Oh, the joke about Police Quest being so authentic its "used to train police officers" as the marketing material claims leading to the police brutality and accountability crisis in the US was amazingly on point. Good job!
Thank you. I was a little torn about including that because I really don't want to get into heavy political stuff on my channel - this is just supposed to be a good laugh and not much more than that - but I'm glad I kept it in.
Honestly, this game is a satirical commentary on how common corruption and substance abuse are in U.S. police departments, as well as how much of a joke airport security was before 9/11. Now if only it had the self-awareness to recognize this fact...
@@spacequesthistorian honestly, our cops not brutalizing us should not be "heavily political". But I take your meaning. Loved the playthrough, btw. Need to catch the last two parts though.
The Police Quest series of games is as authentic to real life police work in the same way Space Quest is authentic to the experience of a Space Janitor
"Internal Affairs Report: Detective Sonny Bonds willfully left the state to pursue an interstate kidnapping, despite the FBI having clear jurisdiction. Without calling for backup, Detective Bonds descended into the sewers of Steelton. Detective Bonds fired 12 rounds of .45 caliber ammunition at possible suspect Bains. Jesse Bains was carrying a handgun. However, crime scene determined that the firearm was holstered while Detective Bonds willfully shot him to death. The sole witness to the shooting was Detective Bonds' girlfriend Marie Wilkans. Ms. Wilkans has an extensive criminal history for prostitution. Her credibility is dubious. We recommend a promotion to Sergeant. "
I'm no law expert, but while I do believe most of this to be correct, there's one bit I'm like dubious about: Bains is a fugitive, has murdered two people in cold blood, kidnapped another person that would've been his third victim, and there was clear evidence that he meant to take out the policeman that got him in jail in the first place. Possible revenge motives aside, wouldn't that justify a "shoot on sight" reason? 🤔 I suppose it depends from a state/country's laws, but dunno, am just curious.
Absolutely love the Fair and Balanced Retrospective series and it's so fun to see Police Quest getting more entries in it. Fantastic video from start to finish. Good job!
Sonny being put on just three days of administrative leave for shooting someone while a cursory investigation is conducted honestly sounds pretty realistic; a lot of police departments in the U.S. are notoriously corrupt. (And at least in the case of Bains, he was armed and had already committed several murders and attempted murders.)
I know what you're thinking, Bains... "Did he fire 17 shots, or only 16?" Well seeing as how I'm blind with vengeful rage, I kinda lost track myself. So what you've gotta as yourself is, "Do I feel lucky?" WELL, DO YOU PUNK?
Thanks for the video. Reason for Japan localization is, USA movies, cops and robbers, were very popular in Japan. There is a bunch of Anime/OVA from the 80's and early 90's depicting this scenery. Check Mad Bull 34. Beware, there is gore and explicit scenes.
I grew up with my dad bootlegging many Sierra games and copying the entire manual (for copy protection) at work since he worked at a paper factory. Using a hint book, I did eventually beat this game once in my youth. I remember one of the most annoying things was having to recalibrate my gun towards the end of the game. When I encountered the hijacker on the plane, similarly, I missed and died. Had to restore an earlier save. As much as I love Sierra, they do employ a lot of *asshole design* where if you miss something early in the game, it can prevent you from completing the game much later.
Someone gave me a bootlegged copy of the game WITHOUT the manual so I had no idea what to do. Eventually I got a walkthrough and finished the game with that. The many deaths left me with a love-hate relationship with the Sierra games. The LucasArts games were more fun/enjoyable.
PQ2 was actually really fun back in the 80's when it came out. It hasn't aged well, but at the time it was pretty great.Then again, I was in high school, so new Sierra titles were always a good thing.
I would think that the part where Sonny gets mugged was put in simply so that it would give a reason why Keith doesn't come with him down into the sewers, thus creating a more tense confrontation with Bains. Is it an optional encounter?
I really want you to play Mystery of the Druids. Just bear with it until "the moment" which should only be less than an hour in. It's like Police Quest if people reacted noramlly to Sonny.
Yeah, it's not well communicated, but I don't think Bains took a kidnapped Marie to Steelton on a plane. They probably just drove there. Sonny and Keith just fly to get there faster (presumably arriving about the same time).
I thought it was pretty obvious that Lytton PD is very corrupt. I mean, the chief was eating ice cream on the job. It was pretty obvious at that point.
