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)

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

Interesting Police simulation, a different kind of adventure

The Good
Although I had played nearly all of Sierra’s "big" titles – the 'Space Quest's, the 'King’s Quest's, the 'Leisure Suit Larry's, etc. back in their heyday, 'Police Quest' was one title that for whatever reason, I didn’t get to play for some years. Having only got to finally play it only in more recent years, it’s interesting to see how this game holds up without the nostalgic tint that somewhat biases so many reviews, including my own. Whilst the majority of other Quests from Sierra concentrated more on fantasy elements, the sometimes over-looked 'Police Quest' deals in real-life Police procedure, with the only way to win being doing things “by the book”, step-by-step, as if you were a genuine cop. The fact that it was written by Jim Walls, a former real-life cop in California helps give the game it's more "realistic" approach, as opposed to the glamorous, not-stop-shootout image of policing given in so many other games, and movies…

This adventure sees you as law officer Sonny Bonds, starting off as an “on the beat” cop responding to routine calls. As the adventure develops, you find yourself climbing the promotion ladder as you set off in pursuit of the murderous, drug running “Death Angel”. This is most probably Sierra’s most down-to-earth and realistic adventure game ever. Most of it is quite serious, with just the odd line of humour thrown in here or there.

While LucasArts generally surpassed Sierra’s adventure games in later years, PQ shows that when Sierra tried, they could come up with something really original. A shame this creativity waned slightly in later releases, but that’s another story.

The graphics… hard to decide whether this should be under “good” or “bad”; a little of both, really. They are adequate for their time, looking typically Sierra-ish of the era – anyone who’s ever played a couple of Sierra adventure games will know what I mean; they all have a very similar design look. While looking very dated and hardly pushing the limits of EGA gaming forward, the graphics do the job, I guess.

The realism and insistence of getting every little thing right and “by the book” can be awkward to get to grips with at first, but once I’d got into the early stages of play, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself drawn into it much, much more than I had at first expected.

I found part of the game's appeal was for it's variety of situations and places to visit in the course of your day-to-day Police work, giving the game a far less linear feel that in many other adventure games.

The Bad
The game insists you follow Police procedure (as described in the game manual) to the letter, and is VERY harsh in insisting on this. Many, MANY times during play, if you forget to do one small thing, the game is over. For example, if you forget to check over your squad car EVERY TIME before going out on patrol… you loose.

I consider myself a hardened adventure gamer, eventually being able to find my way through most situations that present themselves in adventures, but I must confess that I consulted hint and walk-though guides quite a few times when playing this game! I defy anyone to get maximum points on this game without playing through at least a dozen times! Even with aid of walk-through I was some points short of a perfect score at the end.

But the game's meanness doesn’t end there. It’s really HARSH at times. For example, at some points in the game, you must shower before changing clothes - if you forget to turn the shower off after you, the game docks you a point!!

Driving around the city of Lytton with little coloured lines representing cars - it’s very awkward, and even for the era, it looks pretty tacky! What’s more, driving badly (wrong side of the road, etc.) is fine, but jump a red light (in normal drive mode, not pursuit) and you’re scolded for breaking procedure and have to restore.

It’s very easy to miss something vital or to mess things up, so a LOT of saving and restoring, with a long back-list of saves, is needed (even by Sierra’s standards!)

All this can make the game a little hard to get into, and it’s certainly not to everyone’s taste.

The graphics, whilst they do they job and are actually quite good in places, are a little unimaginative in others, and are just so very Sierra-ish! Sonny looks practically identical to Gwydion, the lead in ‘King’s Quest III’, not to mention a passing resemblance to early renderings of 'Leisure Suit Larry', and several other Sierra game characters

The early text interface doesn’t ease matters any, either. Whereas later games’ interfaces would, for example, open doors for you automatically, here you have to manually type “open door” every time, making play seem a little long-winded sometimes. (Oh, and one trivial thing that niggled me: The text cursor at the bottom of the screen. Normally the text input line begins with a >, but for this adventure is was <, back to front. A teeny thing, but it bugged me none-the-less!)

