Police Quest
Encyclopedia
Police Quest is a series of computer games produced and published by Sierra On-Line between 1987
and 1993
. The original series was composed of four adventure game
s, the first three of which were designed by former policeman Jim Walls
, with the fourth title designed by former LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates.
A spin-off from the Police Quest series, Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT
, was released in 1995
but was a FMV tactical simulator rather than a traditional graphic adventure
. Both SWAT and the real-time strategy
game SWAT 2 still carried the Police Quest name, although subsequent titles in the series would drop the Police Quest title.
Released in 1987 using Sierra's Adventure Game Interpreter
parser
engine
, Police Quest cast the player as Sonny Bonds, a 15 year veteran police officer in the fictional town of Lytton, California
. Assigned to traffic duty, Sonny investigates what appears to be a simple car crash but turns out to be a homicide
. Sonny continues to give a traffic violation citation, single-handedly face a tough gang of drunken bikers, and make a DUI arrest. As the game progresses, he goes from patrol to temporary narcotic
s detective
and finally undercover
, tracking "The Death Angel", a murderous drug dealer named Jessie Bains. Sonny is assisted by "Sweet Cheeks" Marie, his former high school sweetheart who is now working as a prostitute.
The game is the most realistic of those developed by Sierra in the late 1980s when compared to Leisure Suit Larry
, King's Quest
, or Space Quest
, and featured many puzzles where proper police procedure is required to succeed. It was released for the IBM PC
, Apple II
, Macintosh
, Amiga
, Atari ST
and Apple IIGS
. A SCI1.1 enhanced remake in 256 color
VGA
was released in 1992, which was also the first game released in the series not to feature dead ends.
Released in 1988. After arresting Jessie Bains, Bonds is permanently promoted to the homicide division. He begins dating Marie Wilkans, who helped him in his undercover work in exchange for the dismissal of prostitution charges against her. A dark shadow is cast over his happy life, however, when Bains escapes from prison and seeks revenge. With the help of his partner Keith, Bonds must protect his girlfriend's life as well as his own while pursuing The Death Angel once again. Despite Sonny's efforts, however, Bains kills several people who were involved in his arrest and abducts Marie. Sonny pursues Bains to Steelton, the current home of Donald Colby (a reformed drug pusher from the original Police Quest).
Police Quest II is notably more 'mature' than the first title in the series, and relies much more on proper procedure; failure to properly maintain Sonny's firearm at various points throughout the game will cause it to malfunction
or misfire, and proceeding into a dangerous situation without proper backup will usually prove fatal.
Sonny and Marie married following Bains' death. Promoted once more, Sonny now has to deal with rampant crime as a drug cartel
begins operating in Lytton and evidence of a satanic cult starts to appear. When Marie is stabbed in a mall parking lot, Sonny's police work becomes personal.
Sonny must deal with a partner with questionable ethics as well as find patterns in crime to find his next lead. The Bains family also plays a role in this game.
Released in 1991 for SCI
version 1, PQ3 is completely mouse-driven. It was only released for the IBM PC
and the Amiga
. Before the completion of this game, Jim Walls
had left Sierra for reasons that have still not been publicly explained, and SWAT
founder Daryl F. Gates was named to take over the Police Quest series. As a result of Wall's early leaving, Jane Jensen
had to finish the final in-game dialogue and messages.
Daryl F. Gates' first game for Sierra departed completely from the style of the previous games. The player was no longer cast as Sonny Bonds, but as John Carey; the action was no longer in fictional Lytton, but in Los Angeles
, California
. Carey, a LAPD
homicide detective whose best friend was killed in the line of duty, must track down a serial murderer in L.A.
Numerous mature themes are depicted in the game, including hate crimes, Neo-Nazism
, and youth involved in crime. Graphic imagery within the game also includes the body of a child murdered by gang violence and a severed head in a refrigerator.
Using SCI2, the biggest difference visually is the use of scanned photos as backgrounds, unlike the hand-drawn scenery used before, and character sprites
of higher quality. It was released in 1993, for both IBM PC
and Macintosh. The game is generally incompatible with Windows 95
, and later editions; the game may crash at certain points in the game, e.g. the shooting gallery and the shoot out. This, however, was fixed with the release of the CD version with Windows installer.