4:00: He made a fake mustache out of some cat hair. Works every time. 15:23: Their investigation was unusually thorough; they not only asked Sonny for his account of events, but Marie too! _(That's about all the detail I can go into without ruining the mood.)_
Regarding the pedantic puzzles, they used to monitize that. There was a hint line you could call with the number in the manual, and they sold hint books at Radio Shack.
re: your rant about "how did Sonny get away with this" - i think you underestimate how heavily protected law enforcement doing awful shit is in the US hahaha
Well, you need to remember that PQ2 was intentionally designed to play like a cop-buddy film of the 1980s. Realism was never an important thing in PQ2. The whole marketing line about being "used to train police officers" was ONLY about the first game, and even then it was just used to reinforce procedure.
It has been a long time since I played this game, but there is a good amount of time when you get in the office, before you get news that Bains has escaped jail. I think that if you establish the identity of the jailer early, you can talk to the Captain, and get an interview with the jailer. I think that's where the jail shootout comes from. This is actually the first Sierra game I bought. My friend and I pooled our resources and paid half each for it. He got the 5 1/4 disks, and I got the 3 1/2 disks. He got the manual first. Because of this, I didn't know about the field kit. I found out about the Scuba certificate, just because I decided to see what was in my wallet. I didn't know its significance until later.
hotels in america often have huge wooden boxes under them so objects cant get caught down there. it wouldn't be possible to see the lipstick from the other side.
Also, while american PD are fractionally less corrupt now. The likelyhood of them allowing is 0. Namely because a swat team would have been on site, and would have all emptied their mags. If you mess with cops, they believe they have the right to do whatever they want to you (and effectively do as far as our "justice system") is concerned.
this is deep. its really deep into it. I was living cut off from technology development and on my dad´s PC there was Space Quest 1 + 2 alongside Police Quest and I still remember how shocked I was as I saw SQ3 with EGA. The Space Quest Historian not just brings back the memories - you add some important missing links into it as well.
I didn't mean to put you off buying these games. There's actually good stuff in there, too; I just choose to focus on the bad stuff for the sake of comedy. As for Leisure Suit Larry, I do have plans for that... but it'll be a while before I get around to it.
You DO have the shootout in the park with Bains on day one, so that's probably why he knew to put his name on the note in the trunk on day 2. Also fond memories of my uncle giving me and my folks this, SQ3 and LSL1 when I was a kiddo. Also had Black Cauldron and KQ3 (the only ones I owned legally at the time)
Keith, bringing the slacker coworker trope to new heights. "I'm right behind you partner" he says, and 2 seconds later Sonny is gunned down. Cheers Keith!
Anyone else find it completely realistic an (American) cop could track down and then gun down a convict after him and his girlfriend and walk away from it without so much as a slap on the wrist?
Bains leaving his gun in the men's room at the airport is actually an intentional misdirect on his part. If you explore the airport a little, you'll realize that you can't bring a gun into the departure gate area. Then, if you talk to the ticket agent at the front desk, you'll discover that Bains had bought a plane ticket to Houston under his own name. This should bring you to the conclusion that Bains had flown to Houston and left his gun behind so it wouldn't get picked up by the metal detector. If you do this, you have the opportunity to actually board a plane to Houston at the LYPD's expense, only to get pulled off the flight when Fletcher calls Houston PD and discovers that Bains had never arrived in Houston. By the developer's logic, this is what should then push you to show Bains' mugshot to the car rental agents and discover that Bains had actually pulled a bait-and-switch.
Furthermore, the hit list at Marie's house is _also_ intentionally left there, because it contains Colby's name, and a direct threat on Marie's life, which are meant to goad Sonny into chasing Bains to Steelton, where Bains was hoping to kill him. That's also why he left the envelope corner and death threat with Woody Roberts' corpse.
Thirdly (yeah, I'm gonna keep doing these until I'm done watching the video xD ), Bains did not board a flight to Steelton - he had a rented car, remember? There's no indication in game that he bought a ticket to Steelton; as I said earlier, he bought a ticket to _Houston_ to throw Sonny off his tracks while he was busy murdering Woody and getting ready to kidnap Marie. He killed Roberts the same night, stashes his body at the warehouse in the early morning, then kidnapped Marie to his motel room, set up the shotgun trap, and drove straight to Steelton in his rented car. (Also, he didn't cart Marie across state lines; Steelton is still in California.)
Fourthly (yipee), Marie was not a witness to any murders. She was kidnapped after Woody Roberts had already been murdered (which happened while Sonny and Marie were on their date), and was already stashed in the Steelton Park Sewer control room before Bains went off to murder Colby. Remember, he called Colby from the park to make sure he was home before driving over and shooting him. The phonecall, by the way, was _also_ made knowing that it would be intercepted and traced back to the park, since he was hoping to lure Bonds there.
