I want next gen Police Quest

[ElGuapo]

Not SWAT, but Police Quest. Patrol cities, stop crimes without using force, have a main storyline where you resolve pre set situations. Talk down a barracaided suspect, help investigate a crime, go on an anti-drug task force, deal with a riot, etc. Have parts of the story where you maybe do different things like fly a helicopter during a high speed chase, patrol on foot then graduate to radio car patrol, quiet a mod that's rioting, get higher ranks, etc.

Make it have next gen graphics, maybe an over the shoulder view with dialog options and a simple inventory management system.

Achievements: Write 10 speeding tickets, Arrest 5 suspects without harm to them or yourself, etc.

We need a game where you actually follow the rules and don't just gun down everythign in site. I'd play it.

[Hawkeye Fierce]

I could see a GTA-a-like, minus the mindless violence, working really well along this theme.

[Morkilus]

Hot Fuzz... The Game, anyone?

[slantz]

Police Quest officially morphed into S.W.A.T., so said some Sierra honcho when he spoke at Casual Connect recently.

It may not be what you're looking for, exactly, but that's where the franchise went.

[biclops]

I'd be game as long as I don't have to steal and dupe my partner's keys under the suspicion of "she's really strange" </PQ3 Rant>

[XPav]

I want the video game version of The Wire. GTA, but from the other side of the law.

[Charles]

Hot Fuzz... The Game, anyone?


Did you even watch the movie!? He said without violence!

[Derek French]

I would be all over a game like this... or the Hot Fuzz game... either way.

[Alan Au]

We need a game where you actually follow the rules and don't just gun down everythign in site. I'd play it.I know you mentioned that you weren't looking for a SWAT game, but have you actually tried playing SWAT 4 on the "Elite" difficulty level? The difficulty has nothing to do with shooting and everything to do with following the rules.

- Alan

[Thomas Wilde]

It's not Police Quest unless I can give myself a game over by undressing in the hall outside the locker room.

[Dave Long]

Start buying PC games again and maybe you'll get one?

[ElGuapo]

Hey hey, I just bought Armed Assault, Mr. Big Shot.

[BDGE]

I remember spending DAYS trying to solve the 'giving the hot blonde a speeding ticket' early on in Police Quest 1. I lost the manual(which hints at the sequence of modus operandi for policeman duties) and therefore I was lost...and the internets wasn't around yet.

What's worse, is that sometimes these puzzles can bite you in the ass way beyond the fact. Something like forgetting to -check the tires- of a stopped vehicle after moving on to something else in the game and suddenly "Hey remember that drunk guy you arrested an hour ago? Yea, you didn't do it right and so now you are fuckked! Thanks for playing! Game Over"

Ah...Police Quest EGA.

[Dave Long]

Hey hey, I just bought Armed Assault, Mr. Big Shot.
PC gaming thanks you. :D

[christopher]

It's not Police Quest unless I can give myself a game over by undressing in the hall outside the locker room.

Or have my car blow up because I didn't walk around it.

[RobotPants]

Police Quest is one of my fondest gaming memories. I'm not sure anyone could successfully pull off a current-gen version of it. Space Quest, too.

[Enduro_Man]

Or have my car blow up because I didn't walk around it.

Or get beaten to death by a fat, drunk guy, since you cuffed his hands in front of him...

The Police Quest series started going downhill around the time they remade the first game. Whose bright idea was it to replace the awesomely satisfying, top-down driving map with that horrible mouse-driving interface?

[XPav]

Police Quest 2 -- if you didn't check your wallet at the beginning of the game for the diver's card, you couldn't find it when you had to go diving.

HAHA.

What was equally annoying about the old Sierra AGI games was the inconsistent parser. Do you know how long it took me to figure out that you had to type "HELP ME WITH HOTEL OPERATION" in Police Quest 1 to the chick in the jail? Shit! It was all just "get this" "use that" until that stupid phrase showed up.

Oh, and Police Quest: SWAT 1 -- yeah, WTF was that. Give me a page of 40 different commands to use. 1 goes to the next screen, 40 do nothing, and 5 game-over the game. GREAT.

