Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel

The Good
Back in the Eighties, Sierra was on a role with many of their high-profile adventure games becoming successful. In 1987, they hired Jim Walls, a retired California patrol officer who was asked to create a new game based on everyday police life. Hence, it wasn't going to be like any other game that Sierra released, where everything in the game is make believe. Furthermore, the game was used by real police officers as a way to improve their skills.

In this game, you play Officer Sonny Bonds, a cop of the Lytton Police Department who starts his day doing normal police work. Later, he gets promoted to Detective and does bigger things like breaking up a major drug ring and stopping someone nicknamed "The Death Angel". It is nice to play a police officer for once, as you are given an insight of how things operate; and although the cop himself and the city is fictitious, how you go about doing things is not. The game provides plenty of fun and lots of adventuring as you spend your time issuing tickets, arresting criminals, and dealing with biker scum, among other things.

While patrolling the streets, you get to meet a variety of characters. Some characters are good and may help you get through the game, while some are dangerous. Only a few of them have ridiculous names like Morris Fudley, Helen Hots, Hoochie Coochie Hannah, Whipplestick, and Fuddrucker. For a game that focuses on the real world, you would think Sierra made up real names for these characters. Helen Hots, the girl you pull over, lives up to her name. You can get a close-up view of her, and you can see the top of her blouse is unbuttoned. This is a nod to Leisure Suit Larry.

There are quite a few locations you need to drive to. As soon as you start the engine, you are presented with a map that occupies more than one screen. Even under the low resolution Sierra's old engine was capable of, the map is well laid out and each section of it still looks good. Each location you visit is beautifully drawn, and I liked exploring each one.

The game encourages you to perform certain tasks such as inspecting your squad car to make sure there are no flat tires, obeying normal road rules, and locking your gun up before you enter the jail. The game ends if you don't do these things. Most of the reviews I read on here criticize these, but that's real life. If there is a red light blocking my way, I managed to bypass it by leaving the screen then coming back. Simple as that.

You can die in this game, in each situation you are faced with. Death is mainly caused by doing something foolish. Some of the actions you can perform are quite amusing, and so far I have managed to remove my clothes any time during the game, walk out of the locker room wearing nothing but a towel, and call up the girl I just pulled over.

The sound is PC speaker only, which means that you will only hear one voice for the music. That is what sound was like back then, at a time before soundcards were invented. If you have a Tandy computer, the music and sound effects are much better as they have three voices instead of one.

The Bad
I didn't have a problem with the parser in other Sierra adventures, but I found the parser used in Police Quest very strict. Many times did I try to execute an action, only to have the game respond with "How can you do that?" or "You can't do that -- at least, not now". There are no alternate command. You need to type in a specific command to perform the action you want.

Sierra went through a time where they just had to put a poker game here and there, and the player is forced to play them to progress through the game. Police Quest is no different, and in this case, it's a poker game that happens near the very end of the game. I would rather skip and lose points for doing so, which is what you can do in the SCI remake of the game.

The Bottom Line
As I said before, playing Police Quest showed me the day to day operations of a police officer. You spent half of the game patrolling the streets, arresting anyone breaking the law and having a coffee break with one of your colleagues, but eventually you get promoted to Detective where you eventually nab "The Death Angel". I would play this game again because I found situations and other bits about the game interesting. The graphics and sound are okay, but they are better if you happen to have a Tandy computer. The only real turn-off is the poker game that you are forced to play near the end of the game.

The Good
This game recreates the life of police officer Sonny Bonds on the job patrolling the mean streets of Lytton. It is fun to patrol the streets in your cruiser, responding to alerts, giving tickets to bad drivers & arresting offenders. The graphics are the standard Sierra pixels with more detailed drawings for close ups. The plot ramps up when you have to entrap...err, perform a sting operation on the local drug kingpin, Jessie the Death Angel Bains. Along the way, romance your high school girlfriend who is now a street hooker. This is not a typo.

