Saturday 7 November 2015

Police Quest III - Final Rating

Written by Alex


If you’ve been reading my posts about Police Quest III, you’ll know that I tried really hard to like this game, but certain things kept me from achieving as much enjoyment as Jim Walls and company would have liked me to.

REAL paperwork!”

These things aren’t, I believe, complaints from a modern gamer engaging in chronological snobbery against a game over two decades old. No, my complaints have to do with basic elements of adventure game design like writing, story, and puzzle construction. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. On with PISSED! It’s far better than being PISSED on!



Puzzles and Solvability: 3
I wish I could give this game a 3.5 rating, but no half-measures for PISSED, pal! It’s all of the way or none of the way! Like Jim Walls says, I do things by THE BOOK! The book of Trickster, in this case. I finally settled on a 3. At the outset, Police Quest III’s puzzles are logical and kind of interesting. I might be the only one who found the paperwork-based puzzles novel; they helped create the overall vibe that Police Quest III was actively trying to put you in the role of a police sergeant. I think puzzles like the disciplinary action against Morales for conduct unbecoming of an officer, or Sonny’s supervisory role when Morales pulled over the pregnant woman and verbally abused her, are make sense within the context of the game. And they set up the “Morales hates Sonny” subplot which, unfortunately, fizzles out like a lot of the other subplots in this game (we’ll get to that later).

I don’t think we’ll see puzzles like this again, until OFFICE QUEST finally hit store shelves.

Many of the puzzles early in the game were logical, and I have to admit that, much like with the previous games in this series, it was kind of fun checking the manual to see what the right procedure is and watching it play out on the screen. Whether it was making sure to put the right time and violation code into your tickets, gathering and booking evidence, or investigating crime scenes, things made sense. Searching through old case files was fun, and made you feel like an actual cop. Using the facial composite tool while interrogating Carla Reed was also unique, as were the various traffic stops. And the crime scene investigations were always fun, seeing what clues Sonny could dig up and try to put together. And although some puzzles are dumb, like having to click the “8” on a television remote to open a secret fireplace passage down to a hidden drug lab (what?), all was good.

Until later in the game, particularly the last two days, when the “fun” aspect gets bogged down in a steaming quagmire of interface issues, the boring driving mechanic, and outright tedium. Driving from the fortified crack house to the court house to get a search warrant once is fine. Having to do the exact same thing right after to get a judicial order in order to use the ram unit really tried my patience. Oh, and before getting the judicial order, don’t book all of the evidence you found in the burned-out wreckage of Steve Rocklin’s house; even though proper police procedure has guided you throughout the entire game to book your evidence ASAP, don’t do so this one time that the game gives you no advance warning about or else you won’t be able to get the warrant!

The driving mechanic itself could be considered a puzzle, and it’s a bad one at that. Given that Lytton is huge, Sonny’s car is slow (even at 100 m.p.h.), and that you have to slow down to take turns and stop at T intersections, the bulk of the driving just felt like padding. This is especially egregious, seeing as how there are only a half-dozen or so unique locations to visit.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……..

Another valid gripe are the potential dead-ends. This is like the anti-Leisure Suit Larry 5. From what I’ve read from commenters here and on-line elsewhere, seemingly insignificant actions can create unwinnable situations way later in the game, and with no warning. This is just unfair. And I don’t mean Space Quest I you-should-have-gotten-the-glass-from-your-escape-pod unfair, because in that game, you could at least walk back from the laser beams and to your escape pod (don’t get me wrong; it’s still a b.s. puzzle). Here, if you screw up something in a given day, you’d have to somehow find the Lytton Police Department’s time machine and go back to correct your past mistake, which would make for an awesome game, but I digress. Now, some of the things are sorted out automatically, and can be viewed as alternate solutions, which is something I like, for example, the fireman giving you the photograph of Jessie and Michael Baines if you miss it during your sweep of Rocklin’s house. But other times you may find yourself floating down Excrement Creek without a means of conveyance.

And another thing . . . interface issues! Of course, I’m referring to The Puzzle from Hell. How in the world did this make it past the play-testers? Why would they give you oddly specific street numbers, and then expect you to just plunk each star right in the middle of the given city block? Absurd. With regards to the shooting mechanic, having to click the gun on Sonny instead of on your adversary is also unfair, both at the Old Nugget and the crack house before ordering the ram unit to do its duty. I hate it when interface issues keep a player from solving puzzles. This is the point-and-click version of awful parsers.

