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Adventure Game Scene of the Day — Thursday 18 April 2013

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And here is in a nutshell why I’ve never played a Police Quest game.

     
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Huh?! The Police Quest games are great! Smile

     

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If you have to walk around your car to not die seconds later, then the Police Quest games are brutal…

A death (or puzzle if you will) like that is exactly what was wrong with Sierra pre-Jane Jensen.

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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The Police Quest games, at least the first ones, were supposed to be a kind of police simulator that depicted actual police work. They have been used for training police officers irl.

I can admit that the walking around your car “puzzle” is a bit silly though, but the rest is good.

     

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FireFlower - 18 April 2013 12:08 PM

The Police Quest games, at least the first ones, were supposed to be a kind of police simulator that depicted actual police work. They have been used for training police officers irl.

If they wanted the game to be a simulator, they should’ve provided us with all the necessary info to make the situation “real”.

AFAIK the only way to know about the routine “walking around the car safety check” was to die in the game after not having done it, or to have had training as a police officer. No mention of such a “routine” in the manual, nothing.
Bad puzzle design, imo…

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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They did provide us with the necessary info in the manual. Smile

Check page 9 - http://sierrahelp.com/Documents/Manuals/Police_Quest_1_AGI_-_Manual.pdf

     

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In that case, I stand corrected.

But it’s still a bad puzzle. Grin Innocent

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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TimovieMan - 18 April 2013 12:51 PM

In that case, I stand corrected.

But it’s still a bad puzzle. Grin Innocent

yeah its a bad Puzzle
But still one great game Tongue

     
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Never played any of the Police Quests… and puzzles like that certainly doesn’t make me want to play any Tongue

     
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I think I played about half of one of the PQ games, and then quickly lost interest because of these kind of “puzzles”.

     

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FireFlower - 18 April 2013 12:25 PM

They did provide us with the necessary info in the manual. Smile

When they remembered to include it. The first Police Quest collection I bought (new, not second-hand) had little more than the installation instruction on paper, and none of the CDs (there were several since it also included the first SWAT game) had any manual that I’ve been able to find.

I have since found a different collection, without SWAT, that did have a nice, printed manual so I should give them a try one of these days.

     
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TimovieMan - 18 April 2013 12:51 PM

In that case, I stand corrected.

But it’s still a bad puzzle. Grin Innocent

Any particular reason why? I mean, now that your original reason for not liking it has been demolished. Or will you finally admit to us your irrational distaste for old games, like some senile old person’s irrational distaste for immigrants Smile

Bearing in mind that in those days the manual was very much part of the game and the players very much knew this, I think it’s fine. As I understand it being a policeman is very hard, and as a police simulation I wouldn’t ask for anything less.

     
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Oscar - 20 April 2013 06:55 AM

Any particular reason why? I mean, now that your original reason for not liking it has been demolished.

My original reason for not liking the puzzle actually has nothing to do with it being mentioned in the manual (a manual, I might add, where nothing looks like you’ll ever need it in the game). It has to do with the fact that the puzzle is completely arbitrary and made just as an excuse to kill your character.
If you walk around your car for “vehicle safety”, your tire could STILL blow. In this puzzle your tire DOESN’T blow when you walk around your car, despite the fact that you did absolutely NOTHING with said tire, but it DOES blow when you DON’T walk around your car. That’s horrible game design, even if the manual screams “WALK AROUND YOUR CAR!”.
Also, why do you only need to do this once, and then never again in the game??? Makes absolutely no sense to me.

Or will you finally admit to us your irrational distaste for old games, like some senile old person’s irrational distaste for immigrants Smile

I don’t have an irrational distaste for old games. Heck, I don’t have a distaste for old games period. I may have outgrown the text parser, but that’s current preference. I’ve played dozens of adventure games from the ‘80s, some of those recently.
I just have a dislike for “let’s kill the character at every chance we get so the player needs to reload an older save every five seconds, so the game eventually becomes so difficult that the player will buy one of our high-profit hint books”. In other words: early Sierra. Wink

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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