Police Quest II: The Vengeance (also called Police Quest II) is a 1988 adventure video game created and released by Jim Walls and Sierra On-Line. It is the second part of the Police Quest series. The game follows police officer Sonny Bonds as he tries to catch an escaped criminal.
Police Quest II received good reviews from critics and sold reasonably well. A later version, Police Quest III: The Kindred, was released in 1991.
Gameplay
In Police Quest II, a text-based control system is used to guide the player character. Players give commands using a verb and a noun together, such as "Unlock Door" or "Take Keys," although some keyboard shortcuts are available. To complete the game successfully and earn the highest score, players must follow proper police procedures.
Unlike the first game, driving between locations happens automatically through the text interface, using commands like "drive station" or "chase car." Players do not need to control the car directly.
Sonny Bonds has a firearm. At times, players must use the gun, ensuring it is aimed correctly and loaded with ammunition. The game does not include action scenes, but some dangerous situations require quick actions. As long as Sonny is facing the target and the pistol is aimed correctly, he will shoot accurately based on the story.
Plot
In 1989, Detective Sonny Bonds from the Lytton Police Department in California was assigned to escort Jessie Bains, a drug lord he had arrested years earlier, to a retrial. In his personal life, Bonds had been transferred to the Homicide Division and was dating Marie Wilkans, a former prostitute who had helped him arrest Bains. However, while being held in Lytton’s jail, Bains took a prison guard hostage with a shiv and escaped with the guard.
Bonds and his partner, Keith Robinson, gathered evidence at the jail and located the kidnapped guard’s car. After receiving a report that Bains was seen near the riverside, Bonds and Bains briefly exchanged gunfire before Bains escaped. Bonds dove into the river to search for evidence and found the guard’s body. Bonds concluded that Bains had taken the guard’s identity but could not determine Bains’ next move. Bonds went off-duty and had a dinner date with Marie, where they discussed the investigation.
The next day, police found the body of Woody Roberts, a former Hotel Delphoria bartender and a witness in Bains’ trial. Evidence at the scene led Bonds and Robinson to a motel, where they and a SWAT team raided Bains’ room. Though Bains was not present, Bonds found a business card belonging to former drug dealer Donald Colby and a tube of Marie’s lipstick under the bed. Rushing to Marie’s house, Bonds discovered that Marie had been kidnapped by Bains, who had left a hit list naming people Bains intended to harm, including Bonds, Marie, Roberts, and Colby. Colby was now in witness protection and had moved to the town of Steelton. Bonds and the Lytton PD concluded that Bains had traveled to Steelton to kill Colby and was using Marie as bait to ambush Bonds.
Alerting Colby and the Steelton Police Department to Bains’ plans, Bonds and his partner boarded a flight to Steelton, avoiding a terrorist hijacking during the trip. In Steelton, Bonds learned that Bains had already shot Colby, but the Steelton PD traced a phone call to Colby’s office to a local park. Bonds investigated the park and tracked Bains into the sewer system below it. Bonds chased Bains through the sewers, rescued Marie, and killed Bains in a shootout after finding them.
Bonds was placed on a three-day administrative leave while the Lytton PD’s Internal Affairs unit investigated his actions. The investigators determined that Bonds had acted in self-defense, and he was honored by the department. Bonds traveled to the Bahamas with Marie and proposed to her during the flight.
Development
The 1988 sequel was created using Sierra's new SCI engine. It focused more on detective and evidence work than the original game, which centered on traffic enforcement. The game kept the realistic setting of the first title. Many puzzles in Police Quest II emphasized the correct ways to collect and handle evidence. The game was released for the IBM PC, Amiga, Atari ST, and later for the NEC PC-9801. For the Japanese market, the NEC version used redrawn images in a style similar to anime.
The game's scenarios were inspired by real experiences of the designer, Jim Walls, and his friends during their time in the California Highway Patrol. The character Jessie Bains was modeled after a real escaped criminal who was at large when the game was released.
Reception
By late 1995, the first four Police Quest games had sold a total of 850,000 copies. Markus Krichel of PC Games reported that interest from gamers decreased slightly with Police Quest: Open Season, which led Sierra On-Line to try a new approach for the series with Police Quest: SWAT. By the end of March 1996, Sierra stated that total sales of the Police Quest series, including SWAT, exceeded 1.2 million units.
In its June 1989 issue, the British magazine Atari ST User described the ST version of the game as "excellent in every respect – the graphics, plot, detail, humor, and storytelling are of first-rate quality," giving it a score of 9 out of 10. Computer Gaming World also praised the game, saying, "The advanced graphics, intriguing story, and smooth animations bring the story to life. The whole package leads us toward a new high point in interactive game fiction."
Retro-gaming websites Hardcore Gaming 101 and Adventure Gamers both highlighted the title as the best in the series. Hardcore Gaming 101 noted, "if there's any one title (of the Police Quest series) that deserves attention, it's this one. It's well-paced, fairly exciting, and more interesting than any of the others, and something of an overlooked classic." Adventure Gamers similarly concluded, "(t)he Vengeance is an entertaining and intense retro adventure that is not only the best of its series, but one of the very best of Sierra's Golden Age." In 2011, Adventure Gamers ranked Police Quest II as the 24th-best adventure game ever released.
Reviews
A French review praised the game's realistic way of showing American police procedures. It highlighted the careful use of police rules, such as laws that determine punishments, how police use radios to talk, and ways police solve cases. The reviewer said the game's atmosphere was similar to popular police TV shows like Hill Street Blues and Kojak, and praised its realistic way of showing how police work. However, the reviewer noted that the use of English in the game might be a problem for players who do not speak English well.