Seriously, &$*#! this puzzle.
In Office Quest II: In Pursuit of a Raise, can I give Mr. Fleming a poor performance review?

And lastly, much like in Larry 5, many of Sonny’s actions seem completely inconsequential. Based on the past murder cases Sonny investigated, the DNA evidence he gathered seemed to point at positively ID’ing the suspect. But absolutely nothing comes of this evidence except for points. Putting out an APB on Rocklin’s car seems to have no effect. And there is no explanation whatsoever about the cult, which is weird since (a) cult activity and ritual seems to be a huge part of the bad guys’ modus operandi, and (b) Sonny finds a CULT BOOK. Couldn’t this, I don’t know, offer some insight into the motivation of the game’s primary antagonists? Or did the writers run out of time and patience, much like I did while playing this? Only one man knows, and he’s not telling.

“’Sup?”

Interface and Inventory: 4
Let’s start with the good: I have no real complaints about the inventory. It’s nothing—and I mean nothing—special. There is no real way to interact with any of the objects beyond putting batteries in Sonny’s flashlight and opening the evidence envelope Leon the stereotypical coroner leaves for Sonny at his office. But in the inventory screen, Sonny can’t do anything with his items. He can’t even read the CULT BOOK which could, perhaps, maybe shed some light on the people Sonny is trying to track down and bring to justice. There are no informative inventory messages, no funny inventory messages, not even any flavor text. This isn’t bad per se, just kind of lazy.

The interface doesn’t fare quite as well. Broadly, it functions just fine. I don’t like this early Sierra point-and-click habit of having non-clickable objects create a red X on the screen—give me some generic or humorous message, like in the Space Quest, Quest for Glory, or Leisure Suit Larry series. But the icons typically do what they should, and do what you’d expect them to do.

Except when you want to shoot at a suspect, you don’t click your gun ON them. You click it on Sonny, which most normal players would think is somewhat suicidal behavior for a cop to engage in, but for the hundredth time: WHAT DO WE KNOW? WE’RE NOT THE EXPERTS!

So yeah, you click the gun on Sonny to draw the weapon and shoot suspects. Except in the very last part of the game, when clicking on the gun in the inventory screen automatically makes the crosshairs appear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Story and Setting: 4
Starts out strong and peters out at the end. I could make a dick joke here, but I have class, people! The long and short of it—oops, let’s try that again. The thing that makes Police Quest III’s story is that there’s a lot of set-up—effective set-up—with very little payoff.

This manifests itself in a few different ways. For example, the pacing of the game works very well: It starts out slow, taking Sonny through an average day as a police sergeant. He gives the briefing, attends to administrative matters, and then goes patrolling the highway. When Marie gets stabbed at the end of day one, the story picks up intensity: The stakes are higher and the murders continue as Sonny desperately searches for clues. I rag on the pentagram map puzzle, but it’s cool to find out the next place that Rocklin will strike (even the entire premise of patterned murders falls apart with just a slight application of logic).

Unfortunately, the cult aspect, and the way Morales ties into it, is rushed with very little explanation. Why did Morales join the cult, and how come she didn’t do more to undermine Sonny’s investigation of it? How come none of the evidence Sonny gathers seems to matter in the long run? And what’s the deal with Michael Baines, anyway?

Yes, we’re made to believe by Dr. Aimes that Michael Baines is, and I quote, “[n]ot your average scumbag. He’s closer to the slit-his-own-mother’s-throat variety. I’d know more if I’d examined him, but based on this, I’d say he’s a schizophrenic psychopath. This guy’s criminally insane, Bonds. I’d be careful how I approached him.”

And yet this is what happens when Sonny encounters him:

Michael Baines is . . . French? (*ducks thrown tomatoes and baguettes*)

In other words, he’s not the most effective villain. What could have been a cool revenge plot tying Police Quest III back to the other two games of the series becomes kind of flames out, with a tacked-on villain who really doesn’t do much of anything. Did Michael burn down Rocklin’s house commit any other crimes? Who knows? Rocklin seems like the real villain, if anything. You’d think if Michael was this insane person with a grudge and bad-ass military training, he’d be more of a threat to Sonny. Weak all around.

As far as the setting goes, it’s fine. It’s Lytton, the same town as the first two Police Quest games. Most of the stuff is still there, although as discussed previously, Cotton Cove is now Aspen Falls and has expanded considerably. That’s not really a complaint, though, more of an observation.

