Life as a cop is never easy… especially if your name is Sonny Bonds, and you’re the star of Sierra’s “Police Quest” series, where crime lurks around every corner and a ‘game over’ is never more than a single mistake away.

It’s not all negative though. Police work has plenty of perks, including the feeling of justice, when you put bad guys behind bars or even the simpler tasks, like writing tickets or patrolling the streets of Lytton City. There’s always something to do in this little corner of the world, and Sierra made sure Sonny Bonds was never bored in this first in a series of four.

As the screenshot clearly shows, I went with the EGA version, even though Sierra released a point’n'click version in VGA, five years after the original release. But what can I say? I’m old-school and some research revealed that the VGA version had changed dialogue and certain bits were removed entirely. Suffice to say, that made the choice between EGA and VGA very easy. Better graphics and point’n'click interface, but with content removed? No thanks, Sierra.

The Game

Now that I’ve made clear how I feel about graphical/interface enhancements at the cost of content, let’s move onto the actual game and boy is there a lot to like here, even if a good cop (see what I did there?) can finish it in a few days of solid playing. When it came out back in 1987, I actually recall it being considered somewhat lengthy compared to other adventure games and none of them tasked you with being a cop either.

Generally, adventure games in the late 80′s/early 90′s emphasized comedy and physics defying stunts (Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle in particular), but Police Quest took a more serious approach: Being a cop meant playing by the book and breaking the rules was not an option, unless you wanted a fast trip to the game over screen.. Getting yourself killed was not a difficult task either – another thing most adventure games simply wouldn’t allow (with the exception of Beneath A Steel Sky, where dying was quite easy). Heavy use of the save feature was almost a better defense than your sidearm in this one!

Adventure games today benefit (to a certain degree) from a point’n'click interface, making interacting with your surroundings a breeze, but that was not the case here. Everything is done with the keyboard: You move Sonny around with the arrow keys and commands are based on text input, so a certain degree of trial and error is not unavoidable since the game does not know every word in the english language. The odd “I can not do that” error aside, I never had any major problems with the parser the game used, and shortcut keys to frequently used actions helped speed things along; especially while driving. Imagine having to actually type out “hit the gas” or “turn on the siren” while chasing bad guys? That would certainly have been awkward..

During your time as Sonny Bonds, pretty much every part of what it means to be a cop can be experienced in this game, including flexing your muscles at troublemakers in order to get them to leave. There’s a lot of reading in the game, but no long windy conversations at least – everything is kept simple; maybe with the exception of briefings..

Police Quest, like the other adventure classics from Sierra, had a point system to measure how you were doing.. sort of. You start with 0 of (in this case) 245 and each objective/puzzle you solve nets you a certain amount, while making simple mistakes (like forgetting to turn the shower off) will actually cost you points. My best attempt so far ended with 240 points, so simply beating the game is a guaranteed 100% (completionists should love that).

To anyone considering picking up GOG’s “Police Quest 1+2+3+4″ collection:

It only contains the VGA version of Police Quest I, not the EGA original. For a collection with both, you’re gonna have to acquire “Police Quest Collection: The 4 Most Wanted” from eBay most likely, considering its age. The recently re-released Police Quest retail collection is also lacking the EGA version (so it’s likely the exact same collection GOG is selling).

How Well It Holds Up

Obviously it’s visually dated after 25 years, but look past the visuals and you will likely find that “Police Quest” is willing to take you on quite a journey, should you choose to let it. Just be prepared for an adventure game much more difficult in some ways than what we get in newer titles, though it never gets downright mindboggling complex.

The game tells a story about crime and its impact on the everyday life in Lytton City, and is not afraid of throwing plot twists or emotional events at the player. Highly enjoyable and stepping into the shoes of Sonny Bonds is well worth the effort still!