Editing Police Quest (section)

== Games ==
{{VG timeline
| 1987 = ''[[Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel|Police Quest]]''
| 1988 = ''[[Police Quest II: The Vengeance|Police Quest II]]''
| 1991 = ''[[Police Quest III: The Kindred|Police Quest III]]''
| 1993 = ''[[Police Quest: Open Season]]''
| 1995 = ''[[Police Quest: SWAT]]''
| 1998 = ''[[Police Quest: SWAT 2]]''
| 1999 = ''[[SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle]]''
| 2003 = ''[[SWAT: Global Strike Team]]''
| 2005 = ''[[SWAT 4]]''
| 2006 = ''[[SWAT Force]]''
| 2007 = ''[[SWAT: Target Liberty]]''
| 2008 = ''[[SWAT Elite Troops]]''
}}

=== By Jim Walls (PQ 1–3) ===

{{Cquote|We always wanted to put more into the games and I was never fully satisfied with the driving interfaces. However, the payoff came with the fan mail. When the letters came in, with some of the kids saying they wanted to grow up to be cops, we knew we were on the right track.
|author=[[Jim Walls]]
|source=as told to USGamer<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bailey |first1=Kat |title=You're a Loose Cannon: The Challenge of Making a Good Police Game |url=https://www.usgamer.net/articles/making-police-games |access-date=31 December 2020 |publisher=USGamer |date=March 17, 2015}}</ref> 
}}

The first three games were produced by former police officer [[Jim Walls]] and follow the adventures of Sonny Bonds, a character whose name and appearance was loosely based on his own son, Sonny Walls. Jim Walls makes a cameo appearance in each game, typically in the introduction.
;''Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel''
{{Main|Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel}}
Released in 1987 using Sierra's [[Adventure Game Interpreter]] [[Parsing|parser]] [[Game engine|engine]], ''Police Quest'' casts the player as Sonny Bonds, a 15-year veteran police officer in the [[fictional town]]<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Cobbett |first=Richard |date=2020-03-28 |title=Crapshoot: Police Quest, which was horrifyingly used as a training tool by real cops |url=https://www.pcgamer.com/saturday-crapshoot-police-quest/ |magazine=[[PC Gamer]] |access-date=2023-06-13}}</ref> of Lytton, California. Assigned to traffic duty, Sonny investigates what appears to be a simple car crash but turns out to be a [[homicide]]. Relieved by his supervisor, Sergeant Dooley, Sonny goes on a short coffee break with a fellow officer and returns to duty. He gives a traffic violation citation to a driver, single-handedly faces a tough gang of drunken bikers, and makes a DUI arrest. As the game progresses, he advances from patrol officer to temporary [[narcotic]]s [[detective]] to [[undercover|undercover agent]] in hope of tracking down a murderous drug dealer named Jessie Bains, "The Death Angel". In order to find Jessie Bains, Sonny enlists the help of his former high school sweetheart, "Sweet Cheeks" Marie, who is now working as a [[prostitute]].

The game is the most realistic of those developed by Sierra in the late 1980s when compared to ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]]'', ''[[King's Quest]]'', or ''[[Space Quest]]'', and featured many puzzles where proper police procedure is required to succeed.<ref name="CGW">{{cite magazine |date=April 1988|last=Chaut|first=Michael|magazine=[[Computer Gaming World]]|title= Dusting the Death Angel: Sierra's New Police Adventure|pages=22–23}}</ref> It was released for [[MS-DOS]], [[Apple II]], [[Mac (computer)|Mac]], [[Amiga]], [[Atari ST]] and [[Apple IIGS|Apple II<small>GS</small>]]. A SCI1.1 [[enhanced remake]] in [[8-bit color|256 color]] [[Video Graphics Array|VGA]] was released in 1992, which was also the first game released in the series not to feature [[Unwinnable|dead ends]].