Sound and Graphics: 7
I have absolutely no complaints here. For the time, the graphics were great, and they still look good. There weren’t really any funky animations or graphical glitches, backgrounds are well-detailed and look like what they’re supposed to be, and the digitized close-ups hold up really well! The environments are lush and vibrant or dark and gritty as the story demands.

Still, this is a 1991 game. Isn’t 7 kind of high? Aren’t we dangerously close to 10 with a lot of years go to? Yes and yes, but you know what gives Police Quest III the extra boost? Jan Hammer, baby! The music in this game, while not all-pervasive, is excellent. I particularly like the main driving theme, though the hot pursuit theme is good (would be better without that super-annoying siren sound-effect), as is the little ditty that plays when you pull into Lytton PD. The moody themes played at the crash site and the crack house are also top-notch. I would contemplate giving this rating an 8, but some of the sound effects are bloody awful. It makes no sense why some, like doors opening and closing, gunshots, and digitized screams, sound great, while others, like a thug blowing out cigarette smoke, sound like computer farts. Jan Hammer, I salute you. Computer fart guy, I computer fart in your general direction.

That’s right, people: Dick jokes are off-limits, but fart jokes are fair game. You have been warned.

My hat is off to these guys.

Environment and Atmosphere: 6
Honestly, Police Quest III does great in creating an atmosphere of dread and urgency, the ridiculous sequence of events on the final day notwithstanding. Sonny’s adventure begins like a typical day on the job, patrolling the highway, pulling over fools (and the occasional undercover cop) for driving too fast, too slow, too horny, and too drunk. Then things take a turn for the dark with the attack on Marie and the murder of Dent, and Sonny spends the next few days desperately searching for the evil cultists who have hurt his wife and are turning Lytton into their own personal art project where the medium happens to be dead bodies [NOTE: The Adventure Gamer administrators take no responsibility for that horrible metaphor]. Morales’s strange behavior only adds to the tension: a serial-killing cult is at large, and Sonny also has an unreliable and authority-hating partner to deal with.

The whole thing gets silly starting, I’d say, when Sonny let’s Morales take the cocaine (I STILL CANNOT GET OVER THIS), but until that point when it turns into a cross between a police spoof (“Hey! We know the address of our most likely suspect! But first, let’s go to the mall and make a phone call!”) and a bad Shakespeare play (piles of dead bodies on the floor), Police Quest III delivers atmosphere in spades.

The environments are fine, too: Police stations, hospitals, alleys, dive bars and the like all look and feel like they’re supposed to. Though now that I think of it, the alley where Andrew Dent is found is pretty big for an alley!

An ALLEY, ladies and gentlemen!

I mean, this is an alley:


Not so much space to work in. I think you could fit maybe one car in there. Not two cars with room for seventeen more.

Dialogue and Acting: 4
As a police procedural/drama, clichéd characters abound here. Some, like Leon the coroner, bothered me more than Sonny’s cheesy “I’ll find the bastard and MAKE HIM PAY” dialogue, but I think that’s because the quirky, sandwich-eating coroner is really an overdone stereotype, and it’d be cool to see a different type of coroner (do coroners have their own anti-defamation league? They should). The best example I can think of off the top of my head is David MacCallum’s Ducky on the television show NCIS: He’s a dapper, Eton-educated, older Scottish gentleman and war veteran. Not that NCIS is the greates show ever created, but my point is that it doesn’t take that much thinking to craft an interesting character that plays against type. The only one in the game who really does is the seemingly sleazy reporter who tries to come across as tough but ends up regretting it and actually helps Sonny out.

Otherwise, we have: The crazy old bag lady (because homeless people are funny!); the dumb hick janitor (because janitors are stupid!); the man-hating cop (because women hate men!); the Latino guy in a flame-covered, hydraulics-equipped car (because what else would a Latino guy drive?!); one useless doctor and one arrogant doctor (because doctors are rude, useless jerks!); and the rude, squirrely IT guy (okay, this one is true). And then let’s talk about Marie.

Now, I’m not going to turn this into some screed about female portrayals in pop culture or anything, mainly because (1) it’s not the job of every female character to be an ambassador of the female gender, and (2) it’s a computer game, people! But here’s Marie’s character arc, game-by-game:
My point is: Couldn’t they have found something a little more interesting to do with the main character’s wife? She’s a former prostitute, for crying out loud! That’s pretty interesting, isn’t it?

Come on, Jane! You can do better than this! I know you can!