Oh, and Police Quest: Open Season, the one by Daryl F Gates? Good game, good police work, until the very last part, where you see a dog, and have him lead you to the final place in the game. Then, you lose you gun, so if you do the wrong move, the dog kills you. Then after that you kill the murderer with a torch made with hairspray and a lighter.

No wonder Daryl Gates was such a bang-up police chief.

[Sapper Gopher]

I want the video game version of The Wire. GTA, but from the other side of the law.

Submit reams of paperwork showing probable cause for a wiretap authorization, sit for hours monitoring the phones!

[DavidKaye]

Submit reams of paperwork showing probable cause for a wiretap authorization, sit for hours monitoring the phones!

That would be the Good Po-lice route. I'd propose a KOTOR-style alternate win condition: getting promoted to Deputy Ops by juking the stats to get your clearance rate above 60%, while ignoring the real causes of urban decay!

[rjcc]

I just remember the part in police quest where you could have sex with this chick, but you missed an important phone call and the game ended.

I just chalked that up as a W and never played the game again

[Damien Neil]

The Wire would make a good scheduling/strategy game, in the vein of various Japanese girl games. Only with, you know, less schoolgirls.

The best moment in Police Quest or any other Sierra adventure game was in Monkey Island: Walk too close to a cliff, and it crumbles and Guybrush falls off. A Sierra you-have-died box pops up, with the little closeup on the death scene. In which Guybrush hits a tree, bounces, and flys back up to the cliff edge, unharmed. "Rubber tree."

[XPav]

The Wire would make a good scheduling/strategy game, in the vein of various Japanese girl games. Only with, you know, less schoolgirls.

The best moment in Police Quest or any other Sierra adventure game was in Monkey Island: Walk too close to a cliff, and it crumbles and Guybrush falls off. A Sierra you-have-died box pops up, with the little closeup on the death scene. In which Guybrush hits a tree, bounces, and flys back up to the cliff edge, unharmed. "Rubber tree."
That was awesome. Lucasarts slamming Sierra games. I saw that, and was like, "whoah, I didn't think you could die in Lucasarts games!"... went to click "reload", and then Guybrush popped back up.

Hilarious.

[Alan Au]

That was awesome. Lucasarts slamming Sierra games. I saw that, and was like, "whoah, I didn't think you could die in Lucasarts games!"... went to click "reload", and then Guybrush popped back up.As a bit of trivia, there is exactly one way to die in The Secret of Monkey Island, and you have to really work at it.

- Alan

[Damien Neil]

The scene where you can die (if you really, really want to) is one of the most awesome bits in all of gaming.

Damnit, LucasArts, go make some more adventure games. You guys were good.

[Lunch of Kong]

Or get beaten to death by a fat, drunk guy, since you cuffed his hands in front of him...

Yes, but if you ever have to cuff someone, you now know not to cuff them with hands in front.

[RichardC]

As a bit of trivia, there is exactly one way to die in The Secret of Monkey Island, and you have to really work at it.

There's another in the sequel, although there's no work required.

[Enduro_Man]

I'm trying to think of the worst, most unfair deaths in the Sierra adventure games. Here are my candidates:

Larry 2: After your lifeboat is lowered from the cruise ship, you get about five seconds to throw away some spinach dip you picked up from the bar. If you don't, you die from eating the dip (which spoiled under the head-fryingly hot sun). Why did you pick up the dip in the first place? No reason, but you get points both for getting it and throwing it away!
Space Quest 2: You get chased by the Alien Queen through Vohaul's ship. If she catches you, she gives you a big kiss, which -if it's your first time playing- you laugh off. You play for roughly half an hour more, and right before entering an escape pod and winning the game... death by chestburster.
Gold Rush: By land, by Panama Isthmus, or by Cape Horn, you will die from completely random events. Reload your most recent savegame and the Indian raiders/malaria-bearing mosquitoes/killer storms are gone. It's edutainment!


I'm probably forgetting many others but, yeah, "remove clothes" in Police Quest was a low point.

[Thomas Wilde]

Shit, if your worst, most unfair death in a Sierra game isn't in Space Quest, you're not really trying. Getting struck by lightning because you went one screen too far to the left in... what was it, 2 or 3? That shit was crazy.