Personally, I found the game's ending was a little flat, and almost an anti-climax after some of the scenes earlier in the game. The last few actions are done on "autopilot", which I found rather disappointing; I would have liked to have been more involved.

Oh, and the Poker game. For some reason, Sierra went through a long phase where they for some reason felt obliged to stick in some sort of gambling game as part of there adventures, and here is no exception. Having to play the damned game once is enough, but to have to play it twice… grrr! All-in-all, things really did feel like they began to run out of creativity towards the end of the game, a few more ideas would have been welcome.

While I believe that some of Sierra’s later VGA remakes were pointless, this game is one that does benefit in many ways, with some of the more obscure, over-picky bits toned down for that release, though the lack of text interface does take away from a lot of the feeling of involvement.

The Bottom Line
A game that won't be to all adventure players' tastes, but if you’re looking for something a little different and more realistic, this one’s not a bad bet. If you’re willing to forgive the very dated graphics and have a walk-through handy to help you through the numerous over-harsh and obscure areas, there is some enjoyment to be had. You’ll either like it or loathe it, but if you like it, you’ll probably like it A LOT. (However I do feel that it's one of the very few Sierra games where the later VGA remake is generally a better play, even if it does loose the user input interface.)

DOS · by Jayson Firestorm (143) · 2004

A classic adventure with loads of originality

The Good
This game was the second Sierra adventure I played, and it still is one of the most memorable. The character development is awesome with a wide range of NPC's all with distinct personality's and stories to learn throughout the game. The humour in the game is great - from the locker room banter to the angry sergent to all the funny descriptions at each location you go to.

This game redefined what adventures were when it was released - up until then adventures were solely based in the fantasy realm whereas this was an engaging story based on real-life happenings and characters. The need to follow police procedures to advance the game and gain maximum points was a great way of giving the game more depth and also implementing the copy-protection - and it was a very convincing way of making you feel like you really were a cop.

The learning curve of the game is nicely set with a few easy patrols and crimes to solve early on. As you delve deeper into the plot, more characters are revealed and more of the overall story becomes apparent - and everything interconnects nicely, with things getting harder as you get deeper into the game. The finale is brilliant and a truly great ending to the game, after the perfectly paced build up.

This game has that magical 'charm' that most of the early Sierra adventures seemed to have, but which got lost pretty much after the first batch of point and click adventures. Definitely lovingly created. It is possible to finish this game and miss out on a lot of the extra points and a couple of interesting side stories to uncover too. A good incentive to replay the game to find out everything.

The graphics are the blocky AGI original style, but are never the less colourful, charming and convincing, drawing you magically into the world of Lytton. Great atmosphere, and a who lot more attractive than the rubbish VGA re-release.

The Bad
Not a lot wrong with this title - it probably wouldn't be that much fun to your fan-boy, top-20 commercial game players who saturate the market these days (anyone who bought the bland Matrix Reloaded game for instance), but anyone who has a love of great adventure games should check this out and play it through - without using any walkthrough's (it really makes it a lot more fun and satisfying). Also, play it using the Sarien AGI parser because you get the three-channel sound instead of PC speaker nonsense.

The Moby score of this game is a bit low in my opinion - perhaps conceived by someone who played it using a walkthrough or something and not enjoying it fully. Or maybe I'm biased because I loved these Sierra games dearly when growing up. I would've given it 4.5 out of 5. It doesn't deserve 5 out of 5 simply because there are other adventure games that are even better than this - Kings Quest 3 and Monkey Island 1 for example.

The Bottom Line
A classic adventure, that drags you into its world with lovable characters, a great plot, cool cartoon graphics, awesome set-pieces and is a perfectly paced game that escalates into a worthy conclusion. This and Police Quest 2 are by and far the best in the series, and are right up there with the best Sierra adventures (Kings Quest 3, Space Quest 1-4, Manhunter, Larry 1-3).

DOS · by Anthony Bull (24) · 2003

[ 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.