It’s math time, folks: 3 + 4 + 4 + 7 + 6 + 4 = 28 / .6 = 46.6 rounded up to a 47. Wow! The same rating that Larry 5 got. But it makes sense, in a way: Areas where Larry 5 excelled—inventory and interface, dialogue and acting—are areas where Police Quest III faltered, while Police Quest III had (slightly) better puzzles and music. PISSED don’t lie, and math wins again. 47 seems plenty fair, given the game’s shortcomings. Much like the Larry series, Police Quest felt some growing pains in the transition from parser to point-and-click. Alas, this is the last we’ll see of Sonny Bonds and Lytton. It’s a shame that Sonny didn’t get a better send-off. As a sad coda to this, Jim Walls, inspired by the success of several other classic-era adventure game revivals—some by his former Sierra co-workers—tried to raise funds via Kickstarter to make a new police game called Precinct. But Mr. Walls didn’t meet his goals, and the project was canceled in 2013.

But on to happier things! The correct guesser of this game’s score was The Anonymous Pineapple! Let’s give him or her a hand, folks! Anonymous Pineapple, your prize is this bitchin’ autographed picture of none other than former California Highway Patrol officer-cum-computer game designer and all around legend Jim Walls! Now your life is complete!


You can thank me later.

* * *

Police Quest III has a pretty bad reputation now, but contemporary reviews, like this one written by J.D. Lambright in Computer Gaming World, couldn’t get enough of it. He calls it “the best of the series to date.” Lambright praises the graphics, music, sound, and interface, but he also sings the praises of the puzzles. And I know that Lambright played through the whole game, because his review is a quasi-walkthrough. Interestingly, Lambright compares Police Quest III to Leisure Suit Larry 5, writing “unlike some of the other games with the parserless interface, like Leisure Suit Larry 5, Sonny Bonds can die.”

One of the claims in this review is rather dubious in my mind. The editor interjects that “the police procedural aspects of the series have been so well-received by actual law enforcement agencies and personnel that Jim Walls' development company, Jim Walls Games, is working on a professional computerized training program using Sierra's toolkit,” but I could find nothing corroborating this. Police Quest I, yes. Police Quest III, no.

Other contemporary reviews were very kind to Police Quest III as well, and I can see where Lambright and others were coming from. Perhaps this 2015 rating of 47 is the equivalent of a 1991 85, but I don’t know quite how to adjust for video game score inflation so it shall remain baseless speculation, my favorite kind.

At the end of the day, Police Quest III is a good enough game. If you are a fan of the series, I do recommend playing it, if only to see how the saga of Sonny Bonds concludes. It does enough right that you can overlook the wrong, and I may even, dare I say it, call the game enjoyable. Days 1 through 5 are the most enjoyable, and it kind of spits the bit on Day 6, but on the whole I’d say give it a go.

Yes, the same guy who nitpicked puzzles, plot points, and characters to no end is advising that classic adventure game fans play Police Quest III, but those are fine distinguishers that separate a game of this era in the upper 60s/low 70s from one in the upper 40s/low 50s. Taking the big picture view, Police Quest III is not a bad game, just a disappointing one.

But Corey Cole’s in it! How bad can any game that Corey Cole is involved with be, anyway?

* * *

So coming up next for me is . . . oh brother . . . Conquests of the Longbow. Another Sierra game I never finished in my youth due to some stupid puzzle-related bug. And some commenters have suggested that maybe I should give Jim Walls’s next game, the non-Sierra police adventure Blue Force a go when the time comes. And there’s always Larry 6 and 7. Is that my lot in life, to play Larry games, Jim Walls creations, and puzzles that tormented me in my younger days? Again, I wonder sometimes what I’ve gotten myself into here.