The Bad
Much of the game play is directed by following proper police procedure as described in the manual. Failure to follow these procedures results in very bad things each & every time. It can be monotonous to do these steps every single game day but you must or you die! Also this game implies that cops have a weird double life. They uphold the law and arrest transgressors while following stringent rules but they also date prostitutes & have birthday parties with strippers. There is a subplot where a police sergeant is being harassed at work by a prankster known as the Gremlin (which is never resolved). To be clear, I am not saying cops are doing these things, the game is telling me cops are doing these things. Since Police Quest was written by a retired police officer, Jim Walls, I am left with some questions.

The Bottom Line
This game was the first Sierra adventure game I ever played so I have nostalgia for it. It is not the greatest adventure ever made but it is fun & interesting. Just make sure you perform vehicle inspection before driving your hooker girlfriend to your favourite sleazy dive bar or you WILL crash.

The Good
Regardless of the game, I like the idea of a text adventure about police work. So you're "fighting evil" like in any other game, but in a more realistic, procedural way. Doing all the preparations, considering safety etc. But I think the game might have been boring if Sonny Bonds hadn't been a bit like Roger Wilco. Sonny is supposed to be a 15 year veteran, but because the average player isn't, Sonny is treated more like a rookie, mocked and told off for making mistakes. Also, there's some light mockery of the police in general, good for those who have run-ins with the cops and I guess, acknowledging that sometimes the law sucks and deserves a bit of mockery. Undoubtedly, any mockery is balanced with deadly seriousness. The encounter with gunman "Marvin Hoffman" was probably the height of the tension in the game, you had to follow step-by-step procedure or be shot dead.

The Bad
The more I played the game, the more I started to feel that, as faithful to police work and police life it might be, it's a bit too black and white when it comes to cops and robbers. There's a bit of a "time to clean the filth from the streets" attitude. As the only villain in the game of any real depth, I think Jason Taselli/Marvin Hoffman is pretty respectable, he doesn't come quietly. One of the biggest problems with the game is Jessie "The Death Angel" Bains. As far as I'm concerned Taselli/Hoffman is the real death angel. Bains is only introduced late in the game as a friend of Taselli's and there's nothing to suggest he's bigger and badder than Taselli.

The Bottom Line
Well I still think it's one of the best text adventures, regardless of what one thinks of the cops. Maybe Space Quest 1 is a little better, because you're playing a very average fellow who is somehow given the chance to become the savior of his race.

The Good
Police Quest was the first adventure game I played and it's still one of my favourites.It's quite long for a game of this age and the story takes a few twists.Some scenes can get quite intense including one where you have to make a drug bust.There's lots to do in Lytton City so you never actually feel like your on a linear path,even though you are.There's actually an ending to this game and it's the best one I've seen in a game this old.

The Bad
The graphics are starting to get a little outdated.You can still play with them,but it might seem annoying at first.Sometimes,it can be very hard trying to figure out exactly what you have to type to do something.I had trouble pulling someone over in the game even though I had my siren on.Finally,there's a poker scene near the end of the game that's pretty tough and requires patience and time.

The Bottom Line
If you were ever interested in what a cop does,play Police quest 1-4 and learn the basics.While 2 and 4 have you playing detectives,1 and 3 have you playing more of a cop on his beat.All of them are good and should all be played.

The Good
Although I had played nearly all of Sierra’s "big" titles – the 'Space Quest's, the 'King’s Quest's, the 'Leisure Suit Larry's, etc. back in their heyday, 'Police Quest' was one title that for whatever reason, I didn’t get to play for some years. Having only got to finally play it only in more recent years, it’s interesting to see how this game holds up without the nostalgic tint that somewhat biases so many reviews, including my own. Whilst the majority of other Quests from Sierra concentrated more on fantasy elements, the sometimes over-looked 'Police Quest' deals in real-life Police procedure, with the only way to win being doing things “by the book”, step-by-step, as if you were a genuine cop. The fact that it was written by Jim Walls, a former real-life cop in California helps give the game it's more "realistic" approach, as opposed to the glamorous, not-stop-shootout image of policing given in so many other games, and movies…

This adventure sees you as law officer Sonny Bonds, starting off as an “on the beat” cop responding to routine calls. As the adventure develops, you find yourself climbing the promotion ladder as you set off in pursuit of the murderous, drug running “Death Angel”. This is most probably Sierra’s most down-to-earth and realistic adventure game ever. Most of it is quite serious, with just the odd line of humour thrown in here or there.

