Blue Force

The Good
In the early 90s, a small game company called Tsunami Media produced a series of games. I didn't hear of them until I purchased a game called Blue Force created by California police officer (retired) Jim Walls of Police Quest fame. Jim left Sierra to work with Tsunami.

The story opens when a killer murders happy couple John and Jackie Ryan. Son Jake finds out about their murder and is forced to live with his grandmother who lives by the ocean. Eleven years later, he decides to become a police officer at the Jackson Beach Police Department, in order to find his parent's killer.

While investigating the murders, you have to deal with several situations, including a woman being held hostage by a crazed gunman which is one of the people you have to arrest, along with a drunk driver, and a person who is convicted of processing illegal firearms.

Your old-time friend, Lyle Jamison, assists you in your investigation to find the killer by helping you collect evidence that will help uncover the killer. When Jake once collects some evidence, he has flashbacks of the night his parents were killed.

The gameplay is similar to every Police Quest game, as you have to make arrests while doing an investigation. You perform your actions through a series of icons. Clicking your right-mouse button brings up a police badge that allows you to select only four actions: walk, talk, look, and touch. Your inventory is displayed at the bottom of the screen and you can click the icon with the left or right arrow key to cycle through your inventory. Above these is a counter that awards your points for picking up objects, making an arrest, etc.

Travelling from place to place is done by using your motorcycle. You do this by simply hopping on the cycle, and pressing the button marked “IGNITION” to turn it on. In a few seconds, you get a birds-eye view of the city. You only need to drag the cursor on several buildings until the game identifies them. Clicking the cursor on the identified building travels you to that location. The cycle also comes equipped with a radio, which makes it possible to receive messages from Dispatch telling you that a situation is in progress, and to respond with the appropriate radio codes, discussed in the game’s manual.

The graphics are beautifully hand-drawn and all of the actors are digitally inserted in the game. And as for the sound and music, they are average. Either of them can be played on an Adlib, Sound Blaster, and Roland. Even if you can also play music through the PC Speaker (which doesn’t produce much sound output), speech cannot be played through it.

The Bad
There is also a CD-ROM version of Blue Force, which I brought ages ago. Along with an interview of Jim Walls and some CD tracks of the game’s music, it is basically the floppy version being placed on the CD.

I can’t think of something to whinge about, except the map. Instead of the birds-eye view, you could get to fiddle with the bike’s controls, stopping at each red traffic light and making the right turns in order to get to your location faster. This is seen in PQ1, PQ1VGA, and PQ3. This feature is missed in Blue Force.

Finally, as Tsunami made the effort to add speech in the installation program when you select a soundcard, what was wrong with adding some speech in the game, particularly in the CD-ROM version?

The Bottom Line
If you like all the Police Quest series, or if you want to practice the techniques used in the game before deciding to become a police officer, Blue Force would be the game for you. ****