* * *

CAP Distribution

100 CAPs to Alex
  • Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - for playing the game for our (and Jim Walls') amusement
20 CAPs to Anonymous Pineapple
  • Psychic Prediction award: 10 CAPs - for the score guessing contest
  • I checked the plates award - 5 CAPs - for telling us how to deal with the undercover agent
  • You mean I have to do this every single time? award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out why Police Quest screwed the minds of police officers
15 CAPs to Niklas
  • The most boring game ever - 5 CAPs - for the idea of Office Quest (TM)
  • His partner had three first names award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out Crockett's nickname
  • They came from beyond the stars award - 5 CAPs - for the alien cult theory
10 CAPs to Andy Panthro
  • True companion award - 10 CAPs - for playing along so Alex could share the pain with others
10 CAPs to TBD
  • Hey, he looks just like that guy from the Daily Show award - 100 CAPs - for pointing out Orpheus Hanley's uncanny resemblance to Al Madrigal.
  • Actually, I think I may have overreacted a tad award - -95 CAPs - there's no way this person's getting more points than the person who just spent weeks playing through the damn game!
  • Too many Dents award - 5 CAPs - for the Dent/dent-joke
10 CAPs to Laukku
  • True companion award - 10 CAPs - for playing along so Alex could share the pain with others
10 CAPs to Aperama
  • Nice try, but it ain't working award - 5 CAPs - for trying to find positive things in the game
  • They made me do it award - 5 CAPs - for convincing Alex to volunteer to play Blue Force when it comes around
10 CAPs to Anonymous
  • The boss is gone - let's make crap up... award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out that Jim Walls left Sierra in the middle of developing the game
  • They made me do it award - 5 CAPs - for convincing Alex to volunteer to play Blue Force when it comes around
10 CAPs to The Real Jim Walls
  • Deadly stare award - 10 CAPs - The Real Jim Walls - for constantly mocking Alex's progress with his ex-cop glare
5 CAPs to Torch
  • Deja Vu award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out the loop bug
5 CAPs to Kenny McCormick
  • I forgot my pencil - have to drive back to the office award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out why Police Quest screwed the minds of police officers
5 CAPs to Ilmari Jauhiainen
  • It's not a dead-end, it's a feature award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out that some feared dead-ends are solved by other characters if you miss them.
100 donuts to The Fake Jim Walls
  • It was just a joke, I swear - 100 donuts - For attempting to play a joke on Alex until one of the admins took him seriously and deleted the post

31 comments:

  1. >The music in this game, while not all-pervasive, is excellent

    lolwut

    It's decent and kinda does its job, but it's nowhere near REALLY good. I myself thought that the music was bland and forgettable.

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    1. What music there was, I thought was high quality and got stuck in my head, but not in a bad way. Well, to each his own. I seem to remember a well-known saying likening opinions to those puckered little apertures we each have on the bottom of us . . .

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    2. It's not exactly bad, sets the mood well, but not as good as in Loom (which had friggin' TCHAIKOVSKY for music) or the King's Quest remake (which has numerous amazing themes - I'm still baffled by how Trickster found it unmemorable).

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Very insightful ZetaClear! I've been ruing the lack of products to make my finger and toenails shiny, but thanks to ZetaClear, I need rue no more!

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  4. Wow, I prognosticated right on my first shot! I couldn't think of a more heartwarming prize, Alex, and thank YOU Jim Walls, for making your biggest fan's dreams come true. Your experience and impressions playing the game pretty much lined up with my own (although I somehow got Marie to wake up at the end), but I have to say reading through your blog was much more entertaining than the game itself.

    By the way, if you think this game has hacky writing and bad stereotypes PQ4's new helmsman - noted racist Daryl F. Gates - will make your brain explode.

    As for Conquests of the Longbow, I have really fond memories of that game...look forward to reading the review :)

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    1. Aren't you glad you signed up for an account here? ;)

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  5. A third game in a row to get 47! Whatever the next game will be, I'll be betting on that number. Here's the rankings of 1991 so far:

    1. Space Quest 4 - 65 points
    2. Larry 1 Remake - 60 points
    3. Space Quest 1 Remake - 58 points
    4. Spellcasting 201 - 51 points
    5.-7. Timequest, Larry 5 and Police Quest 3 - 47 points
    8. Hugo II - 18 points

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  6. "That’s right, people: Dick jokes are off-limits, but fart jokes are fair game. You have been warned."

    That wasn't a fart joke, it was a Monty Python joke. *throws a cow at Jim Walls*

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    1. True! A joke-within-a-joke! I guess Monty Python jokes are fair game, too?

      *ducks incoming cow*

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  7. I'm actually going to say you've given this one too high a score. Firstly, frustration levels say to me that this game deserves some 'no seriously, this game is annoying' points deductions - and I'd knock off a point in interface for the driving sections as they could very easily have done without them altogether as in PQ2.

    I suppose what I'm saying is that sometimes a game adds up the sum of all of its parts (I agree with everything else), combines them and then realizes what first year painters do - add fifteen paints together and all you'll ever come up with is brown.

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    1. Hm. Interesting analogy. I suppose "Puzzles and Solvability" could have been lower, but it there were only one or two stinkers (the pentagram puzzle and having to NOT book evidence) and a wonky interface issue (the gun thing); other than that, the puzzles weren't like, say, the ones in Les Manley.

