Police Quest 3: The Kindred

The Good
The storyline to the game is really great, and exciting. Once it gets going, it never lets up. I really enjoyed those endings with Jim Walls talking to you, explaining what you did wrong (he also did an intro to the game). The graphics are considerably better than the first two games, and I enjoyed rediscovering Lytton again.

The Bad
The driving interface was kind of weird and hard to get used to, you really had to use a map, and stopping certain places could be confusing. Also exact procedures (such a booking someone, or pulling someone over) had me confused, even with reading the manual. The graphics, while good at the time, make it laughable by today's standards when they try to show a closeup of someone's face (my favorite was the paramedics with Marie).

The Bottom Line
This is my favorite PQ game, it combines my favorite part of PQ1 (the regular mundane cop stuff) with all of PQ2's detective stuff, adds great graphics, a great soundtrack, and a great story, and makes a nearly perfect game. Also, this game finally corrects something I've been complaining about since PQ1, you don't get a key to the locker when you lock up your gun, just always thought that was unrealistic. Basically, this is a nearly perfect game.

The Good
This is Jim Walls's third and final game in the Police Quest series continues before he bids farewell to Sierra. In The Kindred, we learn that things have changed in Sonny Bond's universe. He and Marie are now married, Marie is no longer a prostitute known as “Sweet Cheeks” (if you remember, she was arrested for soliciting in the first game), and Bonds himself is demoted to sergeant after his confrontation with Jessie Bains. Bonds swore that he will protect Marie from danger as long as he lives. So, when she gets viciously attacked in a parking lot, things get very personal.

PQ3 remains my favorite of the series. It combines the elements of both of the previous games. Throughout the game, you spend your time patrolling the streets, arresting people, issuing tickets, gather evidence at crime scenes, and uncovering the mole working for the Lytton Police Department. The highlight is using the image analysis tools to get a mugshot of the mongrel who attacked Marie and finding out where the next crime will occur.

When I started the game, I was impressed at how the police station has improved. The exterior looks amazing, and everything in the interior isn't laid out all on one floor. There are four levels, including the ground level. The first floor is reserved for the men’s and women’s toilets, the second floor is where the homicide and sergeant’s offices are, and the third is where the communications center lies.

The level of realism is amazing. The first day has you patrolling the highway and pulling over a number of offenders, and deal with them using proper police procedures that are outlined in the game manual. If you don't utilize standard police procedures, things turn nasty, Bonds is killed, and Jim Walls himself tells you what you should have done. You will often spend most of the day driving to locations marked on a map also located on the manual. This level of realism is what made me got hooked into the first game.

PQ3 comes at a time when other Sierra games of its day displayed character portraits, along with their dialogue. You may think that the human portrayed in this game are real, but that's because they are. A number of Sierra employees, including Josh Mandel. And it was great that this adds to the realism of the game.

The soundtrack is excellent, especially if it comes out of the Roland MT-32. I like the music when you are responding to the call from Dispatch, as well when you are pursuing Marie's attacker; these two pieces are energetic. There are some sound effects that are played through the MT-32. The siren sounds so much better than the Sound Blaster's pathetic attempt.

The script is well done. Jane Jensen was new to the Sierra team and it was up to her to write the script for PQ3 after Jim Walls left the company before the game was finished. Not many people realize this, but Sierra was impressed with her talents she went on to write the script for King's Quest VI. She really did an amazing job.

The front cover states that PQ3 has mature adult subject matter, and people who saw the first cut-scene in the game should know what to expect. There are a couple of crime scenes where you see pentagrams carved in blood and hair, and blood is splattered when a character is gunned down.


The Bad
The only problem I had with the game is the dialog boxes, which you only have a few seconds to read. I am a slow reader, so I didn't have time to read through most of them. Furthermore, there is no slider in the control panel that lets you adjust the text speed.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Police Quest 3 is the best of the series, in my opinion. It has excellent graphics and sound. Realism goes up a notch in the way that you have to use a map to drive to locations and follow basic police procedure. It also has a dark plot (involving a satanic cult) and blood can be seen at various points throughout the game. A CD-ROM version of PQ3 was planned feature full speech throughout the game, but this never came to fruition.

The Good
I really liked the way the graphics have come on from AGI back in "87. The story line makes you want to play and play - I spent four hours straight playing it. The character graphics are good too, but some times you can't see eyes e.t.c. when the character is walking.

The Bad
I found the driving interface hard at the start but when you get used of it, it is pretty easy. I didn't like how the characters and places from Police Quest 1 all disappeared, they have all new cops, new places to go e.t.c. I would have liked to have gone to Carol's Caffeine Castle or The Blue Room Bud.

The Bottom Line
This game is brilliant and you can play it over and over again which makes it well worth getting but there are just some thing that I don't about it - the reason why I give it 4/5.