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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 games, 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 tactical simulator rather than a 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.

Games in the series

Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel

Released in 1987 using Sierra's AGI parser engine, Police Quest cast the player as Sonny Bonds, a rookie 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. As the game progresses, he goes from patrol to temporary narcotics 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 by the late eighties (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, Amiga, Atari ST and Apple IIGS. A SCI 1.1 enhanced version in 256 color VGA was released in 1992.

Police Quest II: The Vengeance

After arresting Jessie Bains, Bonds is permanently promoted to the homicide division. He begins dating Marie Wilkins, 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. 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 abducts Marie. Sonny pursues Bains to Steelton, the current home of Donald Colby (a reformed drug pusher from the original Police Quest).

Police Quest III: The Kindred

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. After this game, Jim Walls left Sierra for reasons that have still not been publicly explained, and SWAT founder Daryl F. Gates was named to take over of the Police Quest series.

Police Quest IV: Open Season

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 African American celebrities 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 the final SCI32 version, 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.

References to the game

Although the Police Quest series lived in name for two more games, these releases were actually part of the SWAT series and in a different genre altogether. In SWAT 2, Sonny Bonds is one of the agents you may employ, and in the most recent incarnation of the SWAT games, SWAT 4, the instructor of the tutorial introduces himself as Sonny Bonds.

Re-release

In September of 2006, Vivendi Games re-released all four classic Police Quest games in one compilation. The new package is designed to be compatible with Windows XP.

References

"Game Information Police Quest Collection", "Sierra", Accessed May 23, 2007.


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External links

A brief history of Police Quest
Synopsis and hints for the Police Quest Series
Police Quest series at MobyGames
The Music of Police Quest
More Police Quest music
Police Quest Collection Homepage

v • d • e Police Quest series

Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel · The Vengeance · The Kindred · Open Season

Police Quest