They combed that place from top to bottom and didn't find the "recently disturbed" manhole cover? Doesn't sound like they were being very thorough. (Also, why doesn't Sonny radio for backup before going in? Seems like a sweep of the place by multiple officers would make more sense - and be more in line with how police procedure actually is supposed to work - than going in solo.)
I have a new perspective on adventure games. I don't know If you heard about the liminal space trend that's going on for a while. For me, many adventure games had the same quality as those liminal spaces, but more in a relaxing way.
The portrayal of the morale and work ethic of American cops in PQ2 doesn’t venture beyond what’s already been shown in Beverly Hills Cop, Miami Vice, Lethal Weapon, or To Live and Die in LA. In fact, the game comes across as tamer than Tango & Cash.
The difference is that none of those movies were written or directed by a former highway police officer about events supposedly inspired by things he experienced in real life.
I must have spent at least a year occasionally booting this game up on my parents old Windows 3.1 and losing every time I left the station in the car. I became an expert on those first few moments. The meeting, the newspaper, the shower, the lockers. It wasn't until literal decades later that I remembered it and sought out a guide which told me the solution - I had to do a lap of my police car before departing to "check it for... whatever" or it would explode. Looking forward to hearing about your experience
Hironobu Sakaguchi: "Alright, I need another female lead for the next Final Fantasy game. Got any ideas?" Tetsuya Nomura: *thinks back to a weird American cop game he spent way too many nights playing in the late 80s* "I've got just the idea!"
One of the things I adored about this area was the games with point sounds that came from the theme song itself. Leisure Suit Larry 3, Police Quest 2, King's Quest 4. SCI-0 is my favorite Sierra...era.
In all Honesty I feel like the internal Affairs investigation moment on Sunny was so unjustified. If the investigation said "Because of the relationship of the Kidnapped Marie and Sonny we have decided to hold an investigation to see if Sonny acted out of Malice to Bains…." But that didn’t happen. But yeah what really pisses me off is how Sonny gets punished if he shoots preemptively at Bains before Bains fires first. Like WTF? Bains has Killed a police officer, two witnesses, trapped Sonny with the intention of killing him, attempted to murder him with a shotgun trap and handgun by the water, and you are telling me he is in no way justified in defending himself when he sees Bains with a gun in his hand?!
I know they're different then what you usually review, but I hope you'll at least give a look at the SWAT spin off series. The first two at least at pretty interesting.
Great retrospective! But I'm a bit surprised you forgot to mention Leisure Suit Larry 6s' tribute to Sweet Cheeks Marie in that lovely blues ballad 'Cell Block Love". It certainly adds a bit more background to Sonny and Marie's relationship. ruclips.net/video/T-1ivON60aM/видео.htmlsi=M4AxuZQbt6IIuqVZ
Oh, I know about that, but I'm saving it for my eventual Leisure Suit Larry retrospective series. It makes more sense to talk about it in the context of LSL6.
I recall liking PQ3 a lot more than 2, but it's been decades since I last played it. And I really did not like 2. Although it's nothing compared to the horrors of PQ4. Also, I still can't figure out what Sonny's Japanese hair is supposed to be. It's like a pompadour... with spikes?
Thanks for cool video. It took me several replays to get through PQ2, I remember liking it a lot, but liking it less as I came closer to completion, it guess I hade expected a bigger or more elaborated game (the amount of locations and situations seems a bit few somehow). Btw. you do know that you can call for reinforcement at the motel, right? They will send a squad the shoots a can of tear gas through the window.
Yeah, so I've been told a couple of times in these comments and on my Discord. I confess I had no idea until after I posted this video. If I did, I would have put it in the video!
The blank protagonist in video games can work if you give the player the ability to express themselves through choices, especially good when they echo into future choices.😁 However too often game designers/writers simply make the player blank period, where in PQ2 you're filling in the relationship as some sort of pseudo pimp romance when presented with this vacuum Ie. "Talk to me player character!".😄 I must say the wide angle location graphics certainly benefitted from going from 160x200 to 320x200 or double-resolution in the sequel since it is much easier to discern objects and even the style of things. Environmental scale and shading are quite good but character sprites are quite flat and oddly proportioned at times, which happened a lot back then to be honest. Lol about the plane-hijack-filler event, they had that in a lot of 80s action films, was such a cliché they used it as one of John Candy's paranoid fantasies in Only the Lonely(1991). It is funny the writing conflict of the lone officer, easier to write but they can end up quite stoic/silent without another character to talk, plus unrealistic to not have a partner. As we learned in Hot Fuzz the biggest fictional cop story omission is paperwork heh. In the end I think all the era police TV shows back then were the main reference points like Miami Vice, T.J. Hooker etc.. Even contemporary cop shows aren't realistic Eg. CSI work is like a hundred people or more working clues rather than 6-12 people, plus science replacing bullets essentially ijs.
