Searching For the Beast Within

Our summer vacation officially kicks off today. We had been planning a much advertised 2010 trip to Greece, but for some reason we decided that we'd do something else this year. Instead, we've been busy putting together a whirlwind tour of three central European cities: Prague, Vienna, and Munich. Prague is Meaghan's pick. She taught English (the language, not the high school subject) there for a few months ten years ago and has been wanting to go back and show me the sights ever since I met her. Vienna is our collective pick. Filled with museums, parks, and music galore, it looks to be our kind of place. It also happens to be geographically convenient to the other two cities, which brings us to Munich.


This choice is unabashedly mine, and like most things it seems is inspired by a video game. In this case, the classic adventure game from 1995, Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within. Based in Munich, the game details our hero's investigation into a series of grisly werewolf murders. No, I'm not expecting to find any shape-shifters myself, but like all of the Gabriel Knight games GK2 is set in a real-world location that is portrayed with painstaking detail. As a result, ever since I first played this game back in high school, places like the Marienplatz and Neuschwanstein have been rattling around in my brain waiting for the right time to get out.


On the games front, whilst digging up info for this post I discovered that Jane Jensen (the creator of the Gabriel Knight trilogy) is finally coming out with a new adventure game, "Gray Matter", for Xbox 360 and PC later this year. It might just have to be the first new computer game that I buy in a long time. For those not familiar with the GK games, I highly recommed you give them a try. They rank amongst my favorites of all time and can be downloaded for the low, low price of $6 each from Good Old Games.