POLICE QUEST II

 Don't ask me what happened to Lytton. Lytton -- a nice little town gone bad.
Seems like only a year ago I was just a cop on the beat with a nose for trouble,
and Lytton was a big nothing: a safe little burgh where the worst news you heard
was the weather. Now I'm a detective, and Lytton's got big city problems, its
own airport, a bigger jail, murders, hijackings, kidnappings, corpses
everywhere. I'll tell you, sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't just pack it in
and let the wolves out there eat each other up alive.

 Sorry. The pressure gets to you. Days like this, I'm a coiled spring, with my
nerves frayed and ready to snap. My name is Bonds...Sonny Bonds. Detective
working homicide, LPD. I'm a cop. This is my partner, Keith. He's a cop, too.
(Cue the dramatic music.)

 POLICE QUEST II...in color! Subtitled "The Vengeance," PQ2 reprises some of the
same characters and elements of PQ1 ("In Pursuit of the Death Angel"). The
player once again steps into the gumshoes of Sonny Bonds who, in the first game,
advanced from uniformed officer to plainclothes detective for the narcotics
division. Now Sonny's in Homicide, and we're going to guide him through two days
of hell. (This review is based on the IBM-PC version.)

 The Death Angel, Jessie Bains, is a notorious drug kingpin whom you presumably
put away for good in PQ1. Naturally, a small technicality has sent Bains back to
Lytton for a retrial. That's where PQ2 picks up the story. Bains escapes and
decides to exact retribution on his original captors. This involves some rather
ruthless and unattractive behavior -- lots of bloodshed and gunplay. Parental
discretion may be advised. Then again, there's less violence in PQ2 than in a
single session of just about any video game cartridge. But it _is_ more
graphically depicted.

 This time your adventure takes you to a number of exotic locales, not just
among the sleaze joints and back rooms of Lytton. You'll go underground,
underwater, over land and sea before you're done. And the story is presented in
such detail and color that you might find yourself lingering over the smallest
touches or repeatedly running a select bit of amusing animation. PQ2 is evidence
that graphic adventures are gradually getting better and better.

 Differences between PQ1 and PQ2 abound and, nearly without exception, are
improvements. First and most crucial to players of PQ1, the ghastly driving
sequences have been nearly eliminated. They no longer require any physical
dexterity at all; you merely type your destination and away you go. Since you're
not a beat cop any more, you don't have to drive around aimlessly looking for
speeders. And note that you do not have to have played PQ1 to enjoy PQ2 to its
fullest; the game stands completely on its own.

 I'm reluctant to share much plot detail. As this is a detective story, you're
supposed to discover things on your own, and the plot complications are intended
to carry some impact. I found this game to be one giant puzzle; I was always
unsure of where to go next and what to try. And you're closely monitored by the
Captain. This means that you can't simply get in the car and drive somewhere
without having a good reason. After a brief period of meandering, the Captain
will have you brought back to the station and he'll chew you out. Do it twice
and your game ends. Even if you're driving to the right location and forget to
notify dispatch at the correct time, you'll be dragged back and bawled out. Most
mistakes that don't get you scolded will get you killed or otherwise render your
current game useless. You'll do a lot of restoring. Make it easier on yourself;
do a lot of saving along the way.

 Because the game gives you less leeway to explore, it's tougher to determine
where you're capable of going. The map isn't much help, it only mentions a few
specific locations you can travel to. But once you get out of the station house
(no easy task!), the clues start piling up pretty quickly, giving you a better
idea of what you need to do.

 The puzzles range from maddening to elementary (including some that are
_deceptively_ elementary). As with other Sierra games, you can finish without a
perfect score -- and most people will not be able to achieve a perfect score. In
PQ2 a total of 300 points is possible, but you can complete the game before
earning even 250. Many of the puzzles are solvable in several ways, each netting
you a different point total. Many times I would explore the scene of a crime and
collect whatever evidence I could; still, I had a sneaking suspicion there was
more I could have done. There were also encounters that no doubt could have been
more fruitful in terms of points and information. There were several mildly
unfair puzzles, which may make you feel like you've wasted some time, but
nothing as horrendous as the legendary unicorn's bridle from KING'S QUEST IV or
the Babel Fish from Infocom's THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. And when
your game ends through death or other misadventure, Jim Walls (retired police
officer and author of the PQ games) pipes up with a clue about what you did
wrong.

