We'll agree that GK3 was a product of its time, but as a follow up to the first two games, I don't remember it being that great. Yes, the story was interesting, and it was my first introduction to the whole "bloodline of Jesus" concept, but the gameplay seemed mediocre. Maybe I'm not as enamored of puzzles as you are. For what it's worth, I have absolutely no idea what article you're referring to.
And the low-polygon 3D that we see in that and stuff like Deus Ex (1) was an embarrassment. I'll take crappy low-resolution 2D sprites over that horrendous imagery any day of the week. The problem with early 3D is that it looked absolutely atrocious--it was a technology that should not have been attempted at that time on that hardware.
I adored the gameplay and puzzles. Full 3D movement with point-and-click icons felt like a natural evolution for the genre. The timeblock structure was great, too - each day divided into sections that had certain required actions and other optional ones.
This is the article I was referencing - for years and years it always came up in discussions about GK3 or just adventure games in general, not unlike Plinkett to the SW prequels (which are terrible, but that's beside the point). I'm not saying the cat mustache puzzle isn't ridiculous - it definitely is - but it's an early blip in an otherwise very well designed game.
Regarding 3D, I guess the industry had to start somewhere to test the limits of the hardware and plan for the future. When I think of bad 3D, I think of something like Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Shield your eyes, people.
This, on the other hand, looks fine to me.
On low-res 2D, yea many of those games have aged really well. Much of it comes down to aesthetic choices and execution, but bad 3D sticks out much worse than bad 2D. Sticking with the GK games,
there's a great article explaining why the original games graphics work so well. Again, much of this is stylistic choice rather than limitations of 2D vs 3D, but hot damn those hand drawn pixel graphics are beautiful and create such a vibrant atmosphere.
Well, Activision owns Sierra, so it's not really a lie..
I'm not sure if Sierra has anything to do with the remaster, they're not listed as the dev or publisher on the steam store page.
Pinkerton Road licensed the Gabriel Knight IP from Activision, but otherwise Activision wasn't really involved. They just signed off on the remake and handled a bit of the PR. The new Sierra publishing label is just that - I thought Activision had all but forgotten about it until they put more old Sierra games on Steam and launched the Hamble bundle.
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