This game is the most 'mature' of the main-series Police Quest games; while previously only a peripheral element, the themes of drug abuse, police corruption and gang violence play prominent roles in this game. Police procedure is less of an element in the game, pushed aside for the sake of storytelling.
and are in different video game genre
s. The first of the games was later re-released as part of the Police Quest Collection Series (the second Police Quest compilation). The three SWAT games were later released in a compilation entitled "Police Quest: SWAT Generation."
was a full motion video
(FMV) tactical simulation. It retained some adventure game elements such as the inventory and had similarities to other FMV games released around the same time by Sierra. Although not referred to as PQV in the title screen, it is referred to as such in several other locations in the game including the files. It was re-released as part of the second Police Quest Collection, and later as part of Police Quest: SWAT Generation.
is the sixth and final game of the original Police Quest series. It is a real-time strategy
game. It retained only a few adventure game elements in the form of an inventory and use of a few puzzle items such as a pizza (to draw a suspect out of a house). It is referred to as PQ6 in a few locations including its files. Sonny Bonds is one of the agents you may employ in the game. It was included as part of the Police Quest: SWAT Generation compilation.
are both tactical
first person shooters, the only games of that type in the series. SWAT 4 is the final game in the full eight game series, though by this point it had nothing to do with the original games (with the exception of Sonny Bonds as a character).
The second re-release collection was released in 1997 as "Police Quest Collection Series". It contained Police Quest 1-3, Open Season, and SWAT.
In 2003, the first three SWAT games were released in the "Police Quest: SWAT Generation" compilation.
In September 2006, Vivendi Games
re-released a new "The Four Most Wanted" collection including four games of the series. It included four classic Police Quest games in one compilation (minus the original AGI version of PQ1). The new package is designed to be compatible with Windows XP
, thanks to the use of the DOSBox
emulator.
Since January 18, 2011 Police Quest 1+2+3+4 pack (including the first four games of the series) and Police Quest: SWAT 1+2 (Police Quest: SWAT and Police Quest: SWAT 2) is internationally available at Good Old Games in the form of digital download. The former collection is much like the Vivendi collection and lacks the AGI version of Police Quest 1.
1987 in video gaming
-Notable releases:* January 14, Nintendo releases Zelda II: The Adventure of Link in January for the Famicom Disk System in Japan only. The game would go unreleased in America for nearly two years afterwards.* February 20, Konami releases Contra...
and 1993
1993 in video gaming
-Events:*March — In Sweden, the Swedish video game magazine Super PLAY starts. The original name is Super Power.*Midway Games embroiled in controversy for its game Mortal Kombat from 1992 when the game is launched for video game consoles in 1993....
. The original series was composed of four adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s, the first three of which were designed by former policeman Jim Walls
Jim Walls
Jim Walls is a retired police officer, who in 1971 joined the California Highway Patrol. He retired after 15 years on the force after a shooting incident that left him traumatized....
, with the fourth title designed by former LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates.
A spin-off from the Police Quest series, Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT
SWAT series
The SWAT series are the follow-up of Sierra's classic adventure game series Police Quest. The adventure game decreased in popularity by the mid-nineties and Jim Walls, the former series designer, left Sierra and was replaced by real-life SWAT founder Daryl F. Gates. After Gates released Open...
, was released in 1995
1995 in video gaming
-Events:*May 11 – Introduction of trade magazine GameWeek *May 11-16 — The 1st annual Electronic Entertainment Expo is held in Los Angeles, California...
but was a FMV tactical simulator rather than a traditional graphic adventure
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
. Both SWAT and the real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
game SWAT 2 still carried the Police Quest name, although subsequent titles in the series would drop the Police Quest title.
Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel
Adventure Game Interpreter
The Adventure Game Interpreter is a game engine which Sierra On-Line used through most of the 1980s to create and run animated, color adventure games...
parser
Parsing
In computer science and linguistics, parsing, or, more formally, syntactic analysis, is the process of analyzing a text, made of a sequence of tokens , to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given formal grammar...
engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
, Police Quest cast the player as Sonny Bonds, a 15 year veteran police officer in the fictional town of Lytton, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Assigned to traffic duty, Sonny investigates what appears to be a simple car crash but turns out to be a homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
. Sonny continues to give a traffic violation citation, single-handedly face a tough gang of drunken bikers, and make a DUI arrest. As the game progresses, he goes from patrol to temporary narcotic
Narcotic
The term narcotic originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with any sleep-inducing properties. In the United States of America it has since become associated with opioids, commonly morphine and heroin and their derivatives, such as hydrocodone. The term is, today, imprecisely...
s detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
and finally undercover
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
, tracking "The Death Angel", a murderous drug dealer named Jessie Bains. Sonny is assisted by "Sweet Cheeks" Marie, his former high school sweetheart who is now working as a prostitute.
