With the recent release of CSI: Deadly Intent proving to be something of a disappointment, it got me thinking fondly back to one of my favourite crime series that still knows how to grab the imagination in a vice-like grip. While my first true adventure game love was Secret of Monkey Island, there was another series that threatened to steal away my affections and that was Police Quest. I was initially given the first Police Quest (In Pursuit of the Death Angel), then the second game by a friend a few years later, and was completely unfamiliar with the series or its pedigree. Although I found the first game difficult to adjust to with its incredibly basic visuals and dated animation (that became more enjoyable when remade as an enhanced point-and-click adventure) it was the second game, The Vengeance, that really struck a chord.

The creation of Jim Walls, a former employee of the California Highway Patrol, the Police Quest debut sees Sonny Bonds play the lead role of a rookie officer. Starting off with the most basic of equipment, from night sticks, cuffs, notebook and pen, Sonny gets to perform a variety of duties, from pulling over drunk drivers, patrolling the area and making arrests. It isn't long before Sonny unwittingly uncovers a drug cartel and soon becomes an undercover officer in order to bring down the ringleader Jesse Bains. It's a decision that will later come to haunt the ambitious fellow in the sequel. Now serving as a Homicide Detective (complete with forensic kit including fingerprint brush and powder), Sonny gets to investigate a wider range of crimes and can interview suspects and gather evidence. Not long into the game, Jesse Bains has made his escape from jail and this time he is out for the officer that put him there. It made for a gripping tale full of twists and turns that required quick thinking as much as it did investigating the scenes of crime. My love for The Vengeanceis something that is echoed with Evan Dickens' excellent review of the game, which highlights just how unique the game is even today.

With these games firmly in my heart, I decided it was essential to get hold of Police Quest III: The Kindred, which further cemented my passion for the series. Scrapping the part-text interface of The Vengeance in favour of a pure point-and-click adventure, The Kindred has Sonny Bonds taking on a more senior role as Sergeant Detective. With excellent writing and a well paced game that sees Sonny doing the more mundane elements of police work like office management, as well as the usual hands on activities, a larger storyline soon comes into play. I’ll never forget the half-naked hysterical man at the lake, the distraught woman at the shopping mall and the difficult working relationship with Officer Morales, who seems to be hiding a thing or two. The fact that the case later impacts on Sonny Bonds' personal life with an incident involving his wife, childhood sweetheart Marie, helps to connect the gamer emotionally with the storyline and its characters. Although there were moments in the game that proved to be a sticking point (a crippling bug that made it impossible to complete the pentagon puzzle without a patch, which I wouldn't be aware of until much later), the general atmosphere combined with a decent blend of puzzles backed up with real life police procedures meant that you always felt like a law enforcement officer and not just playing a game about one.

While the prospect of death in adventures can often be off-putting, in the Police Quest games it was a necessary gameplay device: you were an officer of the law equipped with a gun and dealing with unstable citizens and drug dealers who could turn on you at any moment. This element of risk made each situation true to life and compelled you to adhere to the correct procedures. Every death was logical and made sense in the context of the setting, rarely frustrating the player.

Despite the advance of technology that typically makes such games difficult to run natively, the introduction of emulators like DOSBox and the re-release of a classic compilation means that this series is still very enjoyable today. Sadly, the legacy of Police Quest is something that lingers within the remains of Sierra's past, seemingly never to be reawakened, and its fortunes weren't quite the same after the third game. With Jim Walls no longer part of the Sierra fold, the fourth game began with a brand new character and more investigative approach to gameplay, a change that many Police Quest fans (myself included) found difficult to take to. Further games in the series took an entirely different approach, focusing on the more trigger happy side of the SWAT team, with the Police Quest brand eventually dropped altogether. While Jim Walls left Sierra and created Blue Force, a game very reminiscent of the series in style, it lacked the magic that played such a huge part in Police Quest's popularity.

A whole new decade has now come and gone since then, and still nothing quite like Police Quest has been seen on the market. While there are plenty of detective games, forensics investigations, and games that feature cops prone to carrying a gun or two, none have blended together the same mix of puzzles and realism in quite the same way since.

Sonny Bonds, we salute you.