For those of us who love the narrator

[Michelle]

Just finished watching a playthrough of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, which had a female narrator. At that point it occurred to me that maybe it isn't necessarily a gender that's idealized in terms of "the" narrator voice, but an age. The narrator of GK1 sounds older than middle aged, and the KQ5 & 6 narrators both sounded at least middle-aged. The result? Somewhere in our brains I think we associate that older voice with authority.

Just adding a random two cents without necessarily swinging either way myself.

[kindofdoon]

At that point it occurred to me that maybe it isn't necessarily a gender that's idealized in terms of "the" narrator voice, but an age. The narrator of GK1 sounds older than middle aged, and the KQ5 & 6 narrators both sounded at least middle-aged. The result? Somewhere in our brains I think we associate that older voice with authority.

That's a very interesting point. You seem to have hit a truth.

[LightWarrior]

The narrator has a point.

The Royal Cracker family is a family of kleptos.

[C_Guy]

I am really enjoying the narrator, Amy is great!  I find the writing much better in Episode 2, some of Amy's responses to my clicks are truly laugh-out-loud funny.  (Had to spell that one out because LOL is way over-used).

I particularly like

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

Tick-tock, tick-tock... Oh!  Are you done trying crazy things?

So far in the game a vast majority of dialogue is by male characters so Amy provides a very nice balance. 

In response to Michelle: The narrator from GK1 was met with mixed reviews.  Some liked her, some hated her.  Personally I LOVED her voice - I think it fits the mood of the game perfectly. 

[Lambonius]

The narrator from GK1 was met with mixed reviews.  Some liked her, some hated her.  Personally I LOVED her voice - I think it fits the mood of the game perfectly.  

The style of voice and creole accent fit the tone of the game nicely, but she just read every liiine...sooo.....SLOOOOWWWWW.  Ugh.  Seriously, in a game with that much dialogue, it needed a much more snappy delivery not to get tiresome after a very short while.  I shouldn't be done reading the paragraph before the narrator is halfway done with the first sentence.  lol

[KatieHal]

Same thoughts here on that one, Lamb. The accent was really cool, her voice was great, and the stylized thing was cool and I get it, but yes, WAY too slow.

[tessspoon]

First thing I always do is turn her off

[Michelle]

Same thoughts here on that one, Lamb. The accent was really cool, her voice was great, and the stylized thing was cool and I get it, but yes, WAY too slow.

I have to admit agreement, but my theory is that she was chosen for having a certain "storytelling" quality to her voice--part of which is the age factor. But yeah, slowness definitely not a good trait for a video game narrator.

[Lambonius]

On my first playthrough of GK1 (which was only a few years ago, actually,) I left the narrator on, and enjoyed it for the most part--but that first playthrough of any Sierra game is always the one where I try to drink as much of the experience in as possible, drawn out narrations included.  Actually, despite being in the shorter-is-better camp when it comes to TSL's narrations, I've done the same thing with my first playthrough of each episode so far.  With GK1 though, I've turned off her voice in every subsequent playthrough--I just find it makes for a much more streamlined and enjoyable experience when I can breeze through the narrations at my own reading pace rather than waiting for her to catch up.    Actually, I generally tend to feel that way about most games with spoken narrations, unless the narrator is really, REALLY good (like John Rhys Davies in QFG4, for example--I will always take the extra time to listen to his manly British vocals any day of the week.   )