Police Quest 2: The Vengeance

The Good
I was hanging out for PQ2 to be released, after absolutely loving the first game. And after playing it for a couple of days it was apparent that it was an even better game than the first.

The graphics were higher resolution and a step up from the first game - the EGA version used dithering to give the impression of a lot more than 16 colours. The artwork was great - each location was lovingly put together with a great diversity of styles - from the lagoon/diving section to the sewers to the police station it was excellent for its time.

The sound was a huge step up, being the first in the series to support the Adlib and Roland sound cards - some great tunes and themes. No decent sound effect support, but it still was very good for PC games of the time.

The storyline/plot and puzzles are the best part of the game. Continuing on from the first game it details the events following the escape from prison of Jessie Bains, the "Death Angel".

As before, the plot escalates in intensity, excitement and difficulty to a perfect scale with a great conclusion to the game. The different things that you have to do in the game are great - the shooting range at the PD is cool, the diving section is fun, and having to investigate crime scenes and put all the clues and evidence together (such as dusting for prints etc) to work out what to do next gives a great sense of achievement, as well as being lots of fun.

Whereas, in PQ1 you were kind of led along by the procedures manual and rather obvious clues, this game requires you to do a lot more conclusive thinking for yourself, making it difficult for non-adventure fans, but a truly classic time for those who love the genre. The story is darker and moodier than PQ1, which was kind've light hearted, but is all that much better as a result. There is still a lot of humour in there too, especially from your partner.

The length of the game - from memory it took me several months to finish (I was 12 at the time) without any hints whatsoever. The sense of satisfaction in doing so was rewarding.

The Bad
Playing it in CGA originally some sections were hard (such as the diving) as the colours were all blue and red and some obvious clues were hidden as a result. There's not much else wrong with this game, another true classic for Sierra.

The Bottom Line
A classic adventure that is the best game in the Police Quest series - the subsequent titles were actually pretty average. An engaging story with characters that you believe in and make you want to keep playing just to see how everything turns out. If you love Sierra games, then play PQ1 AGI and this through without walkthroughs, and you'll love every moment!

The Good
When I was a kid, my neighbor was a cop. I always had this fascination with the police. Well, I did until I was a teenager and police would harass me just for be young and loitering around public. Having no idea what to do next is a feeling that will be lost on new generations of gamers. This game made me feel that way. It took me several months to complete simply because there were times when I was going around in circles not knowing where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do. Sounds boring, doesn't it? No it wasn't it just made you more aware of how much this game really got into your brain.

The Bad
If there was anything I didn't like about the game it was the suspense. Being a small child playing this, I felt more chills playing this game than I did watching Silence of the Lambs. That might explain my affinity towards Buffalo Bill. But the fact that my mother wouldn't let me see that movie until I was 16 but she let me play this game at 8 years old shows how much this game was underestimated for its impact. It was a real chiller for it's time.

The Bottom Line
I suppose that now-a-days there is a huge difficulty in trying to convey the scope of how Police Quest or even any of Sierra’s text games affected gaming history, but seeing as how I played these series of games since I was still having trouble crapping my pants, I sort of have more perspective. Police Quest 2 was the sequel to one of the most true-to-life adventure games, ever. It was so thorough that real police stations would have copies of the game on their computers to give rookies a feeling of what kind of mindset real police officers needed to have. This is the element of the game that made me feel uneasy playing it. This game puts you in the shoes of Sonny Bonds, Vice cop for the Lytton Police Department in Lytton, California. The murderous drug dealer, Jessie Baines, who we caught in the prequel to this game, has escaped and you mist hunt him down. You don’t hunt him down like a criminal mastermind in a buddy cop film. You have to take leads that you get from witnesses, you have to track him down like a real detective. Truthfully…This game was not very much fun. It was very official. It’s a bit slow, but very in depth. Every little nuance affected whether or not you could make it through to certain parts, so many times you found yourself reloading saved games just to inch a tiny bit further. One part comes to mind where you have to SCUBA dive to recover a corpse. I died so many times just getting caught up in the water’s current. Sonny Bonds is a good character that you grow to love, so when he dies you feel a sense of shame for your carelessness in letting him die. It’s not like Leisure Suit Larry where his failure or death seems more satirical. There is something more human about Sonny Bonds and his life splayed out in game format makes you connected to him as if he were a real person. I’m gonna open up to you a little bit here…When I was a child I had a terminal heart condition and I spent a huge chuck of childhood in the hospital befriending children who would later go on to die before they reached their teens. This gives you a screwed up sense of life and death. Police Quest 2 helped me get through this truly very painful time in my life, so it has a special place in my heart. Playing this game on PS1(not Playstation, but the IBM PS1) with three game disks was probably the best fun I could have ever had in a time where the few friends I had are dead now. Maybe this makes me morbid, but this also makes me think that if not for the physical requirements of police work, I’d make a damn fine detective.

The Good
THE STORYLINE. What a riveting story line. Even as a 9 near old back in 1992, I could understand and become excited by the storyline.

An all-time classic. This game was nearly responsible for me becoming a police officer. Nostalgia galore, I put this up there with the Tupac albums that could have been, the Bruce Lee Flicks we should have seen. It actually makes me depressed that no-one has made a police "quest" game in years. I take personal pride in the fact that (especially since I'm a computer science undergraduate myself) such a dated and "unpretty" game.....is still one of the greatest ever written by humanity. In terms of story, playability and entertainment....it has only been matched by Monkey Island 2 or perhaps GTA3 Vice City.

The fact that by the age of 11, I could type at a rate of 32wpm at least and had a reading age of 17-- SOLELY DUE TO THIS GAME!!! It is fair to say that modern day computer game are abusive to concentration span and perhaps intellectual development, but this game proved that it doesn't have to be like that.

The Bad
The fact that it took me one full year when I was a kid to leave the police station!, because I didn't know you had to press F3 to get into the car and make your partner keith enter the car also!!!!! LMAO This was the biggest puzzle in the game. I still never have seen it written in the manual. (just like in police quest 1 the VGA version, I was stuck in the final scene for 6 months because I didn't know the number for the taxi - and still don't know where I was supposed to get it) Well of course, they're are many features which may be unbearable to users nowadays. The graphics are extremley dated. The input system means you must use exactly the correct "keyword" or "phrase" at times, even when you know the correct course of action.

The Bottom Line
If I were to be honest, I would have to admit that only a very patient person or a diehard fan could sit down and play this game today. Its simply too dated(and possibly too complex) for modern users. Modern computer players don't like to think, they just hit the fire button.

However, if I've just managed to convince you, yes YOU, well you can download the game absolutley free at any abandonware site, and it would nearly fit on your mobile phone these days.