Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel

aka: PQ, PQ1, Police Quest 1
Moby ID: 146
Amiga Specs

Description official description

Sonny Bonds is a small town policeman who must fight against the rising tide of drugs in his city. The game is based on real police procedure and adheres carefully to following the rules of police work. Beginning as a patrol officer and working into detectives, Sonny will chase down the infamous Death Angel and put an end to his criminal underworld.

A typical Sierra parser game built with the popular AGI engine, Police Quest differs from the others release by the company in the realism of the setting and travelling, that is done by car, controlled by the player using a overhead view (instead of the cabbie of Leisure Suit Larry or walking around in Space Quest). Some sections of the game require the player to be efficient driving the car (as there are a fair number of chases, and traffic rules also apply to the player).

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Credits (Amiga version)

11 People

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 22 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 109 ratings with 12 reviews)

Police Quest 1: A legendary start to a legendary series

The Good
I liked the story of this game very much, when you start your given a basic introduction to your avatar. an average cop (Sonny Bonds) in an average town. after you attend a briefing, and get ready to patrol in your car (car is driven by you in Realtime on a city screen). you hear of the case of "Death Angel" an infamous drug dealer. and after a few side-missions) you start to get leads for the death angel case. As this game was written by an ex-cop its packed full of realism and is one for any fan of any cop show or anyone who is interested in a good action&puzzle adventure game

This game combined the "text to action" format with the amazing story(s). You had to type "walk east" to walk east or "Pickup Radio" to pickup the radio, it wasn't a point and click adventure game (Flight Of The Amazon Queen, & Monkey Island style).

The Bad
If you didn't type it correctly it wouldn't work. and sometimes you had to type very fast. But all that does add to seriousness of being a cop, it helps the game become more real. Sometimes when driving around the city screen, you could be waiting a long time for a case to happen.

The Bottom Line
This is a great adventure game to start you off. Or even one for the seasoned pro. This game has a decent point scoring system and different speeds (Speeds come in handy when your in your car and in certain dangerous times)

Amiga · by phil buckley (19) · 2006

If you ever REALLY wanted to know what being a cop was like, this game is well worth a look.

The Good
As the game that made me interested in law enforcement, and eventally led me to a career in the field, this game holds a very special place for me. Instead of the normal images of cops (shooting anything that moves and always getting the bad guys), this game presents a more realistic image of the job. The attention to actual police procedure, while not perfect down to the details, is very accure and to my knowledge, the most accure to be presented in a computer game to date. Beginning as a patrol officer, making traffic stops and arresting drunks, you slowly work through small leads to start to gain a picture of what is really going on in the town you work in. A good deal of the first part of the game is actually spent driving a car around the city. And a lot of the time, nothing happens. This is actually real. There is not a blazing gun battle every two minutes and if you are not careful you might miss that drunk on the road or that woman who ran the red light.

The latter part of the game gets a little more fantastic, but is still believable. While adding in elements of what I call "Hollywood" cop movies, you are selected for an undercover job and have to penetrate the underworld of a criminal. This usually is not how police work is done, at least in my experience, but it still presents this in a beleivable manner in which you still have to do things "by the book".

The Bad
The dounut shop. For God's sake, we get a bad enough reputation for this as it is. Give me a break.

The Bottom Line
Anyone who ever wanted to just get a small glimpse of what being a police officer is like should check this game out. Written by a former police officer, Jim Walls, this game shows some things that have never been touched on before or since. How often do you see cops just driving around looking for something, praying that something will happen before they die of boredom? While it is still a computer game, I would recommend someone check this out before they watch "Cops". In addition to that, this is one of the Sierra classic adventure games and shows the reason that Sierra became a great game company.

DOS · by Andy Roark (263) · 1999

This beats Virtual Cop for sure.

The Good
This was the first Quest which I could compare to a movie in which you were an actor.

Most of you will remember that the "Quest" series only offered fantasy or sci-fi themes until Police Quest came out. It featured a more adult and serious theme. As a matter of fact, even if it was fiction, you felt more as part of the game than other unrealistic Quests of that era.