The game is the most realistic of those developed by Sierra in the late 1980s when compared to Leisure Suit Larry
Leisure Suit Larry
Leisure Suit Larry is a series of adventure games written by Al Lowe and published by Sierra from 1987 to 2009. The main character, whose full name is Larry Laffer, is a balding, dorky, double entendre-speaking, leisure suit-wearing "loser" in his 40s...
, King's Quest
King's Quest
King's Quest is an adventure game series created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following the success of its first installment, the series was primarily responsible for building the reputation...
, or Space Quest
Space Quest
Space Quest is a series of six comedic science fiction computer games that follow the adventures of a hapless janitor named Roger Wilco, as he campaigns through the galaxy for "truth, justice and really clean floors"....
, and featured many puzzles where proper police procedure is required to succeed. It was released for the IBM PC
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
, Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
, Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
and Apple IIGS
Apple IIGS
The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...
. A SCI1.1 enhanced remake in 256 color
8-bit color
8-bit color graphics is a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, such that each pixel is represented by one 8-bit byte. The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256....
VGA
Video Graphics Array
Video Graphics Array refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, but through its widespread adoption has also come to mean either an analog computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector or the 640×480 resolution...
was released in 1992, which was also the first game released in the series not to feature dead ends.
Police Quest II: The Vengeance
Police Quest II is notably more 'mature' than the first title in the series, and relies much more on proper procedure; failure to properly maintain Sonny's firearm at various points throughout the game will cause it to malfunction
Firearm malfunction
A firearm malfunction is the partial or complete failure of a firearm to operate as intended. Malfunctions range from temporary and relatively safe situations, such as a casing that didn't eject, to potentially dangerous occurrences that may permanently damage the gun and cause injury or death...
or misfire, and proceeding into a dangerous situation without proper backup will usually prove fatal.
Police Quest III: The Kindred
Drug cartel
Drug cartels are criminal organizations developed with the primary purpose of promoting and controlling drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when the largest trafficking...
begins operating in Lytton and evidence of a satanic cult starts to appear. When Marie is stabbed in a mall parking lot, Sonny's police work becomes personal.
Sonny must deal with a partner with questionable ethics as well as find patterns in crime to find his next lead. The Bains family also plays a role in this game.
Released in 1991 for SCI
Sierra's Creative Interpreter
Sierra's Creative Interpreter is the scripting language created by Jeff Stephenson of Sierra On-Line for its adventure games after the older AGI, and the runtime environment for such adventure games....
version 1, PQ3 is completely mouse-driven. It was only released for the IBM PC
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
and the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
. Before the completion of this game, Jim Walls
Jim Walls
Jim Walls is a retired police officer, who in 1971 joined the California Highway Patrol. He retired after 15 years on the force after a shooting incident that left him traumatized....
had left Sierra for reasons that have still not been publicly explained, and SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
founder Daryl F. Gates was named to take over the Police Quest series. As a result of Wall's early leaving, Jane Jensen
Jane Jensen
Jane Jensen is the game designer of the popular and critically acclaimed Gabriel Knight adventure games and author of the novels Judgement Day and Dante's Equation....
had to finish the final in-game dialogue and messages.
Police Quest: Open Season
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Carey, a LAPD
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
homicide detective whose best friend was killed in the line of duty, must track down a serial murderer in L.A.
Numerous mature themes are depicted in the game, including hate crimes, Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
, and youth involved in crime. Graphic imagery within the game also includes the body of a child murdered by gang violence and a severed head in a refrigerator.
Using SCI2, the biggest difference visually is the use of scanned photos as backgrounds, unlike the hand-drawn scenery used before, and character sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
of higher quality. It was released in 1993, for both IBM PC
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
and Macintosh. The game is generally incompatible with Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, and later editions; the game may crash at certain points in the game, e.g. the shooting gallery and the shoot out. This, however, was fixed with the release of the CD version with Windows installer.
This game is the most 'mature' of the main-series Police Quest games; while previously only a peripheral element, the themes of drug abuse, police corruption and gang violence play prominent roles in this game. Police procedure is less of an element in the game, pushed aside for the sake of storytelling.
