic. The new take on Gabriel breaking into Mosely's office is a welcome exception. But seriously, what the hell were Jane and Phoenix thinking?

 

In my mind, this is how the dialogue between Gabriel and Wolfgang in Benin now kicks off:

Gabriel: "You must be Uncle Wolfgang."
Wolfgang: "Ah, Gabriel! Now do you know what it takes to be Schattenjäger?"
Gabriel: "Yeah, I did the initiation ritual alright..."
Wolfgang: "Gut, gut. And...?"
Gabriel: "Well, I saw some kinda dream dragon."
Wolfgang: "HÖH! Dream dragon, schmeam dragon! Did you solve the sliding puzzle?"
 

Massive groan.

 

I agree on the speech bubbles. Next time I play the game, I might just turn text of altogether; the dialogue is obviously much, much clearer than that of the original anyway.

Seeing as I've never completed GK1 straight through myself yet, should I start with the original (which I own) or the remake whenever I get it? I know the ending and everything, I watched my dad play it, but I didn't sit through the whole game myself. I'm in a similar problem with Grim Fandango. That one I don't know how it ends, though.

"Hey guys, I want to see Psycho for the first time, but I'm not entirely sure if I should watch Hitchcock's version (which I happen to have on DVD) or the Gus Van Sant remake first. Any suggestions?"

 

Seriously though, stick with the original, all the way. The remake is rock solid for the most part (and therefore much, much better than I had feared), but it fails to bring anything new to the table.

I'd say the original, too. Then play the remake to count the ways they screwed it up. ;)

Original all the way, though I agree with Fronzel that the remake is not bad. But it's not as good as the original either. Nowhere near it.