Nerds That Geek Game Review – ‘Police Quest III: The Kindred’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Taboo is a word that gets thrown around the creative sector a lot, and with good reason. Because some topics truly disturb and unsettle and outright offend an audience, and if a filmmaker, writer or game designer goes too far, they risk their story becoming an outright failure, despite how brilliant their taboo themed tale may turn out to be. But sometimes, you run into a particular story that figures out the perfect balance of taboo and storytelling to provide the audience with an incredible and stunning tale, and one that meets that criteria that still stands out to me, is Police Quest III: The Kindred.
 
Now before we get too deep into the darker aspects of this story let’s take a moment and talk about the leaps and bounds this particular game makes graphically because PQ3 was quite the technical marvel when it was released. For starters, it featured a massive revamp visually since this adventure abandoned the bright and neon EGA graphics that served as a trademark for the original games, instead embracing the beauty of VGA and video capture for its characters, adding a whole new level of realism to this particular series and that’s important to the story, because it makes the taboo portion of this game a tad more disturbing in its own right.
 
Because this particular tale takes Sonny Bonds’ struggle with the Bains family to a whole new level since (SPOILERS) Jessie’s little brother takes the center stage in this story and he wants blood for his brother’s death and the first real dark element of this game is the sheer fact that he outright brutally attacks Sonny’s wife, which is something you just don’t see in gaming that often, and while murder is present in the other chapters of this game, it’s handled in traditional and accessible fashion and well, the surprises in this game don’t end there because dear Michael took his criminal career to a whole new level by dabbling in the dark arts.
 
In fact, I am still surprised over the fact that this game bothered to explore the whole notion of human sacrifice for Satanic purposes because that’s usually only a place the horror genre goes but it’s front and center in this story, and it is central to Michael Bains’ plans and well, it takes this game to a whole new level storytelling wise and well, credit is due to the writers of this story simply because they handle it just right. While it’s chilling enough to make your skin crawl, it’s handled in tasteful enough fashion to motivate you to finish the case and put an end to Michael’s madness.
 
But, wild and ugly storytelling aside, this game also signaled the end of an era for the series as well. Because the creator of this series, Jim Walls, would bid farewell to the Police Quest universe and well, he went out with a bang. Because this one, was a damn fine game through and through, and its foray into twisted places would set quite the precedent for this franchise as well. Because another law enforcement official would soon step in and provide his own dark vision for the series and it would serve as the most powerful game in the franchise to date…

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