All of this is extremely accurate to the US police system and their completely extralegal protection to do whatever the f they want. Excellent video, ACAB!
Not sure if this game is up your alley, but you might consider checking out Cognition: an Erica Reed thriller. It's a newer adventure game about an FBI agent who has the psychic ability to see the past and is trying to use it to find her brother's killer.
This was a great game! I remember back in the day borrowing the disks from my friend only to find out it was 3 disks not 2 lol. Took awhile for me to get the actual game myself!
come on now, the Japanese graphics are amazing. And I'm absolutely going to be playing the point and click version on my steam deck! Maybe I can work out how to apply the patch to the japanese version...
PQ3 doesn't really change much except has manual driving once again and No gun calibration. Still has a plot weirdly filled with conflicts of interest that Sonny should not be investigating as well as more examples of Sonny violating police procedures and generally poor ethics. Apparently at Lytton PD if it involves Sonny or Marie, Anything goes. PQ3 also has 2 different endings, but the ending you get isn't determined by your police work, its based on something easy to miss you can choose to do early in the game. Always surprises me that PQ series was the longest lived, but it makes some sense as it was easy to pivot the series to police focused games that were of a different genre.
You think the racial stereotyping, bullshit puzzles & nonsense plot points in Police Quest 2 are bad? You just wait for Police Quest 4. You. Just. Wait.
police quest is a good insight to the pre 9/11 airline experience
Oh, the joke about Police Quest being so authentic its "used to train police officers" as the marketing material claims leading to the police brutality and accountability crisis in the US was amazingly on point. Good job!
Thank you. I was a little torn about including that because I really don't want to get into heavy political stuff on my channel - this is just supposed to be a good laugh and not much more than that - but I'm glad I kept it in.
Honestly, this game is a satirical commentary on how common corruption and substance abuse are in U.S. police departments, as well as how much of a joke airport security was before 9/11.
Now if only it had the self-awareness to recognize this fact...
@@spacequesthistorian honestly, our cops not brutalizing us should not be "heavily political". But I take your meaning. Loved the playthrough, btw. Need to catch the last two parts though.
The Police Quest series of games is as authentic to real life police work in the same way Space Quest is authentic to the experience of a Space Janitor
A+ comment. 😆
Damn it, Historian! You’re a loose cannon, but you get results!
"Internal Affairs Report:
Detective Sonny Bonds willfully left the state to pursue an interstate kidnapping, despite the FBI having clear jurisdiction.
Without calling for backup, Detective Bonds descended into the sewers of Steelton.
Detective Bonds fired 12 rounds of .45 caliber ammunition at possible suspect Bains.
Jesse Bains was carrying a handgun. However, crime scene determined that the firearm was holstered while Detective Bonds willfully shot him to death.
The sole witness to the shooting was Detective Bonds' girlfriend Marie Wilkans. Ms. Wilkans has an extensive criminal history for prostitution. Her credibility is dubious.
We recommend a promotion to Sergeant. "
And thus justice was served.
I'm no law expert, but while I do believe most of this to be correct, there's one bit I'm like dubious about:
Bains is a fugitive, has murdered two people in cold blood, kidnapped another person that would've been his third victim, and there was clear evidence that he meant to take out the policeman that got him in jail in the first place.
Possible revenge motives aside, wouldn't that justify a "shoot on sight" reason? 🤔
I suppose it depends from a state/country's laws, but dunno, am just curious.
Absolutely love the Fair and Balanced Retrospective series and it's so fun to see Police Quest getting more entries in it. Fantastic video from start to finish. Good job!
Sonny being put on just three days of administrative leave for shooting someone while a cursory investigation is conducted honestly sounds pretty realistic; a lot of police departments in the U.S. are notoriously corrupt. (And at least in the case of Bains, he was armed and had already committed several murders and attempted murders.)
The result (and score) is also slightly different depending on whether you wait for Bains to fire the first shot.
Also this game was based on police procedures in the 1980’s
I know what you're thinking, Bains...