While LucasArts generally surpassed Sierra’s adventure games in later years, PQ shows that when Sierra tried, they could come up with something really original. A shame this creativity waned slightly in later releases, but that’s another story.

The graphics… hard to decide whether this should be under “good” or “bad”; a little of both, really. They are adequate for their time, looking typically Sierra-ish of the era – anyone who’s ever played a couple of Sierra adventure games will know what I mean; they all have a very similar design look. While looking very dated and hardly pushing the limits of EGA gaming forward, the graphics do the job, I guess.

The realism and insistence of getting every little thing right and “by the book” can be awkward to get to grips with at first, but once I’d got into the early stages of play, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself drawn into it much, much more than I had at first expected.

I found part of the game's appeal was for it's variety of situations and places to visit in the course of your day-to-day Police work, giving the game a far less linear feel that in many other adventure games.

The Bad
The game insists you follow Police procedure (as described in the game manual) to the letter, and is VERY harsh in insisting on this. Many, MANY times during play, if you forget to do one small thing, the game is over. For example, if you forget to check over your squad car EVERY TIME before going out on patrol… you loose.

I consider myself a hardened adventure gamer, eventually being able to find my way through most situations that present themselves in adventures, but I must confess that I consulted hint and walk-though guides quite a few times when playing this game! I defy anyone to get maximum points on this game without playing through at least a dozen times! Even with aid of walk-through I was some points short of a perfect score at the end.

But the game's meanness doesn’t end there. It’s really HARSH at times. For example, at some points in the game, you must shower before changing clothes - if you forget to turn the shower off after you, the game docks you a point!!

Driving around the city of Lytton with little coloured lines representing cars - it’s very awkward, and even for the era, it looks pretty tacky! What’s more, driving badly (wrong side of the road, etc.) is fine, but jump a red light (in normal drive mode, not pursuit) and you’re scolded for breaking procedure and have to restore.

It’s very easy to miss something vital or to mess things up, so a LOT of saving and restoring, with a long back-list of saves, is needed (even by Sierra’s standards!)

All this can make the game a little hard to get into, and it’s certainly not to everyone’s taste.

The graphics, whilst they do they job and are actually quite good in places, are a little unimaginative in others, and are just so very Sierra-ish! Sonny looks practically identical to Gwydion, the lead in ‘King’s Quest III’, not to mention a passing resemblance to early renderings of 'Leisure Suit Larry', and several other Sierra game characters

The early text interface doesn’t ease matters any, either. Whereas later games’ interfaces would, for example, open doors for you automatically, here you have to manually type “open door” every time, making play seem a little long-winded sometimes. (Oh, and one trivial thing that niggled me: The text cursor at the bottom of the screen. Normally the text input line begins with a >, but for this adventure is was <, back to front. A teeny thing, but it bugged me none-the-less!)

Personally, I found the game's ending was a little flat, and almost an anti-climax after some of the scenes earlier in the game. The last few actions are done on "autopilot", which I found rather disappointing; I would have liked to have been more involved.

Oh, and the Poker game. For some reason, Sierra went through a long phase where they for some reason felt obliged to stick in some sort of gambling game as part of there adventures, and here is no exception. Having to play the damned game once is enough, but to have to play it twice… grrr! All-in-all, things really did feel like they began to run out of creativity towards the end of the game, a few more ideas would have been welcome.

