My personal favorite early PC adventure games. Police Quest 4: Open Season (PQ4) is the true masterpiece here. Those were the days when CD-ROMs were all the rage in the gaming world. Consoles had the hardware consistency and shelf-life advantage over an average desktop long before the touch-screen-phone took over my world. Before those abominations, the avant-garde video game world consisted of brave, bored, spoiled, or insane programmers and we the gamers who could get ahold of a good PC-CD-ROM system back in the 90s....
The "Space Quest" and "King's Quest" series that acted as a Sierra counterpart to the "Police Quest" series also deserves mention here. Hell! Even Tom Hanks and the movie "Big" can be referenced here as far as the type-in interface games from the 80s go...Teaching kids to type and/or write through fantasy adventures was born in my era of childhood.
The "Quest for Glory" games are also an honorable mention here.
Lee, the older brother of my buddy Ray (the WASP) introduced me to adventure gaming on the PC with a guided walk-through of "Space Quest 2: Vohauls' Revenge" for his brother and me WAY BACK in the day. He would later introduce me to the idea of a "save game" with "Space Quest 3." There wasn't a mouse back then, just a joystick and a keyboard. Lee would type in commands to the computer and narrate the action.
Sometime later my buddy Steve's mom would buy Steve Police Quest 3: The kindred (PQ3) for his birthday circa 1992-1993 and accelerate the imagination and reasoning of all of us in his group! I can still remember looking at and being interested in the box that "Police Quest 3: The Kindred" came in. It was bigger than the ol' Nintendo Gamepak. Oooohh! A police computer game, wow! Does it talk?
I was already a fan of detective stories since my father took me to see "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" in the movie theaters back in 1989. Years later the Police Quest games gave me a realistic simulation of reality that did it's best to please/entertain/educate with the technology at the time. PQ4 will always be my fav for the story and the audio! We kids were mesmerized by a game that could talk!
Daryl F. Gates and the Los Angeles Police Department were the adventure game champs before Tex Murphy arrived in my life, not to mention my beloved Elder Scrolls! This collection also has the Jim Walls adventures, which are great if one is able to read, think, and use an 80s imagination. All the games in this collection are worthy in my eyes. To be honest I can only claim to have completed all of these games except for the original Police Quest (not the VGA re-make). I also confess that I had to use hint manuals and guides.
Many years ago I found an old "Police Quest 2: The Vengeance (PQ2)" copy for sale on the ol' 3 1/2 inch floppy disks somewhere in the discount rack at some department store (possibly Target circa 1993-1994). It was sometime after I'd played PQ3, and PQ4 was brand new. I didn't have the money on hand and would have had to trade some chores, babysitting time, or some other spiritual currency compatible with my Catholic upbringing at the time to afford PQ2, so I had to pass. It was some years later that I realized the chance I missed at capturing that rare fish of an ol' PC game, I wish I had a DeLorean time machine to help me to correct that mistake. On the contrary, I did succeed in purchasing and preserving my beloved "Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest Collection: The Four Most Wanted," even if I didn't have a copy of the original releases of PQ3 and PQ4 like Steve. I have so many beloved memories attached to this collection. There was even a time when my friends and I would take turns acting out our own versions of Police Quest....complete with our own memos and angry citizens. Wolfenstein and Doom where all about shooting King' Quest and Quest for Glory were fantasy, but Police Quest was a realistic and gritty game about thinking and being a strong but tolerant and intelligent warrior who could take insults, collect evidence, and find the bad guys.
Years after I aquired the ol Daryl F. Gates Police Quest Collection (the 4 most wanted here on Steam) I would spend a rare 50$ Best Buy gift certificate on Police Quest:SWAT and become an angry, disappointed 15 year old....What a disappointment! That mistake is absent here. Nothin' here but gaming history in my happy PC adventure gaming world. Contemporary gamers and historians will note the use of reasoning and adventure, in the American Edgar Allen Poe style, with a touch of Sherlock Holmes and modern realism.
Police Quest is here to stay!
The first type-in interface adventure game I ever played was "Hugo's House of Horrors" which was a goofy often frustrating haunted house game that my friends and I spent hours taking turns to try and solve! The only type-in interface game I solved was PQ2 when I aquired the ol' "Daryl F. Gates: The 4 Most Wanted" back in the day. So glad to see this collection on Steam!
PQ3 deserves credit as an early point and click adventure game success as well as my introduction to the series, but PQ4 had the CD-ROM sound FX and Map-activated dialogue.
The driving simulation in the early police quest games was rather bothersome. Talk about dated! I once loved and still adore the "Police Quest 1: In Pursuit of Death Angel remake (PQ1RM)" and actually prefer the driving engine on that game to the ol' PQ3 driving simulator. PQ4 has no driving simulation, which is nice. What helped me get passed the dated type-interface of PQ2 is the lack of having to spend time just learning how to drive and not getting into a wreck. PQ1RM at least gives you a map with a GPS, while PQ3 gives you a manual with a map and a perp tracking map with a GPS, but you still don't know the city (Lyton, California) that you're supposed to be patrolling! The visuals are quite limited behind the wheel in PQ3. There's just no fancy overhead view to be able to determine visually the direction you're driving in!
PQ3 is very distinguished in my warped brain for not only perfecting the point and click adventure game interface, but also accelerated my obsession and respect for a good murder mystery story! Sometime later during the DOOM years PQ4 arrives and brings CD-ROM FX and Graphics to a point and click interface...and the rest is history. PQ4 has everything! Racial tensions, innocent victims, deranged maniacs, damaged loners, strip clubs, judicial red-tape, and aggressive reporters!
For years I found myself sneaking and spending hours on my parents' desktop playing the "Police Quest" games and "Betrayal at Krondor" until the sun came up!
If there was one game that deserved any kind of educational value it would be an old school style police quest game. In this collection is a stylish historical trip. There's dialogue, environment, characters, controversy narrative, and a side of civic value to be learned. A true titan in any decent history of gaming!