"Did he fire 17 shots, or only 16?"
Well seeing as how I'm blind with vengeful rage, I kinda lost track myself.
So what you've gotta as yourself is, "Do I feel lucky?"
WELL, DO YOU PUNK?
17:02 "Captain Brainfreeze" is such an accurate nickname.
*_Captain Brainfreeze, Defender of the Soft-Serve!_*
Thanks for the video.
Reason for Japan localization is, USA movies, cops and robbers, were very popular in Japan.
There is a bunch of Anime/OVA from the 80's and early 90's depicting this scenery.
Check Mad Bull 34. Beware, there is gore and explicit scenes.
heck... there's official art of Dirty Pair drawn as the cover to Beverly Hill Cop... and as the ending couple from The Graduate
I grew up with my dad bootlegging many Sierra games and copying the entire manual (for copy protection) at work since he worked at a paper factory. Using a hint book, I did eventually beat this game once in my youth. I remember one of the most annoying things was having to recalibrate my gun towards the end of the game. When I encountered the hijacker on the plane, similarly, I missed and died. Had to restore an earlier save. As much as I love Sierra, they do employ a lot of *asshole design* where if you miss something early in the game, it can prevent you from completing the game much later.
Someone gave me a bootlegged copy of the game WITHOUT the manual so I had no idea what to do. Eventually I got a walkthrough and finished the game with that. The many deaths left me with a love-hate relationship with the Sierra games. The LucasArts games were more fun/enjoyable.
Enjoyed the video. Reminds me of old school Spoony.
PQ2 was actually really fun back in the 80's when it came out. It hasn't aged well, but at the time it was pretty great.Then again, I was in high school, so new Sierra titles were always a good thing.
I would think that the part where Sonny gets mugged was put in simply so that it would give a reason why Keith doesn't come with him down into the sewers, thus creating a more tense confrontation with Bains. Is it an optional encounter?
I really want you to play Mystery of the Druids. Just bear with it until "the moment" which should only be less than an hour in. It's like Police Quest if people reacted noramlly to Sonny.
Police Quest is a very authentic police experience.
And I mean that in the worst way possible.
Yeah, it's not well communicated, but I don't think Bains took a kidnapped Marie to Steelton on a plane. They probably just drove there. Sonny and Keith just fly to get there faster (presumably arriving about the same time).
I thought it was pretty obvious that Lytton PD is very corrupt. I mean, the chief was eating ice cream on the job. It was pretty obvious at that point.
4:00: He made a fake mustache out of some cat hair. Works every time.
15:23: Their investigation was unusually thorough; they not only asked Sonny for his account of events, but Marie too!
_(That's about all the detail I can go into without ruining the mood.)_
Regarding the pedantic puzzles, they used to monitize that. There was a hint line you could call with the number in the manual, and they sold hint books at Radio Shack.
It's an urban legend that the designers at Sierra were encouraged to make their games more difficult to sell hint books.
You can give the hit list and business card to the Captain as well. He will then book it for you.
As someone with the a newfound love for old sierra games I love watching your vids
re: your rant about "how did Sonny get away with this" - i think you underestimate how heavily protected law enforcement doing awful shit is in the US hahaha
Well, you need to remember that PQ2 was intentionally designed to play like a cop-buddy film of the 1980s. Realism was never an important thing in PQ2. The whole marketing line about being "used to train police officers" was ONLY about the first game, and even then it was just used to reinforce procedure.
It has been a long time since I played this game, but there is a good amount of time when you get in the office, before you get news that Bains has escaped jail. I think that if you establish the identity of the jailer early, you can talk to the Captain, and get an interview with the jailer. I think that's where the jail shootout comes from. This is actually the first Sierra game I bought. My friend and I pooled our resources and paid half each for it. He got the 5 1/4 disks, and I got the 3 1/2 disks. He got the manual first. Because of this, I didn't know about the field kit. I found out about the Scuba certificate, just because I decided to see what was in my wallet. I didn't know its significance until later.
One of my favourite games ever tbh. It was so engaging. a remaster would do wonders for it.
hell yes!! I was expecting this!!
Anyone else noticed Sunny's head is shared with The FACS Graduate, especially in the car?
You really should do this in 4k to show off the monumental graphics of the time!
I don't even have a 4K display myself.
hotels in america often have huge wooden boxes under them so objects cant get caught down there. it wouldn't be possible to see the lipstick from the other side.