 PQ2 has more plugs in it than a surge protector. Want the plot of any Sierra
game? They're all on the computer. Want to contact the Sierra BBS or Customer
Service? Just pick up your phone at the station (or at the airport, or...). Has
it been too long since you finished LEISURE SUIT LARRY? You'll find Larry
himself waiting for the Coarsegold bus, and he'll be glad to chat. But I'm not
complaining; these little in-jokes are discreetly placed and amusingly
incorporated.

 One element I really missed was a villain! Throughout most of the game, you're
a step or two behind Jessie Bains, so you rarely catch a glimpse of hi (although
he leaves plenty of carnage behind wherever he goes). Even in the climactic
final encounter, Bains' appearance is painfully brief. I can understand that
we're supposed to hate Bains because of his actions, but it's a fact that
villains are at least as interesting as heroes, usually more so. Bonds is a
perfectly upstanding, decent man, but like most protagonists, he's kind of
bland. I would have liked more of a peek at Bains in "cut scenes" -- scenes that
offer no interaction but serve to illustrate the plot -- or even in scenes of
extended interaction.

 The graphics of PQ2 are simply wonderful. This is the third Sierra game to
utilize a resolution (320x200) higher than many of the older Sierra graphic
adventures. Everywhere you look there's detail, spot animation, something
unexpected and charming. On the IBM, the game supports CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, and
Tandy graphics.

 The great graphics of PQ2 come at the price of speed, however. The MS-DOS
version, which will not even run on a PCjr, requires 8 MHz or greater for
adequate gameplay. At 8 MHz, the game is just playable; driving sequences ca
seem ridiculously long. If you're considering purchasing PQ2 for a machine that
operates under 10 MHz, I would strongly suggest that you view the game (at
whatever speed you'll be playing) in advance. Alternatively, be sure you can get
your money back if you're not satisfied. At 8 MHz, this game will take you a
_long_ time to complete.

 The music is adequate on the IBM's single speaker; however, I've heard parts of
the soundtrack (penned by Mark Seibert) as presented via the Roland MT-32 sound
card, and I can't imagine any computer game having a richer, more intriguing
score. The Roland MT-32 is an expensive option, but it by far overshadows
anything ever heard on any other computer system (aside from a
professionally-equipped MIDI system). There are other sound boards supported by
PQ2 in addition to the standard IBM speaker and the Roland: the Ad Lib Music
Synthesizer and the IBM Music Feature. The Roland is the best and most
expensive; the Ad Lib is far less impressive (and far less costly). I haven't
heard the Music Feature, but it's less sophisticated than the Ad Lib.

 The vocabulary and parser were uneven, but still superior to earlier Sierra
efforts. Often, what's accepted in one location or situation is not understood
in another. I spent several long periods hunting for just the right words to
use, particularly in situations where I was trying to get information from other
characters.

 Overall, PQ2 succeeds in being entertaining as well as instructive. Like PQ1,
much of your success lies in applying the tenets of investigative police work to
the circumstances in the game. The manual spells out all these tenets for you,
but you do have to dig to find the rules that apply to each situation. The
bothersome arcade elements present in PQ1 have been removed, and the game is
chock full of little details that make the setting more realistic. In fact, the
storytelling is effective enough to produce true feelings of tension, relief,
joy, and an occasional lump in the throat. That's a rare and enviable quality in
a piece of computer entertainment.

 I stared long and hard at the tiny corpse on the monitor as I crushed out my
cigar on the cold tile floor. I've seen this all before, I thought, but never
quite this way. My eyes drifted down to the keyboard, across to the CPU, back to
the monitor. "Somewhere," I said to myself, "somewhere in there, Bains is
waiting for me. It may be tomorrow, it may be a week from now, but I'm going to
catch up with him. And this time, I'll put him away for good."

 And so saying, I tapped a few words into the program, shut off the CPU, and
watched the monitor blink out. I turned my back and shuffled slowly down the
hall to where Keith was waiting for me, just out of sight....

 POLICE QUEST II is published and distributed by Sierra On-Line.

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