[Stinger]

Nothing like a Police Quest thread to drag me out of retirement.

This is my favorite adventure game series of all-time and as a big nerd of adventure history, this is what I've gathered from various tidbits of information regarding some of the topics in this thread:

- Jim Walls was basically fired from Sierra before PQ3 was finished. Jane Jensen stepped in to help finish up the writing, but how anyone could say the writing in PQ3 is that good is beyond me. It's very sparse and at many points appears rushed and abrupt. I just played the game again in the fall and it was just as poor as I always remember it (the writing, not the game, though I like the first two much better still).

- Daryl Gates was an extremely hands-off designer, brought in almost as a publicity stunt (maybe that's overly harsh), and as I understand it his "design" was basically sketching out story ideas and leaving all the actual details to Tammy Dargan. He, like Walls before him, was not around much by the time the project ended though he did contribute to SWAT, the worst game ever made.

Both of those items are little more than collective assembled gossip and my overly-reading-in to certain things I've read over the years.

Having said all that, PQ4 is definitely worth playing. I specifically state "Police Quest Trilogy" in my favorite games but PQ4 still has a lot to offer for fans of the style and the bleaker atmosphere may be welcome to people who think Sierra's games were always too bright.

I love Blue Force but it's really short and easy and the ending is very disappointing. It's a blast to play if you're a PQ fan though, and much more fun than PQ4.

Stay tuned sometime this year decade for my reviews of PQ2 and PQ3.