Also, while american PD are fractionally less corrupt now. The likelyhood of them allowing is 0. Namely because a swat team would have been on site, and would have all emptied their mags. If you mess with cops, they believe they have the right to do whatever they want to you (and effectively do as far as our "justice system") is concerned.
this is deep. its really deep into it. I was living cut off from technology development and on my dad´s PC there was Space Quest 1 + 2 alongside Police Quest and I still remember how shocked I was as I saw SQ3 with EGA. The Space Quest Historian not just brings back the memories - you add some important missing links into it as well.
Taselli didn't just walk out of jail, he escaped just like Bains does here.
Judging by how seriously the Lytton jail officers tale their jobs, he might as well have.
TY for this. I was thinking of buying the Police Quest series off Steam and you just reminded me why I shouldn't.
Do Leisue Suit Larry, please.
I didn't mean to put you off buying these games. There's actually good stuff in there, too; I just choose to focus on the bad stuff for the sake of comedy.
As for Leisure Suit Larry, I do have plans for that... but it'll be a while before I get around to it.
After having a bad day, I watched your video and man you made smile and laugh! Keep making awesome content!
Thank you.
I'm so happy I could brighten your day!
You DO have the shootout in the park with Bains on day one, so that's probably why he knew to put his name on the note in the trunk on day 2.
Also fond memories of my uncle giving me and my folks this, SQ3 and LSL1 when I was a kiddo. Also had Black Cauldron and KQ3 (the only ones I owned legally at the time)
Also I too keep my scuba certification card in the back of my wallet.
Good point about the trunk thing. I didn't consider that.
Keith, bringing the slacker coworker trope to new heights. "I'm right behind you partner" he says, and 2 seconds later Sonny is gunned down. Cheers Keith!
Anyone else find it completely realistic an (American) cop could track down and then gun down a convict after him and his girlfriend and walk away from it without so much as a slap on the wrist?
Bains leaving his gun in the men's room at the airport is actually an intentional misdirect on his part. If you explore the airport a little, you'll realize that you can't bring a gun into the departure gate area. Then, if you talk to the ticket agent at the front desk, you'll discover that Bains had bought a plane ticket to Houston under his own name. This should bring you to the conclusion that Bains had flown to Houston and left his gun behind so it wouldn't get picked up by the metal detector. If you do this, you have the opportunity to actually board a plane to Houston at the LYPD's expense, only to get pulled off the flight when Fletcher calls Houston PD and discovers that Bains had never arrived in Houston.
By the developer's logic, this is what should then push you to show Bains' mugshot to the car rental agents and discover that Bains had actually pulled a bait-and-switch.
Furthermore, the hit list at Marie's house is _also_ intentionally left there, because it contains Colby's name, and a direct threat on Marie's life, which are meant to goad Sonny into chasing Bains to Steelton, where Bains was hoping to kill him. That's also why he left the envelope corner and death threat with Woody Roberts' corpse.
Thirdly (yeah, I'm gonna keep doing these until I'm done watching the video xD ), Bains did not board a flight to Steelton - he had a rented car, remember? There's no indication in game that he bought a ticket to Steelton; as I said earlier, he bought a ticket to _Houston_ to throw Sonny off his tracks while he was busy murdering Woody and getting ready to kidnap Marie. He killed Roberts the same night, stashes his body at the warehouse in the early morning, then kidnapped Marie to his motel room, set up the shotgun trap, and drove straight to Steelton in his rented car.
(Also, he didn't cart Marie across state lines; Steelton is still in California.)
Fourthly (yipee), Marie was not a witness to any murders. She was kidnapped after Woody Roberts had already been murdered (which happened while Sonny and Marie were on their date), and was already stashed in the Steelton Park Sewer control room before Bains went off to murder Colby. Remember, he called Colby from the park to make sure he was home before driving over and shooting him. The phonecall, by the way, was _also_ made knowing that it would be intercepted and traced back to the park, since he was hoping to lure Bonds there.
> The police chief leaving passwords out in the open
I work in IT for law enforcement, and boy howdy....
Oh no... you're not serious...
Based on how we treat police in the U.S. in 2024.... yeah this ending tracks.
Police Quest 2 is basically a Charles Bronson fever-dream in videogame form
I don't think he flew to Steelton but drove with Marie in his rented car.
Police in Steelton probably didn't think Bains was in the sewer, ok?
They combed that place from top to bottom and didn't find the "recently disturbed" manhole cover? Doesn't sound like they were being very thorough. (Also, why doesn't Sonny radio for backup before going in? Seems like a sweep of the place by multiple officers would make more sense - and be more in line with how police procedure actually is supposed to work - than going in solo.)