You could feel the game was designed by an ex-policeman as the game featured some jokes which are obviously seen in police locker rooms. For example, an officer is almost always in the shower and colleagues don't hesitate to find this rather funny. When you try to chat with him, he'll gladly reply "Do you know what's the best thing with this shower Sonny? It's free".

The object of the game was not only to be in "pursuit of the Death Angel". You had to do more down-to-earth cop stuff such as taking care of an accident or pulling off a drunk driver.

Actually, driving around town and pulling off bad guys was fun as it was something obviously not seen in another Quest before. The game actually came with a full-size map of Lytton, map which could still be used for the sequel.

As with any movie, the game reaches an expected climax at the end. However, I remember it being very intense.

The Bad
As it was the case with other Sierra games, the game went over instantly if you performed the wrong action, action which could be rather dull in this particular game. An approach à la LucasArts (in which games you have to be reallly reckless to die) could have been taken since this could get frustrating.

For example, if you forget to walk around your car before driving it, you'll end up having an accident since you didn't inspect it throughfully. Don't even try ordering a beer at the bar when you're on duty, this isn't allowed either and the game will end abruptly if you do so.

Traffic lights... The same goes on if you run over red lights. However, when driving you have a 90 degree bird's eye view of your car and lights are shown using simple rectangles on the street. Considering many people still had monochrome monitors back then, how in hell were you supposed to guess the color if you had one? I had to resign driving around with my siren on to prevent dying!

Technologically, the game didn't bring much, since the AGI interpreter used to develop this game was pretty limited in itself, especially the low resolution which was plain ugly.

In order to advance in one point of the game, you had to play poker - and win a lot. Don't laugh, but I've never played poker before trying this game. Even if it came with a reference card to show you how to play, it was simply annoying.



The Bottom Line
Even if it's old, it's a must if you're interested in being a police officer for a while.

DOS · by Olivier Masse (443) · 1999

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cell Block Love

The love story between Sonny and Marie is retold - from Marie's point of view, and tongue-in-cheek - in the song Cell Block Love in Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out.

Development

The game was written by Jim Walls, a former California State Police Officer, who also wrote the following two Police Quest games.

Humour

  • The unmarked cadillac used by the narcs is said to be confiscated from a recent arrest when Sonny looks at it personally, but if the player selects "See Object" and selects the key to the cadillac, the game will inform him that it is a government issued, unmarked car.
  • If Sonny trades his integrity for some quick sex with Helen Hots, she will give him a telephone number to call her at. If he calls this number, he may reach the Police Commissioner's wife. It doesn't end well for his career.

References

  • When the feathers of the chicken on the desk fall on the ground and the player types "pick up feather" the reply will be "Do that in King's Quest III"
  • When the chicken is in Dooley's office, the Astro Chicken tune from Space Quest 3, 4 and 5 is played.
  • Entering certain words in the crime computer comes up with amusing results. Some that work are programmers 'Al Lowe,' 'Ken Williams,' and 'Jim Walls.' Various dirty words also have listings.
  • Another King’s Quest III reference can be found in the beginning of the game. Enter the briefing room and pick up the newspaper lying there. Browse through it until you stumble upon an article about a town called Daventry under siege by a three-headed dragon. Daventry is the town in which the fantasy adventure King’s Quest III is played. In the article, a gnome is mentioned as well. This could well be the one sitting on a chair in front of a cabin at the end of King’s Quest III.
  • The pimp from Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards makes a cameo appearance in the game. He can be found behind bars at the Lytton City Jail.

Information also contributed by -Chris, B14ck W01f, Erwin Bergervoet, Jason Mugrave, Ju, just Ju..., Sciere and uclafalcon

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Related Sites +

  • Crap Shoot
    A humorous review on PC Gamer
  • Hints for Police Quest 1
    These hints will help you solve the game.
  • ScummVM
    supports the DOS, Macintosh, Amiga and Apple IIgs versions of Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel under Windows, Linux, Macintosh and other platforms.

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  • MobyGames ID: 146
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Andy Roark.

Amiga added by POMAH. Apple IIgs added by Kabushi. Apple II added by Terok Nor. Atari ST added by Belboz. Macintosh added by lampadario.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Jeanne, Jayson Firestorm, Macs Black, Patrick Bregger.

Game added May 29, 1999. Last modified January 29, 2024.