Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel

"Do you, TheSpelunker, swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? I do."

Police Quest is definitely from the 80's. Cops now don't look like they're fresh out of the casting call for Miami Vice, and they sport crew cuts or no hair at all along with dark shades to hide what they're thinking. But I'll forgive this slight aesthetic err in light of the game's other undeniable accuracies. For Police Quest is, as one might expect, a cop simulator. You play the role of Sonny Bonds (similar in name to Miami Vice's star, Sonny Crockett,) and you have to do your part in bringing to justice all sorts of criminals that cross your path. From showering, to attending briefings, to obeying traffic signals, you also engage perhaps over-diligently in the other daily rigors of police life, or sometimes just working life in general. At length the game is about rules, regulations and the law.

The setup for things is pretty plainly early Sierra. Police Quest is a graphical adventure, styled in the same way as all the Quest games were (including Leisuire Suit Larry and to some extent Quest for Glory,) with all the bells and whistles thereof. For commands you have a text box that you type words into, and for movement you use the arrow pad. You're shown an avatar of your character--sort of a Cheech Marin, although it does look like someone socked you right between the eyes--and are able to move in all directions around the various locations you find yourself in. The game world isn't even close to seamless, and you move from pre-rendered screen to pre-rendered screen with no scrolling involved. You can then act on most things around you with text commands. For example, if you wanted to see something closer, you would type LOOK BOX for a more detailed text description of it. You could also USE TELEPHONE or most other conceivable things. Also, by performing one of the game's ideal objectives--and it should be emphasized that not all objectives are required to complete the game--your score at the top of the screen rises. Conversely, by slipping up in the game, you can also lose points.The maximum possible points are listed alongside your current score (though, amusingly, I believe there's a bug that allows you to exceed it.) And in general, your goal is to follow the procedure outlined in the Police Indoctrination Guide (P.I.G.,) included with the game, in conjunction with doing what your bosses tell you.

Now I'll go ahead and say that I never had this guide when I played Police Quest; so I can't speak on what's in it. Conceivably it has a lot, since Police Quest seems overly anal about many things. For example, you need to walk around your police car fully one time before entering it, or you wind up with a flat before you can make it to the next block. Also, to enter your car, you need to OPEN DOOR, GET IN, TAKE NIGHTSTICK, CLOSE DOOR and DRIVE before taking off. You also can't carry your nightstick inside the police department, though you can carry your gun. Points are docked for both 1) leaving the shower running and 2) not locking your gun up before entering the jail. So I dare say that, if, in some strange twisted state of mind, you ever wanted to fully relive the pedantry of being back in grade school, or having a short-tempered, condescending supervisor or manager watching over you, Police Quest may live up to that end.

But the P.I.G. manual, I think, tells you more critical things, too. I know that it at least details proper gun procedure, and also certain traffic rules you need to obey. Perhaps it has a map, too, because otherwise you may need to look through a walkthrough to find where your dispatcher is sending you. And that's another aspect of dissent in Police Quest: Its not like most graphical adventures, in that you spend less time walking around indoors than you do on the streets. And when you're on the streets, you're in a car, in what is a whole different view or perspective altogether. In these segments the action is viewed from an overhead perspective, and you have three different MPH speeds you can switch between with F6, F8, and F10 (also nicely corresponding to your gun buttons when on foot--F6 for reload, F8 for drawing and F10 for firing.) There are traffic lights, plenty of other cars, one-way streets and locations you can park at and visit. This all to tide you over between the sometimes long lulls in between dispatches. But early on you sometimes perform traffic stops, too, which are a whole new challenge in themselves. And you can't get to any of the important locations without hopping in your car, as, oddly enough, crimes seem adverse to happening in the police station (except, at least, the prankster who puts a living chicken in the sergeant's room, or sprays mace on his memos--I bet he'd love to bust that guy's tail downtown. But then again, he's ALREADY downtown isn't he?)

I think Police Quest may be a little slow in getting started; as, for one, you will wreck a lot in your automobile early on. It isn't immediately obvious where you can kill time till a dispatch, either, or even that a dispatch is what you're waiting on. After all, your earliest moments are spent learning the proper police procedure of taking a shower and changing clothes. You have a briefing that you to have to make it to upon starting--weirdly there seems to be no possible way you can make it there on time, allowing for the anticipated cracks from the police sergeant Dooley--but after that you're just kind of left high-and-dry. Or maybe only I was, having lacked the Police Indoctrination Guide. Either way there seems to be a heavy reliance on third-party help, whether it be a walkthrough or the enclosed guide. I'll say that I found Police Quest to be a bit empty at times as such.