[Ragnar Oppedal]

Oh, and Police Quest: SWAT 1 -- yeah, WTF was that. Give me a page of 40 different commands to use. 1 goes to the next screen, 40 do nothing, and 5 game-over the game. GREAT.."Pup! The LASH is not a toy, please confine your comments to the mission at hand!"

Then a dude with an AK kicks down the door and kills the entire SWAT team while they just stand there. I could never get past that bit.

[RichardC]

Ah, good old Sierra Sudden Death Syndrome (http://www.richardcobbett.co.uk/codex/articlelibrary/filingcabinet/sierra_sudden_death_syndrome/)

Space Quest's actually not too bad. The first game is, the second game is atrocious for it (and everything else - it's one of my least favourite adventures ever) but 3 onwards played things reasonably fair. At least, by Sierra's standards.

I'm trying to think of the worst, most unfair deaths in the Sierra adventure games.

King's Quest 2. You can only cross the bridge that leads from the starting area into the real gameworld a handful of times. FOR NO GOOD REASON.

[ElGuapo]

Yeah, obviously you'd have to update it. There would be maybe a few puzzle things but I think overall you'd want it to be more like the GTA series: A main storyline and lots of side missions. But you could certainly have triggered events, like if you try to transport a suspect without handcuffing him your car goes out of control and crashes and he crawls out while you are dazed. Fun procedural stuff like that.

I think gamers would play it. Finally you get to have a free roaming world where you are a moral character and stand up for citizens, not kill them. However, you also get into plenty of tense situations, gunfights, fistfights, tackle guys to the ground, etc. Have the city be filled with bars, strip clubs, and liquor stores, fights breaking out, places being robbed, etc. You could have easter eggs where criminals that look like the protagonists from the GTA series rob stores and now you're the one chasing them. Laying down spike strips to stop cars, PITT maneuvers, crowd control, serving high risk warrants, the possibilities are almost endless.

It would also give the industry some positive press. Marcus can be technical consultant. :)

[Nellie]

"Pages and pages and pages of hate about a gameI"

But the graphics are okay. 78%


Thanks, I enjoyed that. Sorry for ruining it for everyone else.

[Gladguy]

Damnit, LucasArts, go make some more adventure games. You guys were good.
They did. They started a new company called Telltale Games and released Sam & Max.

[Rob_Merritt]

Another group of ex-lucasarts adventure makers set up shop and have a new game coming out this fall

http://www.amegames.com/

[RichardC]

Thanks, I enjoyed that. Sorry for ruining it for everyone else.

Thanks ;-)

[Damien Neil]

They did. They started a new company called Telltale Games and released Sam & Max.

True.

Now Telltale just needs to do a Monkey Island. Not a literal one, but the creative equivalent--something that we'll be talking about twenty years down the line. Sam & Max is very good, but not quite there, I think.

[Nellie]

Thanks ;-)

Sorry, if it's any consolation your site will be blocked on the company firewall by monday.

I've belatedly changed the quote. Not because I feel guilty. Just that I used to enjoy writing and don't want to upset anyone I haven't sent stuff to yet [that's what he says - ed]

[Enduro_Man]

Ah, good old Sierra Sudden Death Syndrome

Thanks for that, and for all the other good reading material. Just one question: Space Quest VI is one of the few Sierra adventures I never played, so what exactly is happening to Roger Wilco in that screenshot?

King's Quest 2. You can only cross the bridge that leads from the starting area into the real gameworld a handful of times. FOR NO GOOD REASON.

But you do get one point every time you cross that bridge. In the world of King's Quest, that counts as fair warning.

[RichardC]

Thanks for that, and for all the other good reading material. Just one question: Space Quest VI is one of the few Sierra adventures I never played, so what exactly is happening to Roger Wilco in that screenshot?

He's idiotically stuck his finger into the plug socket of his room. (Not a problem in SQ6, because dying just puts you back at the entrance of the room rather than the Save, Restore, Quit screen.)

For death-fans, The Many Deaths of Roger Wilco (http://tmd.alienharmony.com/rw/index.htm) and Prince Alexander (http://tmd.alienharmony.com/pa/index.htm)

[Enduro_Man]

I just finished reading the Hopkins FBI review. Like Nellie, I loved it.