Apparently if you shoot Bains dead first before he fires back at the end of the game, you get busted.
great video, subbed
I have a new perspective on adventure games. I don't know If you heard about the liminal space trend that's going on for a while. For me, many adventure games had the same quality as those liminal spaces, but more in a relaxing way.
The portrayal of the morale and work ethic of American cops in PQ2 doesn’t venture beyond what’s already been shown in Beverly Hills Cop, Miami Vice, Lethal Weapon, or To Live and Die in LA. In fact, the game comes across as tamer than Tango & Cash.
The difference is that none of those movies were written or directed by a former highway police officer about events supposedly inspired by things he experienced in real life.
I must have spent at least a year occasionally booting this game up on my parents old Windows 3.1 and losing every time I left the station in the car. I became an expert on those first few moments. The meeting, the newspaper, the shower, the lockers.
It wasn't until literal decades later that I remembered it and sought out a guide which told me the solution - I had to do a lap of my police car before departing to "check it for... whatever" or it would explode. Looking forward to hearing about your experience
The green car is Woody's, it says so on the screen.
28:29 I'm so sorry for reveling my powerlevel and all, but JP-release flower lady is an absolute waifu.
Hironobu Sakaguchi: "Alright, I need another female lead for the next Final Fantasy game. Got any ideas?"
Tetsuya Nomura: *thinks back to a weird American cop game he spent way too many nights playing in the late 80s* "I've got just the idea!"
One of the things I adored about this area was the games with point sounds that came from the theme song itself. Leisure Suit Larry 3, Police Quest 2, King's Quest 4. SCI-0 is my favorite Sierra...era.
Love you Keith!
You set up the shotgun the night before..dur..
In all Honesty I feel like the internal Affairs investigation moment on Sunny was so unjustified. If the investigation said "Because of the relationship of the Kidnapped Marie and Sonny we have decided to hold an investigation to see if Sonny acted out of Malice to Bains…." But that didn’t happen. But yeah what really pisses me off is how Sonny gets punished if he shoots preemptively at Bains before Bains fires first. Like WTF? Bains has Killed a police officer, two witnesses, trapped Sonny with the intention of killing him, attempted to murder him with a shotgun trap and handgun by the water, and you are telling me he is in no way justified in defending himself when he sees Bains with a gun in his hand?!
Dane: “I can’t believe the police would be this corrupt and inept about the killing of a suspect!”
Every American: “…sure”
I know they're different then what you usually review, but I hope you'll at least give a look at the SWAT spin off series. The first two at least at pretty interesting.
Great retrospective!
But I'm a bit surprised you forgot to mention Leisure Suit Larry 6s' tribute to Sweet Cheeks Marie in that lovely blues ballad 'Cell Block Love".
It certainly adds a bit more background to Sonny and Marie's relationship.
ruclips.net/video/T-1ivON60aM/видео.htmlsi=M4AxuZQbt6IIuqVZ
Oh, I know about that, but I'm saving it for my eventual Leisure Suit Larry retrospective series. It makes more sense to talk about it in the context of LSL6.
@@spacequesthistorian Great! can't wait for you to get to it. :)
@@acemcjack It'll probably be a while. I've still got the Police Quest series to finish, as well as a handful of other games I want to cover.
I recall liking PQ3 a lot more than 2, but it's been decades since I last played it. And I really did not like 2. Although it's nothing compared to the horrors of PQ4.
Also, I still can't figure out what Sonny's Japanese hair is supposed to be. It's like a pompadour... with spikes?
Thanks for cool video. It took me several replays to get through PQ2, I remember liking it a lot, but liking it less as I came closer to completion, it guess I hade expected a bigger or more elaborated game (the amount of locations and situations seems a bit few somehow).
Btw. you do know that you can call for reinforcement at the motel, right?
They will send a squad the shoots a can of tear gas through the window.
ruclips.net/video/ByukrG2W0dA/видео.html
Yeah, so I've been told a couple of times in these comments and on my Discord. I confess I had no idea until after I posted this video. If I did, I would have put it in the video!
14:10 Dr. Disrespect! I always knew he was guilty
It does look a bit like him, yeah! I don't know much about the drama about him. I just know he cheated on his wife.
