Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel
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Developed by Published by Released in Genres Themes |
Review
Well, this is kind of an undisputed classic of gaming. An early Sierra adventure game with all the awesomeness and downfalls that brings.
I won't even go into a storyline. Yes there's one later on, but all you need to know is that you're a cop. That's it. You start on patrol, then into various plain-clothes jobs until you get the bad guy that is corrupting the city of Lytton.
The reason why this game is a favourite of mine is that it kind of feels real. It feels like you're watching Hill Street Blues, but with only 16 colours. The procedure is nicely done, and it does a good job of making you feel like just another police officer. There's nothing particularly special about the character you play, you're more playing the roll of a cop than of a specific person. In the way of police activity, it has all the classic stereotypes: hot bitches flirting to get out of a ticket, stumbling on a murder and being told that "you're not homicide, this is our job, get out of here", and of course, eating donuts.
And the game itself is constructed very nicely. It progresses in a very believable way. Yes, you start off in patrol and end up ridding the city of the aforementioned foozle, but the way you get there is perfectly believable, even in such a short time, and Sierra clearly went to some effort on making it so.
However, being a Sierra game, it isn't without faults. You will die. A lot. Probably even with a walkthrough in hand. Didn't check your patrol car for flats before setting off from the station? Dead. Didn't type quickly enough? Dead. Took that turn a little too early? Dead. Went through a stop light without siren/lights? Dead. Didn't 100% conform to procedure during that arrest? The game will kill you off somehow. Ok, I kind of get it. Procedure. You should follow it. But there's a points system in Sierra games for a reason. Use it rather than killing me for cuffing someone improperly.
Driving is a fairly major annoyance. You essentially navigate a top-down map view of the city, and it's a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing it, and while driving at normal speeds is fine, the game only has three speed and it shunts you instantly between them making it very hard to control. And if you have your siren and lights on, you go at full speed no matter what. This makes cornering and pulling people over ridiculously difficult. Also the collision detection between your car and other cars is just plain bad. You can pretty much go half way into someone's car and be fine, and sometimes you even have to do this to pull someone over. Pulling people over seems to be complete chance.
The VGA version released later fixes many of these issues, but I feel it just doesn't have the same feeling to it as the original.
I also see no reason why they added a game of 5 draw poker which must be beaten to progress. It's just, a terrible idea. I don't want to play a poker game, I want to play an adventure game.
But all the bad stuff aside, this is a wonderful game and you should play it.
Note: To have any chance of completing the game without a walkthrough, you need the manual for the procedures and the map for getting around. Don't try to go without them, you'll just die even more often.
Knyght
Downloads
- Police Quest (PC) (339.8 KB)