While I believe that some of Sierra’s later VGA remakes were pointless, this game is one that does benefit in many ways, with some of the more obscure, over-picky bits toned down for that release, though the lack of text interface does take away from a lot of the feeling of involvement.

The Bottom Line
A game that won't be to all adventure players' tastes, but if you’re looking for something a little different and more realistic, this one’s not a bad bet. If you’re willing to forgive the very dated graphics and have a walk-through handy to help you through the numerous over-harsh and obscure areas, there is some enjoyment to be had. You’ll either like it or loathe it, but if you like it, you’ll probably like it A LOT. (However I do feel that it's one of the very few Sierra games where the later VGA remake is generally a better play, even if it does loose the user input interface.)

The Good
This game was the second Sierra adventure I played, and it still is one of the most memorable. The character development is awesome with a wide range of NPC's all with distinct personality's and stories to learn throughout the game. The humour in the game is great - from the locker room banter to the angry sergent to all the funny descriptions at each location you go to.

This game redefined what adventures were when it was released - up until then adventures were solely based in the fantasy realm whereas this was an engaging story based on real-life happenings and characters. The need to follow police procedures to advance the game and gain maximum points was a great way of giving the game more depth and also implementing the copy-protection - and it was a very convincing way of making you feel like you really were a cop.

The learning curve of the game is nicely set with a few easy patrols and crimes to solve early on. As you delve deeper into the plot, more characters are revealed and more of the overall story becomes apparent - and everything interconnects nicely, with things getting harder as you get deeper into the game. The finale is brilliant and a truly great ending to the game, after the perfectly paced build up.

This game has that magical 'charm' that most of the early Sierra adventures seemed to have, but which got lost pretty much after the first batch of point and click adventures. Definitely lovingly created. It is possible to finish this game and miss out on a lot of the extra points and a couple of interesting side stories to uncover too. A good incentive to replay the game to find out everything.

The graphics are the blocky AGI original style, but are never the less colourful, charming and convincing, drawing you magically into the world of Lytton. Great atmosphere, and a who lot more attractive than the rubbish VGA re-release.

The Bad
Not a lot wrong with this title - it probably wouldn't be that much fun to your fan-boy, top-20 commercial game players who saturate the market these days (anyone who bought the bland Matrix Reloaded game for instance), but anyone who has a love of great adventure games should check this out and play it through - without using any walkthrough's (it really makes it a lot more fun and satisfying). Also, play it using the Sarien AGI parser because you get the three-channel sound instead of PC speaker nonsense.

The Moby score of this game is a bit low in my opinion - perhaps conceived by someone who played it using a walkthrough or something and not enjoying it fully. Or maybe I'm biased because I loved these Sierra games dearly when growing up. I would've given it 4.5 out of 5. It doesn't deserve 5 out of 5 simply because there are other adventure games that are even better than this - Kings Quest 3 and Monkey Island 1 for example.

The Bottom Line
A classic adventure, that drags you into its world with lovable characters, a great plot, cool cartoon graphics, awesome set-pieces and is a perfectly paced game that escalates into a worthy conclusion. This and Police Quest 2 are by and far the best in the series, and are right up there with the best Sierra adventures (Kings Quest 3, Space Quest 1-4, Manhunter, Larry 1-3).

The Good
Lots of stuff to do. (Also, lots of ways to die heh, heh) I mean, how many games do you come across where you can shower with your clothes on, or take off your clothes anywhere? I doubt there are many, if any others. That's what I like about text command games! Now, back to Police Quest. I like how you have to do things right. For instance, if you don't read people their rights before arresting them, you lose. I really like the part where you intercept and crash the drug pass. I thought that was really cool. I also like how when you're driving, if you turn on your sirens, you can go through red lights. Driving's tough though--that's how I've died the most.

The Bad
All Sierra adventure games are too short, this one included. Lots of play/replay value, though!

The Bottom Line
A good cop game.

