Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel

Seeing how well the new quest series (SQ) was selling, Sierra decided to create new quests for gamers all over the world. This time they turned their attention to the world of the American police. PQ1 was made to be as realistic as possible. So in order to book the criminals you will have to follow strict police procedures, fail in this and the criminals may walk.

It is enjoyable to play an old classic such as this game that is partly reality based. The VGA remake boasts better graphics and enhances the player’s immersion into the daily danger of police work. Overall, Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel is a good police story and a well paced adventure game that keeps the player’s mind working and challenged.

Police Quest represents an interesting experiment in changing what adventure games were all about. Previously Sierra, and others, had focused on creating these interactive adventures out of cartoonish, comedic properties from the minds of some very creative writers and designers. Police Quest still attempted to be a fun adventure, but also wanted to nail down the "feel" of being a real-life knight in blue, from the daily grind to the difficult choices and situations you might be faced with. The results are an interesting hybrid of real police procedure, some easy-going humor, and a fairly interesting emprise.

Police Quest 1 is a delightful throwback for nostalgia nerds, to a time when this sort of dramatic content was new ground for games and an adventure could make a kid want to be a police officer when he grows up. Twenty years later, both the original and the remake are still fun and easy to play, and required playing for adventure game historians.