      I decided not to use my discretionary point just because the more I think about it, I want to just keep the straight PISSED rating.

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  8. I don’t think we’ll see puzzles like this again, until OFFICE QUEST finally hit store shelves.

    There's a 1992 courtroom simulator called Objection! that is basically entirely this.

    http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/objection/screenshots/gameShotId,277432/

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    1. Both these bits of news make me irrationally happy for some reason . . .

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    2. But the question is... do they have an alien cult in them? ;) (this joke probably ran dry after the first post so I better change the tune or else everyone will believe I'm Brian Forbes)

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    3. There's also Office DisOrders*, on Xbox 360!! https://hoorayformovies.com/2013/03/26/office-dis-orders-surprise-on-line-game-of-the-month/

      *Full disclosure, I know the person who made it.

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  9. Strangely, I seem to hate this game more reading about it than I did playing it. I personally gave it a 4 out of 10. Definitely below average, but had its moments. I think, much like Alex, I really enjoyed the early part of the game, until the annoying parts really sunk their teeth into me.

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    1. I did my job then, I guess?

      4 out of 10 seems fair . . . almost like a 47 out of 100, actually.

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    2. For me, this is how Timequest was, too. Mostly enjoyable to play, but there were a few clunker puzzles and the end fell apart. 47 seems reasonable for both games. PQ3 has higher production value (graphics, music), but TQ has better puzzles and less tedium.

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  10. Well, I just managed to finish the game, admittedly with several glances at a walkthrough near the end of the game. These Police Quest games are soooo tedious. I managed to revive Marie - apparently she's pregnant!

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    1. Wow! Did you kiss her on the first visit? That is medically proven by SCIENCE!!!!!! to revive comatose patients 99.9% of the time.

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    2. I tried interacting with everything in every way possible, before finally confirming with a walkthrough that there really was nothing to do at that point and then leaving, so probably yes.

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    3. She's pregnant? Did you sneak in a "zipper" action from LSL? :P

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    4. HAHAAHAH I just saw this, Fry! Good one!

      By the way, how great would a Sierra-style Smash Bros. type of adventure game be, where Larry, Patti, King Graham and family, Sonny Bonds, Roger Wilco, the nameless QfG hero (who wouldn't say a word all game), Laura Bow, King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Gabriel Knight have to get together to fight the unholy alliance if Ad Avis, Mananan, Sludge Vohaul, and the mastermind himself, Jim Walls? Somebody get on Kickstarter STAT!

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  11. CAP distribution and leaderboard updated. No interesting changes

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  12. Representations of women in this game other than "former hooker turned hero's comatose wife" include a man-hating, drug stealing, criminal loving partner, a funny hobo, and a judge devoid of personality. It's kinda hard not to take that the wrong way. (Especially since it's not just played for laughs a la LSL. Remember, the game is ALMOST TOO REAL!)

    Regarding the music: The theme that plays during Walls' opening speech is absolutely fantastic! The rest of the music was not bad, although not quite Miami Vice (not sure if it was ghost-written, as it actually doesn't sound like that show's style at all; technical difficulties may have played a role in that, though - the drum sound of MV was very distinct).

    And holy crap, I got CAPs! Might have to register after all.

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    1. You might think that women in this story would have more personality since it's half-written by a woman but, then again, since the writer's a woman, that's why it sucks. KIDDING! PLEASE DON'T CHEW ON ME!

      Anyway, it's actually fun to have a few regular anonymous commentors. Makes you guys look like Legion, For You Are Many. Also, it's funny when you guys start talking to yourselves like crazed hobos.

      In short, yeah mate, register. XD

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    2. @Anonymous

      Please do register! We're glad you've stuck around this long; you might as well take the plunge and commit yourself to this mental ward we call The Adventure Gamer.

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  13. Thanks for the playthrough! I decided to play along and it's probably my first time through the game in at least 20 years. Nostalgia goggles surely played a part, but I think I enjoyed it more than you did despite it's pretty major flaws. It all starts off well but gets progressively worse, and the story really falls off a cliff at the end but I felt forgiving of it. Not the driving though, that can go to hell.

    PQ2 is undoubtedly the best of the series, but I think PQ3's transition to point-&-click interface lets me warm to it. I just can't handle text parser anymore! Some of the puzzles here are completely inconsistent as you point out and that is an issue.

    But I had zero issues with the pentagram drawing puzzle. I just plotted the last point where it would fit symmetrically based on the bottom centre. I also somehow managed to get the "good" ending with Marie awake and pregnant.

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