;''Police Quest II: The Vengeance''
{{Main|Police Quest II: The Vengeance}}
Released in 1988 and running on the then-current [[Sierra Creative Interpreter|SCI0]] engine, the game once again casts the player as officer Sonny Bonds. After arresting Jessie Bains, Bonds is permanently promoted to the homicide division. He begins dating Marie Wilkans, who helped him in his undercover work in exchange for the dismissal of prostitution charges against her as "Sweet Cheeks" Marie. A dark shadow is cast over Sonny's happy life, however, when Bains escapes from prison and seeks revenge. With the help of his partner Keith, Bonds must protect his girlfriend's life as well as his own while pursuing "The Death Angel" once again. Despite Sonny's efforts, Bains kills several people who were involved in his arrest and abducts Marie. Sonny pursues Bains to Steelton, the current home of Donald Colby, a reformed drug pusher from the original ''Police Quest''.

''Police Quest II'' is notably more "mature" than the first title in the series and relies much more on proper procedure. Failure to properly maintain Sonny's firearm at various points throughout the game will cause it to [[Firearm malfunction|malfunction]] or misfire, and proceeding into a dangerous situation without proper backup will usually prove fatal.

;''Police Quest III: The Kindred''
{{Main|Police Quest III: The Kindred}}
Sonny and Marie are married following Bains' death. Promoted once more, Sonny now has to deal with rampant crime as a [[drug cartel]] begins operating in Lytton and evidence of a satanic cult starts to appear. However, when Marie is stabbed in a mall parking lot, Sonny's police work becomes personal.

Sonny must deal with a partner with questionable ethics as well as find patterns in crime to find his next lead. The Bains family also plays a role in this game.

Released in 1991 for SCI version 1, ''PQ3'' is completely mouse-driven. It was only released for the [[IBM PC compatible|IBM PC]] and the [[Amiga]]. Before the completion of this game, [[Jim Walls]] had left Sierra for reasons that have still not been publicly explained, leaving [[Jane Jensen]] to finish the final in-game dialogue and messages. SWAT founder [[Daryl F. Gates]] was named to take over the ''Police Quest'' series while Walls, along with several former Sierra employees, would go on to design [[Blue Force]], an adventure game similar to the ''Police Quest'' series.

=== By Daryl F. Gates (PQ 4–6) ===
The later games in the series were designed by Tammy Dargan and produced by former L.A. Chief [[Daryl Gates]], in a different style in both atmosphere, and later even in genre. Like the original series by Jim Walls, Daryl Gates makes cameo appearances in each game. ''Police Quest IV'' and ''V'' were later spun off into the ''SWAT'' series. Unlike the earlier games in the series, these were listed as ''Daryl F Gates' Police Quest'', rather than being a numbered series (the numbered titles were still used in packaging and printed material included with the compilation CDs).

;''Police Quest: Open Season''
{{Main|Police Quest: Open Season}}
[[Daryl F. Gates]]' first game for Sierra departed completely from the style of the previous games. The player was no longer cast as Sonny Bonds, but as John Carey; the action was no longer in fictional Lytton, but in [[Los Angeles]], [[California]]. Carey, an [[Los Angeles Police Department|LAPD]] homicide detective whose best friend was killed in the line of duty, must track down a serial murderer in L.A.

Numerous mature themes are depicted in the game, including [[hate crimes]], [[Neo-Nazism]], and youth involved in crime. Graphic imagery within the game also includes the body of a child murdered by gang violence and a severed head in a refrigerator.

Using SCI2 the game replaced from earlier games with scanned photos as backgrounds, and live actors filmed from green screen as character [[sprite (computer graphics)|sprites]]. It was released in 1993, for both [[IBM PC compatible|IBM PC]] and [[Apple Macintosh|Macintosh]]. The game is generally incompatible with [[Windows 95]], and later editions; the game may crash at certain points in the game, e.g. the shooting gallery and the shoot out. This, however, was fixed with the release of the CD version with Windows installer.

This game is the most "mature" of the ''Police Quest'' series of games; while previously only a peripheral element, the themes of drug abuse, police corruption and gang violence play prominent roles in this game. Police procedure is less of an element in the game, pushed aside for the sake of storytelling.