The blank protagonist in video games can work if you give the player the ability to express themselves through choices, especially good when they echo into future choices.😁 However too often game designers/writers simply make the player blank period, where in PQ2 you're filling in the relationship as some sort of pseudo pimp romance when presented with this vacuum Ie. "Talk to me player character!".😄
I must say the wide angle location graphics certainly benefitted from going from 160x200 to 320x200 or double-resolution in the sequel since it is much easier to discern objects and even the style of things. Environmental scale and shading are quite good but character sprites are quite flat and oddly proportioned at times, which happened a lot back then to be honest.
Lol about the plane-hijack-filler event, they had that in a lot of 80s action films, was such a cliché they used it as one of John Candy's paranoid fantasies in Only the Lonely(1991). It is funny the writing conflict of the lone officer, easier to write but they can end up quite stoic/silent without another character to talk, plus unrealistic to not have a partner. As we learned in Hot Fuzz the biggest fictional cop story omission is paperwork heh.
In the end I think all the era police TV shows back then were the main reference points like Miami Vice, T.J. Hooker etc.. Even contemporary cop shows aren't realistic Eg. CSI work is like a hundred people or more working clues rather than 6-12 people, plus science replacing bullets essentially ijs.
In the immortal words of Bison: YEEESSS! YEEESSS!
If you don't reset your sights before you go on the plane your shots will miss and you'll die lol
Yeah, that's... what I said. 🤔
sorry I posted this before getting to that part in the vid lol
Haha, no worries. ☺️
I am still wrecking my brain over Baines leaving his pew-pew in the airport toilet. Was it that difficult to take your piece on board in the 80‘s?
He evidently carried ANOTHER gun on board a plane - along with a shotgun (!) - so... maybe he just didn't like the brand?
It obviously wasn't sighted properly, and Baines realised he would have to load a previous save to go back to sight it, wasn't worth the hassle
I think he didn't flew then or later, just tried to make it seem like he did if they missed the car rentals to throw them off for like.. 2 hours?
All of this is extremely accurate to the US police system and their completely extralegal protection to do whatever the f they want.
Excellent video, ACAB!
Not sure if this game is up your alley, but you might consider checking out Cognition: an Erica Reed thriller. It's a newer adventure game about an FBI agent who has the psychic ability to see the past and is trying to use it to find her brother's killer.
Oohhh yeah baby!
RoboCop had a more realistic depiction of police procedure than this game.
Why dont you like me?
I believe I made my reasons very clear. 😁
This was a great game! I remember back in the day borrowing the disks from my friend only to find out it was 3 disks not 2 lol. Took awhile for me to get the actual game myself!
Played by a jaded adult, the game is garbage
Played by a 12 year old in 1990, it was the greatest game ever made
I don't think I ever got too far in this game but rememebr playing it a lot. Ona monochrome amber/black monitor no less.
Did you do any playthrough of police quest?
Yes! Have a look at this playlist: ruclips.net/p/PLeuPHRWonRSRGG9LVv1orlS4sjZZpR-th
come on now, the Japanese graphics are amazing. And I'm absolutely going to be playing the point and click version on my steam deck! Maybe I can work out how to apply the patch to the japanese version...
I have weird memories of this one. The first time I remembered loving something despite it objectively not being very good.
...
OSU, Karate-bu/Police quest crossover when?!
PQ3 doesn't really change much except has manual driving once again and No gun calibration. Still has a plot weirdly filled with conflicts of interest that Sonny should not be investigating as well as more examples of Sonny violating police procedures and generally poor ethics. Apparently at Lytton PD if it involves Sonny or Marie, Anything goes. PQ3 also has 2 different endings, but the ending you get isn't determined by your police work, its based on something easy to miss you can choose to do early in the game.
Always surprises me that PQ series was the longest lived, but it makes some sense as it was easy to pivot the series to police focused games that were of a different genre.
Yeah, Sonny's "independent investigation" of a coworker is clearly unethical and probably illegal... and yet, his life ultimately depends on doing it.
Captain brainfreeze hahah that is great writing 😂
Donald Trump in Police Quest 2?))
I swear, I did not edit that in. If you look at the guy in the airport, the game identifies him as Donald Trump.
@spacequesthistorian prolific
I work with a guy who looks exactly like the man on cover of the box 😂😂
You think the racial stereotyping, bullshit puzzles & nonsense plot points in Police Quest 2 are bad? You just wait for Police Quest 4. You. Just. Wait.
I don't even acknowledge PQ4. It was terrible on release. It would be even worse now
Sewer segments really are the worst huh?
Mic is a bit low
Don't bother with the point and click thing. It's stupid, you can't do anything with it. Complete trash! Not worth the headache.
For you