Unfortunately, I now want to play the game.

[RichardC]

Well, I wouldn't have bothered doing the write-up if it wasn't an interesting game. A crap one, but still interesting ;-)

[Skipper]

I get what you're asking for here Guap but not sure it would be a big hit. The original PQ was a pretty strange beast. You'd have to add in a little bit of "Cops 2.0" or perhaps some "The First 48" detective work to make it seem more modern.

So yeah I think the game would be great but only if it didn't force you so hands off that you couldn't shoot your gun.

[McCrank]

The only Police Quest I never beat was part 4, called Open Season I think. I'm interested in hearing anyone's opnions on how it ranked with the rest of them! I may still go back to that one!

-Chris

[Soldats]

Another group of ex-lucasarts adventure makers set up shop and have a new game coming out this fall

http://www.amegames.com/


I'm so happy to see that they finally found a publisher for "A Vampyre Story". I've been looking forward to that game ever since stumbling upon the site in 2006 (probably from a QT3 link too). I'm kinda saddened by the fact that they've had to drop the 2D direction of the game, but at least the 3D shots released seem rather faithful to the 2D artstyle. Its visuals have a real nice Grim Fandango-feel to them. I will gladly buy 2 copies of this game when it's finally released (to ensure it gets the follow-ups that Bill Tiller mentioned in his blog).

[Wobbo]

I want the video game version of The Wire. GTA, but from the other side of the law.
For that matter, a realistic drug-dealing simulation would actually make a good game, but it would be totally unpublishable (for good reason).

A Police game with puzzles involving cracking codes / tapping phones would be interesting. The more mundane aspects of gathering probable cause to get a warrant to get to rush a stash house probably wouldn't be as interesting.

[Quitch]

I'm so happy to see that they finally found a publisher for "A Vampyre Story". I've been looking forward to that game ever since stumbling upon the site in 2006 (probably from a QT3 link too). I'm kinda saddened by the fact that they've had to drop the 2D direction of the game,

Danger Will Robinson!

They've had to do what? Oh fuck no. 3D P&C always looks like shit next to the hand drawn stuff, and it's not like P&C really benefits from 3D in any meaningful way. Did we need the raw power of the graphics card for P&C? No. Does it look nicer? No.

Just so long as they keep the play 2D. I'm tired of P&C games dicking around, just like RTS games did when they went 3D. I don't want to play with the camera, I don't want the game to suddenly require turning in addition to mouse work to find items, etc.

[DavidKaye]

For that matter, a realistic drug-dealing simulation would actually make a good game, but it would be totally unpublishable (for good reason).

A Police game with puzzles involving cracking codes / tapping phones would be interesting. The more mundane aspects of gathering probable cause to get a warrant to get to rush a stash house probably wouldn't be as interesting.

The old Hacker games on the ZX Spectrum were pretty cool. They had you monitoring and hacking CCTV cameras, replaying looped footage to blind them at key moments. Great stuff.

[McCrank]

Did anyone know about this? Seems that in between missions in Starcraft 2, the game will turn into a classic point n click adventure style game...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=177454

[Thierry Nguyen]

Wing Commander mission downtime is a better analogy than point'n'click adventure. As far as I know, there aren't adventure game puzzles in the Terran campaign.

[Alan Au]

Diablo-style mission downtime is a better analogy than point'n'click adventure. As far as I know, there aren't adventure game puzzles in the Terran campaign.
Fixed!

- Alan

[RichardC]

It looks more like Wing Commander from here.

[Alan Au]

It looks more like Wing Commander from here.Maybe the early Wing Commander games, although I don't think they really featured much interactivity. From what I remember it was just the one room, and there were no conversation choices. WC3 (and later) had more interactivity, but the choices actually affected the missions and story. I'm sort of curious whether the StarCraft II interludes are just filler or if they impact the story in an interesting way.

Really though, it does remind me a bit of Diablo II, with its between-sortie trips to town to chat up the locals.

- Alan

[XPav]

It looks more like Wing Commander from here.
Hopefully it has the pivotal "walking down corridors" scenes from WC3 and WC4.