[Deshrill]

Police Quest 1: In Pursuit of Death Angel

The Police Quest series is different from most of the other Sierra adventure games. It has more of a basis in reality-- in fact, if you don't do things by police procedure, you often lose the game! Still, the real-life setting and the gritty story gives the Police Quest games a unique flavor from the other "Quest" games.

In the first three games, you play as Sonny Bonds, a police officer ready to take on problems ranging from cars breaking the speed limit to criminals breaking the law! The first game deals with Sonny Bonds' first experiences as a police officer for the Lytton Police Department. I mention the VGA remake of this game when necessary.

STORY

This game has more of a story than most of the older Sierra adventure games. Despite the begining having a lot of random crimes to go and stop (watch out for the busty blonde speeding in the red sports car!), eventually some of the crimes link together towards the final conclusion.

Although Sonny Bonds does not have much of a personality in this game (he's very by-the-book and sort of bland, actually), the other characters are a bit more interesting. The plot isn't as complicated as later games in the series, but it's still more complicated than the "Return three treasures to the King" plot of the original King's Quest game.

The end of the game is a bit of a cop out, but manages to pave the way for another sequel.

PUZZLES

Almost all the puzzles in the game deal with following correct police procedure. At times, this gets very frustrating-- there are puzzles where if you are missing a specific inventory item, you can get stuck, forcing you to restart your game. Driving your car around town gets very annoying-- the interface is extremely touchy in the original version of the game and the driving still is annoying for the VGA remake, although it's not as lethal.

Still, if you study the manual that came with the game dealing with proper police procedure, the game is rewarding in its own way and may even make you respect real-life police officers a little more.

GRAPHICS

Some of the graphics are pretty detailed, especially parts of the police station. The VGA version features graphics that look more realistic, but they make the game feel a bit more sterile because of the stiff animation-- the old cartoony charm of the original works a bit better despite the realistic setting.

SOUND

The original has your standard blend of PC speaker noises. There isn't much music and what music there is doesn't stand out. The remake features a MIDI score that sounds very much like something out of Miami Vice. If you liked the 80's, you'll like the soundtrack on the remake!

OVERALL

Police Quest 1: In Pursuit of Death Angel is a fun game, but also one of the more difficult out of the original Sierra adventure games. It's worth a try if you want to play something with a different setting than your standard adventure game. Go for the original if you can, although the VGA remake is good as well.

[Risingson]

I will try to translate my recent spanish review of Police Quest 1 for my site, Aventura y Cia(so excuse the many grammar, spelling and false friends mistakes )

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Among the many merits that Sierra had in its history of gamemaking, the one that surely will trascend is the pure variety of games for a pure variety of public. One can't help to smile when one imagines the landscape of Yosemite in their old good days: the neohippies Roberta and Ken Williams in one side, Jane Jensen surely surrounded by Clive Barker novels, Lorelei Shannon pale as milk and dressed in black surrounded by candles, Al Lowe with Chet Baker tapes and a hawaian skirt, and among them all, Jim Walls, someone whose political ideas were a bit more right than Bush's. Indeed Jim Walls was an interesting guy: retired policeman, with violent historial, he went into game desing covering a hole in adventures that no one thought of before: classic 80's american movies starred by Charles Bronson.

Because, though he later desing a very decent spy adventure (Codename:Iceman), and another good mix of clichés for Tsunami called "Blue Force", Jim Walls will always be remembered for the creation of that blond, good but righteous policeman called Sonny Bonds, who is the main star of the saga whose first chapter I'm going to review.

STORY

Welcome to the battleground, Sonny Bonds. Lytton was once one of those little towns where everyone knew each other, where the suburbian houses were surrounded by green parks ... now brought down by the young delinquents, drug incidence and inmigration. You will start patrolling the city to keep the law and order, and you will ultimately be involved in pursuing drug traffic.

COMENTARY

Firstly: there are two versions of this game, based on different engines: the first one, in AGI, has low detailed EGA graphics, sounds given by the PC-Speaker, a difficult driving engine, and a verb parser. The second one (one of those remakes that Sierra made of the first chapter of nearly every saga) has VGA graphics, that SCI engine that was driven by icons, and a simplified driving engine. I'm going to talk about this one.

Police Quest, as you see, is an adventure that happens nowadays and handles common stuff in the police department. That was Jim Walls' intention when he designed the game: achieve the greatest realism in the policeman routine. Yes, it was a time of experiments, and though the step from AGI to SCI reduced the difficulty, many of the puzzles are related with the bureaucracy, and that is the most deservely criticized aspect of these games. On the other side, the game was sold as being very realist, but everything the game tells resembles, more than "Hill street blues", to the classic telefilm clichés. Which is part of the appeal of the game, ok, but a great sense of humor is recommended to play this adventure to overcome how rancid it is.

