Nerds That Geek Game Review - 'Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

​It doesn’t matter what particular medium a franchise is created within, if it has a great story to tell, I’ll be there to gobble it up. I’ll watch every single movie in the saga before buying them on Blu Ray. I’ll watch every single episode of a TV series before picking up the complete series collection on disc and if there’s a book collection available as well, you know that’s going to be on my bookshelf because great stories need to be celebrated and while I didn’t mention it at first because the market has changed, if there’s a particular collection available for a game series that features an engrossing story, well I will download that too.
 
But, as I said before, the market has changed when it comes to gaming, simply because now it’s about the graphics and the multiplayer experience over all else and while that’s not a terrible thing since people clearly enjoy it, I’ve just come to find this particular shift has made it harder to find a single player game that sucks you in with a powerhouse story, which has motivated me to dig around the web and find some of those classic games where the writing and the respective story outright blew me away and recently, I re-purchased the Police Quest Collection, a saga that truly captivated me when I was younger and man, what a joy it was to return to this series and re-play the supremely dark and powerful first entry in the series, Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel.
 
Now for those unfamiliar with this series and this particular entry in said series, it was originally released in 1987 by Sierra On-Line and well, it was truly the first of its kind. It was written by a former police officer and in order to solve the case in this game, you had to follow police procedure and hit the streets as a detective to uncover clues and leads and while that may sound boring to some, I ate it up. There was something supremely cool about stepping behind the badge and actually digging into police work to make the story to unfold and the sheer fact that it was the only way to properly accomplish the game, forced me to follow procedure to a tee.
 
But, I made mention of a quality story mattering over anything else and all the wonder of police work was grossly overshadowed in a good way by the wonderful story present in this game. Because the specter that ‘The Death Angel’ casts over the fictional city of Lytton is large and dark and that adds a sense of urgency to Sonny Bonds’ work on the case and every little wrinkle that unfolds in this mystery is just delightful and it leads to an awesome climax that leaves you hungry for more. 
 
If anything, this is a franchise that I make a point to revisit as often as possible, simply because I remember this one just drawing me in back in the day, to the point where I would simply lose track of time as I worked to solve the case and it still holds up to this day story wise and it’s one that I highly recommend if you’re into good police stories and love classic adventure games because this one, was a true gem through and through and in all honesty, it’s quite the shame that game companies don’t make them like this anymore.  

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