;''Police Quest: SWAT''
{{Main|Police Quest: SWAT}}

Although the game is not referred to as PQV in the title screen, it is referred to as such in several other locations in the game including the files, and the game credits, and certain versions of the packaging near the ISBN/barcode and documentation. ''Police Quest 5: SWAT'' was re-released as part of the second ''Police Quest Collection'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://i2.listal.com/image/198521/600full-police-quest%3A-collection-series-screenshot.jpg |format=JPG |title=''Police Quest V: SWAT'' in the ''Police Quest Collection Series'' |publisher=I2.listal.com |access-date=March 30, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402180331/http://i2.listal.com/image/198521/600full-police-quest%3A-collection-series-screenshot.jpg |archive-date=April 2, 2015 }}</ref> and later as part of the ''Police Quest: SWAT Force'', ''SWAT Career Pack'' (which included all six PQ games), and ''Police Quest: SWAT Generation'' compilations.

;''Police Quest: SWAT 2''
{{Main|Police Quest: SWAT 2}}
''[[Police Quest: SWAT 2]]'' is the sixth and final game of the original ''Police Quest'' series. It is a [[real-time strategy]] game using an original game engine. It retained only a few adventure game elements in the form of an inventory and use of a few ''puzzle'' items such as a pizza (to draw a suspect out of a house), and similar interface (look/search icon, pickup/hand icon, communication/talk/challenge icon, etc.). It is referred to as PQ6 in a few locations including its files. Sonny Bonds is one of the agents the player may employ in the game. It was included as part of the ''Police Quest: SWAT Force'' and ''Police Quest: SWAT Generation'' compilations.

=== PC-based ''SWAT'' shooters (SWAT 3-4) ===
Although the ''Police Quest'' series continued after ''Open Season'' for two more games, these releases spawned the ''SWAT'' series and the series moved into different video game [[genre]]s.
* ''[[SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle]]'' (2000) [[IBM PC compatible|PC]]/[[Microsoft Windows|Windows]]—tactical shooter
* ''SWAT: Urban Justice'' (2002—cancelled) PC/Windows
* ''[[SWAT 4]]'' (2005) PC/Windows—tactical shooter

''[[SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle]]'' and ''[[SWAT 4]]'' are both [[tactical shooter]]s, the only games of that type in the series. ''SWAT 4'' is the final game in the full eight-game series, though by this point it had nothing to do with the original games, with the exception of a cameo by Marie Bonds in ''SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle'' and Sonny Bonds as a SWAT unit lieutenant in ''SWAT 4''.

At this point neither Jim Walls or Daryl Gates were developers in the series, though Gates was a consultant on ''SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle'' along with the Advisor Kenneth A. Thatcher of LAPD.

The first SWAT game—technically ''Police Quest 5: SWAT''—was later re-released as part of the ''Police Quest Collection Series'' (the second ''Police Quest'' adventure compilation), and all six PQ games were released as part of the ''SWAT Career Pack'', the third "complete series" ''Police Quest'' collection. The first two were released in a double pack called Police Quest: SWAT Force and more recently in the ''Police Quest: SWAT 1+2'' pack on GoG.com. In the past, the first three SWAT games were released in a compilation entitled ''Police Quest: SWAT Generation''. ''SWAT 3'' is currently sold separately on GoG.com, separately from the ''Police Quest'' packs.

''SWAT: Urban Justice'' was a cancelled PC title (2001/2002) originally meant to be the followup to SWAT 3. An easter egg for the cancelled game can be found in SWAT4.

=== Console and mobile ''SWAT'' titles ===
Other ''SWAT'' titles include:
* ''[[SWAT: Global Strike Team]]'' ([[PS2]] and [[Xbox]]) (2003)
* ''[[SWAT Force]]'' (Mobile) (2006)<ref>{{cite news |title=Vivendi Universal Games' Wireless Division Extends New Mobile Game Offerings In Europe And Other International Markets |url=https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/vivendi-universal-games-wireless-division-extends-new-mobile-game-offerings-in-europe-and-other-international-markets |access-date=December 31, 2020 |agency=gamesindustry.biz |date=July 18, 2005}}</ref>
* ''[[SWAT: Target Liberty]]'' ([[PlayStation Portable|PSP]]) (2007)
* ''[[SWAT Elite Troops]]'' (Mobile) (2008)