The Good
I liked the story of this game very much, when you start your given a basic introduction to your avatar. an average cop (Sonny Bonds) in an average town. after you attend a briefing, and get ready to patrol in your car (car is driven by you in Realtime on a city screen). you hear of the case of "Death Angel" an infamous drug dealer. and after a few side-missions) you start to get leads for the death angel case. As this game was written by an ex-cop its packed full of realism and is one for any fan of any cop show or anyone who is interested in a good action&puzzle adventure game

This game combined the "text to action" format with the amazing story(s). You had to type "walk east" to walk east or "Pickup Radio" to pickup the radio, it wasn't a point and click adventure game (Flight Of The Amazon Queen, & Monkey Island style).

The Bad
If you didn't type it correctly it wouldn't work. and sometimes you had to type very fast. But all that does add to seriousness of being a cop, it helps the game become more real. Sometimes when driving around the city screen, you could be waiting a long time for a case to happen.

The Bottom Line
This is a great adventure game to start you off. Or even one for the seasoned pro. This game has a decent point scoring system and different speeds (Speeds come in handy when your in your car and in certain dangerous times)

The Good
This was the first Quest which I could compare to a movie in which you were an actor.

Most of you will remember that the "Quest" series only offered fantasy or sci-fi themes until Police Quest came out. It featured a more adult and serious theme. As a matter of fact, even if it was fiction, you felt more as part of the game than other unrealistic Quests of that era.

You could feel the game was designed by an ex-policeman as the game featured some jokes which are obviously seen in police locker rooms. For example, an officer is almost always in the shower and colleagues don't hesitate to find this rather funny. When you try to chat with him, he'll gladly reply "Do you know what's the best thing with this shower Sonny? It's free".

The object of the game was not only to be in "pursuit of the Death Angel". You had to do more down-to-earth cop stuff such as taking care of an accident or pulling off a drunk driver.

Actually, driving around town and pulling off bad guys was fun as it was something obviously not seen in another Quest before. The game actually came with a full-size map of Lytton, map which could still be used for the sequel.

As with any movie, the game reaches an expected climax at the end. However, I remember it being very intense.

The Bad
As it was the case with other Sierra games, the game went over instantly if you performed the wrong action, action which could be rather dull in this particular game. An approach à la LucasArts (in which games you have to be reallly reckless to die) could have been taken since this could get frustrating.

For example, if you forget to walk around your car before driving it, you'll end up having an accident since you didn't inspect it throughfully. Don't even try ordering a beer at the bar when you're on duty, this isn't allowed either and the game will end abruptly if you do so.

Traffic lights... The same goes on if you run over red lights. However, when driving you have a 90 degree bird's eye view of your car and lights are shown using simple rectangles on the street. Considering many people still had monochrome monitors back then, how in hell were you supposed to guess the color if you had one? I had to resign driving around with my siren on to prevent dying!

Technologically, the game didn't bring much, since the AGI interpreter used to develop this game was pretty limited in itself, especially the low resolution which was plain ugly.

In order to advance in one point of the game, you had to play poker - and win a lot. Don't laugh, but I've never played poker before trying this game. Even if it came with a reference card to show you how to play, it was simply annoying.

The Bottom Line
Even if it's old, it's a must if you're interested in being a police officer for a while.

The Good
Ah when Adventure games where actually the norm, and before there was FPS games, Sierra made all the great games. This is one of them, designed to show us what a Police Quest would be like. The interface is easy to use, and the puzzles are fun to solve. Trying to get the maximum points is a challege, unless you have a walk throught, but this is a game that brings back memories of a 386 or slower. Oh, and PC speaker sound rules.

The Bad
A Police Quest, why police I dunno, this is coming from a company that has games about a guy that is trying to have sex so do figure. Lets face it, you have to like adventure games, slow adventure games with alot of puzzles to like this game. If thats not for you, you will hate this game.

The Bottom Line
A true Classic that should be played by everyone to see what gaming used to be like.