Nevertheless through the course of playing it did offer me the relatively profound sensation of being 'In the Know' on something, through the abundance of authentic police jargon, procedure and such. Dialogue was even believable; the narration so-so--except when it tried to snark and then plummeted (adding to a indicted drunk driver, "Oh, don't worry. Your car will be towed. At your expense.") Was a designer really surprised or ticked off that this is what happened when you were arrested? Some of the humor does seem to convey a similar liberal indecisiveness. However, I found the non-verbal gags to be nice. Some sad sack in the police bathroom can be observed in a stall from beginning to end with his pants around his ankles--well, his ankles can be observed at least. One of your fellow officers--Jack--also has a priceless face or expression that made me laugh when he started talking about his wife leaving him. He's sort of the venerable middle-aged, receding hair-line type caricature who's always down on his luck and going through some sort of crisis--although the game does get unnecessarily serious towards the end when tragedy really does strike him.

Through this all runs a sequence of pranks that someone plays on the police sergeant Dooley, which may or may not get a laugh out of people. Personally I didn't see the point. I could swear that sometimes the game was on one hand making fun of the police, and on the other hand kicking your butt about proper procedure. Heck, it probably was. I won't hammer this into the ground too much, but I'm honestly not sure what's worse--the really lousy narrative jokes or the turnarounds where you're told "You've been docked one point for leaving the shower running." Maybe this does sort of encapsulate life as a policeman, though--you assume on some level that they do have a slight sense of humor and that maybe they share unfunny jokes among themselves, but that deep down inside they're ready to turn on a dime into authoritative jerks and bust your butt straight downtown. Anyone agree?

Still, I think Police Quest wins major points off the bat for sheer originality. For a game that I imagine came out right about the same time as King's Quest II, there seems to be more sophistication here, too. You have some heavier non-linearity; as not only can you solve certain things in different ways, but parts of the game can be skipped entirely at a loss to your overall score. You also get to do some considerable thinking at one point if you want to reach the maximum score, and later on you get to interact with other officers on drug raids. I think my favorite part was a park bust, which happened right after I got upgraded to the narcotics division and had a partner with me. I have to say the situation felt about as authentic as it could get, hiding behind a tree and observing the deal just before dialing down dispatch, telling them I was moving in and radioing to my partner to catch the runner while I told the buyer to freeze and cuffed him. It felt slick to say the least. Yeah, I guess maybe from the criminal's perspective things are kind of hokey--during my real life experiences with illegal substances I never quite recall crawling out of bushes to make drug deals, or handing over money in a manila envelope--but I certainly don't ask for perfection.

Unfortunately, however, Police Quest may differ in this aspect. There's a lot of stringent procedure you have to tack down and implant in your head before you can get anywhere on the force. Running a red light, getting a flat tire, or hitting a wall with your car (easier to do than you'd think,) all bring an impromptu end to your career and thus the game. Criminals are also direly violent--if you don't lock up your gun before entering the jail you will have it instantly taken from you and used to bludgeon you over the head once you remove the prisoner's cuffs, even by lowly DUI offenders. Crumpling up into a pool of blood ends your game, which is only moderately nicer than having the middle-aged receptionist at the jail dock you two points for forgetting to lock up your gun--even when you're by yourself. I wonder if she does the same thing when you die? I never checked.

Well, as for Police Quest's graphics, they're all you can ask for in an early AGI text/graphic adventure. The little cars you putt around in look like tiny markers from the game of Life, but most everything else is scaled correctly. Neon signs used when appropriate. Wino Willy's and Carol's Caffeine Castle are cool little stops, even if you can't do much there but listen to apocalyptic sound bytes in Carol's bathroom with messages of "You begin to sweat as you almost come close to breaching the bowl," or learn the unprecedented importance of violence in a Sierra game when concerning surly bikers at Wino Willy's. People's faces and bodies are also respectable, especially the frontman at the Hotel Delphoria, who looks like Curly from the Three Stooges. And I guess in general there's a lot to see and do in Police Quest; so maybe, then, it's only the lulls in between that hurt the game.

Police Quest may have too many of them, too. I've said that I think the game starts out slow, but on more careful consideration I recall many subsequent points where it seemed slow as well. Certainly, as a whole, it can be fun. But in many instances I found certain things, like sub-plots which didn't quite interest me as much as they did distract and neutralize the effect of the main plot, disparaging. Police Quest's one shot at basically getting you to put your thinking cap on may be inconspicuous too, so much so that you end up missing it entirely, as it is possible to skip that point. Overall I feel that the game's pedantry and sometimes slow pace hurt it enough to where it may be worth checking out other games first, maybe even skipping this one and moving onto the sequels if police-work has really get you that enthused, but I can't vouch for the sequels' quality either.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/05