So you handle a good WASP policeman and you bring him to chase the bad people in Lytton. The game's mechanics mainly consist of that: you arrive at the office, follow the strict burocratic patterns that a policeman must follow: have a shower always before getting dressed as an agent of law, take the car keys always before patrolling and always leaving them in the same place before leaving the office... half of the puzzles are just that, bureaucracy, and, moreover, the game is packed with all those flaws that Sierra was known for: sudden deaths (it's very risky to be a policeman), cul-de-sacs and nearly-arcade sequences (driving parts, fortunately, are way easier than even the ones in PQ3). You patrol the city in your car, detect an irregularity, switch on the siren, follow the car, make it stop, look at the numer plate, inform with the radio... everything in the right order, filling the documents twice. Heh.

Where's the fun part then? It's in Jim Walls's care of any other aspect of the adventure. Every object in the landscape can be examined, and you get a different description of every wall, every rock, every car, every stool (remember that this was usual in Sierra adventures, and most of the times those descriptions were given subjectively by the narrator/main character), the characters which crowd the game have distinct and strong personalities, and you don't find it difficult to make yourself a picture of that happy residential town. And when you begin to pursue the bad guy, the game becomes more interesting and sordid, as it adapts perfeclty to the mediocre 80's thriller.

Though, as I've said before, half of the puzzles are "bureaucratic", there is variety in the rest. There is dialogue, object combinations, or even reflexes with some of common sense... and those dreaded manual-depending puzzles that Sierra offered. Given the fact that the main character is a policeman, you can forgive many of the sudden deaths. But still I had the feeling that, translating the game from AGI to SCI, the number of puzzles felt a bit in the short side.

The game eventually gives you clues of what to do next, but it doesn't give them to you more than once, so you'd better read carefully. It is quite linear, but you can forgive that given that Sierra's fluency in their adventures, and the care in dialogues and descriptions.

Technically it looks pretty well even by today's standards; Sierra graphists were talented professionals, and though some perspectives betray them, the scenaries are colourful and full of details, some of them animated, managing to make the game pretty moody. The music is rock-style, but bear in mind that AdLib or General Midi didn't have electric guitars, so it sounds... curious (but melodic too). There are disperse digitalized sounds that repeat a lot during the game. Nothing annoying, anyway.

And now the best and worst part of the game: Jim Walls wanted to make his obsessions and worries clear in his games, and in this case a residential town, where the sons played in the park's swings and after them the grandsons, is brought down because strangers come to the city and bring drugs to it. The characters who commit crimes come from ethnic minorities or urban tribes whose signs of identity are exxagerated to become a parody, and the narrator's comments ("there is a couple kissing at the front door. She is doing it like he paid her for that") somewhat tells you that the game is designed by a man who is not very integrated in todays' society. There is no good young character, everyone is pure american, and I found some of the stuff pretty hipocritical (namely his relation with the prostitute).

But you can forgive it too. The game is fun despite the routines, and it achieves some really tense moments. You can notice the profesionality of everyone involved, making a mediocre topic become somewhat epic because they take care of little details. It's the difference from many epic games of the last years, where the enviroments are the greatest, biggest and prettiest, and the story, the most astounding, amazing and such... and still you are yawning when you are kept clicking for the third time.

CONCLUSION

Police Quest, ultimately, is a typical Sierra adventure with Jim Walls hand as an author for the better and worse. Among the good things there are clear story, goals, good characters, moody settings, and non-ambiguous puzzles. Among the worse there are repetitive and useless bureaucratic puzzles and a slightly annoying message about what Jim Walls thinks of this society and what could be the solution. But it keeps you hooked at the screen, and you end empathising with the characters, something that, replaying it lately, I missed in modern adventures. So if you are provided with patience and a DosBox or similar, I recommend you to try it.

Risingson


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Yes, a lot of personal opinions in there. Lots

[Risingson]

There has been merely one view since I posted in this thread. Am I doomed or something?

[eriq]

Good reviews! I really enjoyed the first Police Quest game. The remake in VGA was especially exciting with the added soundtrack and updated graphics.

I really didn't like the Police Quest 1 VGA box with the cheesy "hidden skull" glossy varnish face in the dark though. They should have painted something more like the original two game box covers which were awesome. Did you know that the guy and the girl on the "Police Quest 2 : The Vengeance" box are actually Ken and Roberta Williams?

If I had to choose the stand-out Police Quest game, it'd be Police Quest 3 for me. I think "Open Season" was also pretty fun when they brought in Daryl F. Gates to help lead the design. But Police Quest 3 had a real film-like "Silence of the Lambs" feel all the way through.

[Deshrill]

The PQ 1 VGA box is a bit cheesy... The floating head makes it look more like a science-fiction sort of game, actually.

PQ 3 had a great opening cut scene... Never got to finish it, unfortunately. Probably should get around to doing that.

I enjoyed parts of PQ 4. It had a nice edge to it that the other games didn't have.