The Good
As the game that made me interested in law enforcement, and eventally led me to a career in the field, this game holds a very special place for me. Instead of the normal images of cops (shooting anything that moves and always getting the bad guys), this game presents a more realistic image of the job. The attention to actual police procedure, while not perfect down to the details, is very accure and to my knowledge, the most accure to be presented in a computer game to date. Beginning as a patrol officer, making traffic stops and arresting drunks, you slowly work through small leads to start to gain a picture of what is really going on in the town you work in. A good deal of the first part of the game is actually spent driving a car around the city. And a lot of the time, nothing happens. This is actually real. There is not a blazing gun battle every two minutes and if you are not careful you might miss that drunk on the road or that woman who ran the red light.

The latter part of the game gets a little more fantastic, but is still believable. While adding in elements of what I call "Hollywood" cop movies, you are selected for an undercover job and have to penetrate the underworld of a criminal. This usually is not how police work is done, at least in my experience, but it still presents this in a beleivable manner in which you still have to do things "by the book".

The Bad
The dounut shop. For God's sake, we get a bad enough reputation for this as it is. Give me a break.

The Bottom Line
Anyone who ever wanted to just get a small glimpse of what being a police officer is like should check this game out. Written by a former police officer, Jim Walls, this game shows some things that have never been touched on before or since. How often do you see cops just driving around looking for something, praying that something will happen before they die of boredom? While it is still a computer game, I would recommend someone check this out before they watch "Cops". In addition to that, this is one of the Sierra classic adventure games and shows the reason that Sierra became a great game company.

The Good
Police Quest 1 was one of the most impactful games of my childhood! Looking back, playing the role of an authority figure was a very cool and novel thing as a child, and probably one of factors that made it so much fun to play.

The game was ahead of its time, giving the player a bit of the "Grand Theft Auto" sense of freedom and control. Though there were very few locations you could drive to and actually leave your vehicle, driving the streets of Lytton is basically a mini-game unto itself. The game is written that as long as you're in your patrol car at the appropriate time, it doesn't matter where you are - the same red-light runner, drunk driver, etc, comes to you and violates the law in front of you... so its not random chance.

Being text-based, you also have the freedom to type whatever you want... sometimes you'll be surprised at what the game understands and will accept as answers! (Notably, the things you can get away with saying to the red-light runner!!). If what you type is not understood, the game will simply reply with a message of "What is a ______?" and you know you have to re-phrase yourself.

The Bad
Like many other games, once you go through the game and accomplish everything, it's quite difficult to go back and do it again with the same sense of naivete and excitement... it becomes quite formulaic - Do this, then this, then go here, then say this, etc, etc. Re-playability is more for nostalgia purposes, or to show a friend... the theme just doesn't suit multiple plays, as the novelty is in the story and figuring things out.

Driving is fun, but hard! Especially on faster machines, it can be extremely challenging to park your vehicle safely.

Not knowing what to do next can lead to some dull moments. You're driving around aimlessly when the game wants you to go back to the Police Department... in the meantime you're not alerted to this, and you're getting bored. Pre-internet, this was extremely frustrating!

The poker games are monotonous and go on far too long. There's simply no reason for this, the designers could've done better at making this a smaller feature of the game.

The game also makes you follow regulations a bit too much, as in, you have to walk around your vehicle before you leave the yard EVERY TIME to inspect it, or game over, you lose! Save frequently in multiple save files, because you'll be dying regularly and needing to restore your game often! It's also hard to follow police regulations exactly as the game wants you to, as the modern player is extremely unlikely to have the game manual handy! Personally I was helped a lot because my Dad is a police officer, and as a kid I would go ask him "What would you do in this situation?"!

The Bottom Line
It's a challenge, especially if you can get through it the first time without outside help. I've enjoyed introducing family and friends to this game through the years, and typically they really get into it and want to figure out what to do next. It's quite addictive and you're never fully satisfied until you beat it!