Police Quest: SWAT series
Although the Police Quest series continued for two more games, these releases became the SWAT seriesSWAT series
The SWAT series are the follow-up of Sierra's classic adventure game series Police Quest. The adventure game decreased in popularity by the mid-nineties and Jim Walls, the former series designer, left Sierra and was replaced by real-life SWAT founder Daryl F. Gates. After Gates released Open...
and are in different video game genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s. The first of the games was later re-released as part of the Police Quest Collection Series (the second Police Quest compilation). The three SWAT games were later released in a compilation entitled "Police Quest: SWAT Generation."
Police Quest: SWAT
The fifth game of Police Quest series, and the first SWAT, Police Quest: SWATDaryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT
Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT was originally the fifth game in the Police Quest series . It is an interactive movie type game released in 1995 that suffered the same fate as most titles of the same genre released during the so-called Multimedia Explosion in the mid-nineties...
was a full motion video
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
(FMV) tactical simulation. It retained some adventure game elements such as the inventory and had similarities to other FMV games released around the same time by Sierra. Although not referred to as PQV in the title screen, it is referred to as such in several other locations in the game including the files. It was re-released as part of the second Police Quest Collection, and later as part of Police Quest: SWAT Generation.
Police Quest: SWAT 2
Police Quest: SWAT 2Police Quest: SWAT 2
Police Quest: SWAT 2 is the sixth game in the Police Quest series . It is an isometric view, squad-level RTT game in the mold of the classic X-Com or Jagged Alliance games. The game takes place in real-time, with the player issuing orders to individual SWAT team members from a three-quarter...
is the sixth and final game of the original Police Quest series. It is a real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
game. It retained only a few adventure game elements in the form of an inventory and use of a few puzzle items such as a pizza (to draw a suspect out of a house). It is referred to as PQ6 in a few locations including its files. Sonny Bonds is one of the agents you may employ in the game. It was included as part of the Police Quest: SWAT Generation compilation.
SWAT 3 and 4
SWAT 3 and SWAT 4SWAT 4
SWAT 4 is a tactical first-person shooter computer game developed by Irrational Games and published by Vivendi Universal Games on April 5, 2005. It was built on Irrational Games's Vengeance engine powered by Unreal Engine 2.0 technology...
are both tactical
Tactical shooter
A tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter game that includes both first-person shooters and third-person shooters. These games typically simulate realistic combat, thus making tactics and caution more important than quick reflexes in other action games...
first person shooters, the only games of that type in the series. SWAT 4 is the final game in the full eight game series, though by this point it had nothing to do with the original games (with the exception of Sonny Bonds as a character).
Collections and Re-releases
Sierra's first re-release of the games in a collection was in 1995 as "Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest Collection: The Four Most Wanted".The second re-release collection was released in 1997 as "Police Quest Collection Series". It contained Police Quest 1-3, Open Season, and SWAT.
In 2003, the first three SWAT games were released in the "Police Quest: SWAT Generation" compilation.
Vivendi Games
Vivendi Games, formerly known as Vivendi Universal Games, was the holdings company for Sierra Entertainment and Blizzard Entertainment. Vivendi Games was founded as Vivendi Universal Games after Vivendi bought Universal Studios in the early 2000s...
re-released a new "The Four Most Wanted" collection including four games of the series. It included four classic Police Quest games in one compilation (minus the original AGI version of PQ1). The new package is designed to be compatible with Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
, thanks to the use of the DOSBox
DOSBox
DOSBox is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible computer running MS-DOS. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. DOSBox is free software....
emulator.
Since January 18, 2011 Police Quest 1+2+3+4 pack (including the first four games of the series) and Police Quest: SWAT 1+2 (Police Quest: SWAT and Police Quest: SWAT 2) is internationally available at Good Old Games in the form of digital download. The former collection is much like the Vivendi collection and lacks the AGI version of Police Quest 1.
See also
- Blue ForceBlue ForceBlue Force is a computer game released in 1993 by former Police Quest designer Jim Walls.-Synopsis:The player is a rookie police officer named Jake Ryan. Jake's father was a police officer, which prompted Jake to join the force. Jake's father was killed in the line of duty and his case has not yet...
- Codename: IcemanCodename: ICEMANCodename: ICEMAN is a graphical adventure game made with the SCI engine and published by the American computer game company Sierra On-Line in 1989. The lead designer was Jim Walls, who also created the Police Quest games...
- SWAT series
- Space QuestSpace QuestSpace Quest is a series of six comedic science fiction computer games that follow the adventures of a hapless janitor named Roger Wilco, as he campaigns through the galaxy for "truth, justice and really clean floors"....
- King's QuestKing's QuestKing's Quest is an adventure game series created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following the success of its first installment, the series was primarily responsible for building the reputation...