"An early game; very funny but some flaws"

Police Quest spawned several sequels, but what's the original game like? Well, it's OK, but some flaws are apparent. The graphics are terrible, but it's a very old game, so that's all right. The other problems will be discussed later in this review. First, some background info: you are Sonny Bonds, policeman in Lytton County, and there seems to be a problem: a criminal named Jessie Bains a.k.a. The Death Angel, is wreaking havoc on the town. Your job is to find and stop him, obviously, but you do more in the game than that. This game is incredibly realistic for the most part, and that's its biggest asset and downfall. It's good because realism is always good; you seem to do most things real police officers would do. That's also the bad thing, because since a lot of people don't know everything real police officers do, you'll get fired or die a lot. Forget to do a safety inspection on your car, you get fired. Don't go to briefing, you get fired. Do just about ANYTHING wrong, you get fired or killed. It's realistic, but a big pain. Controlling Sonny is done through the use of the arrow keys for movement, and everything else is done by typing, like "look", "open" or "punch", plus the object you want to interact with. This game is for one player only.

Graphics: 2/10

They're really, really bad, but the game is really, really old. Still, they can't get a good score. Pixelating is very common; the blockiest characters ever seen in a video game.

Sound: 1/10

Except for the computer beeps, there is no sound. I could give it a 0, but that wouldn't be nice, would it?

Gameplay: 7/10

The text commands are certainly not for everyone, especially not the grammatically challenged among us, but it gives you a fair amount of freedom. Two big drawbacks though: first, you may want to pick up or use something but you don't know what it is, and second of all, typing begins to get on your nerves because it takes up time. Still, you can type some pretty weird stuff and get a funny response from the computer. In fact, for such a "serious" game, there's quite a bit of humor. As mentioned above, it's just that tiny mistakes cost you, sometimes points but mostly the game. The game is not hard in an action sense, because it's just typing commands, but you do need to be smart. Driving is more difficult than it should be.

Replay: 6/10

Not bad to play again, for the purpose of typing different things. You probably won't be itching to just play the game through again, though.

Overall: 6/10

Probably one of the best games of its time, but below average now. Still, Police Quest does have some wit that never gets old. I don't recommend you buy this unless you can get it very cheap; a better alternative would be to purchase the Police Quest Collection, which contains several Police Quest adventures, including this one.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99