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Police Quest 1 (w/Grayson)
151 Plays17 days ago
Ben, Jess, and "Grayson" all discuss the game that started it all for the noted video game auteur Jim Walls.
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
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Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Introduction and Grayson's Guest Appearance
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello, all of you out there in radio land. Do you fade in like that all the time with your own kind of... us Hey, Grayson, you haven't been introduced. You're not even one of the hosts. You're a guest.
00:00:56
Speaker
I'm a guest. You have to be introduced. Yeah, and I'm hearing something in my cans. Can you confirm? I'm getting a little radio and interference. Yeah, I don't know what that is. like I can hear you loud and clear, but then there's like a buzzing.
00:01:09
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Here's the thing. Jess and I just had a ah long conversation, 45 minutes. That's a long conversation. ah ah That there would be no grabbing of asses today.
00:01:24
Speaker
Our asses would remain a virginal and an untouched. ah no No jokes. but This would only about be about video games. Untrammeled ass.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:38
Speaker
A con-driven ass. untrammeled uh and then and then and we we we we bring in we bring in a guest we we we bring in a guest with for the first time a second a second time before we've even introduced to you before we've even introduced ourselves and and you have to make it all about yourself welcome to quest quest the grayson podcast wow yeah i'm soft launching this podcast as my podcast
00:02:10
Speaker
Oh, well, can be co-host? Um, we'll talk. Oh, all right. So, uh, Grayson, how was your day today? it was good. I had a day off in celebration of June. This doesn't feel genuine.
00:02:22
Speaker
i don't know. I don't know. I don't feel like we're engaging. I don't know. ah Um, I'm Jess. I'm Ben. And today we have a special guest.
00:02:33
Speaker
Uh-huh. Do i have to introduce myself? Yeah, I've already, I've stepped on a bunch of toes already. Do I, do I say something now? Our special guest is, his name is
Humorous Takes on Historical Figures
00:02:44
Speaker
Grayson.
00:02:44
Speaker
And yeah I have something written and prepared. Grayson Davis is a ah a streamer on the popular Adventure Tuesday ah stream, which is twitch.tv slash P as in Peter, as in Sam, underscore, G as in Greg, A as in Apple,
00:03:09
Speaker
ah R as in Roger A as in apple and K as in kite ah and and that's the whole yeah URL and also there's Jess here and he's decaf Jedi on Twitch also but Grayson is well known you can ah catch him uh, wherever people play magic cards that's right at your corner when their kids just under the streetlight, uh, you know, late at night, just flopping those cards down and, and tapping their mana and things like that. Cops until the cops come and kind of, you know, break things up, but you know, there's a George W. Bush, uh,
00:03:55
Speaker
like thing that he said once that I think about a lot that isn't within like the catalog of dumb shit that george w bush has said because it's not not a traditional but bushism yeah it's not a traditional bush oh you know i like that show um but uh uh there was a time where he was like talking about people and i i don't recall who he was even talking about but like someone that he was like oh these people are like layabouts they're they're lazy and like he tried to provide an example of what they were doing and he just kind of trailed off and he's like you know they're uh
00:04:33
Speaker
playing dice and that just
00:04:38
Speaker
he like did he sees i like sailors on shore leave like well looks I just think about in the year and like 2006 you know George W. Bush getting and mad about people throwing dice on a street corner like he's like seeing fucking Nathan Detroit guys and dolls he's just like oh my god it's the the fucking a floating crap game.
00:05:06
Speaker
so anyway, that was my vicious takedown of President George W. Bush. ah Be sure to listen on for more vicious politics. Not a moment too soon.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah. i for Listen, i I've been convinced afraid to speak truth to power. I mean, that's what I love about them. I've been sitting on that for 20 years because I think it's rude to, to disrespect a president while, while he's in office.
00:05:33
Speaker
And so ah right now I'm, I'm just getting like, i have a 20 year kind of thing. So right now I'm, I'm just George W. Bush. So if you've any, you know,
00:05:45
Speaker
Like well we'll work up to Obama in about three years. Yeah. And you came out of the womb. You came out of the womb, I guess, haranguing Johnson.
Magic Cards and Vocabulary
00:05:54
Speaker
What? What? Uh,
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, let's see Yeah. Haranguing Johnson, huh? I was yeah haranguing Johnson. um That's not a great joke, but it's pretty funny. You know, well you know you bring Grayson on and you get the $2 words. We're both English majors.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah. I learned all that. I learned all that vocabulary from magic cards, in fact. Oh yeah? Untrammeled is a magic card?
00:06:27
Speaker
Probably. They make a lot of them. They have to you know use a bunch of words. Is that in the Spongebob? It might be. no one I'm just going to keep making fun of the Spongebob one ah to you specifically.
00:06:41
Speaker
um Alright. Jess, how are you doing today? I'm doing fantastic. I'm having
Exploring 'Dune Awakening'
00:06:47
Speaker
a good day. I've been running around all day doing exciting things like I took my car in to get repaired and went to the doctor.
00:06:59
Speaker
Um... and uh i mean adult things it can always be fun uh it can always be great ben i mean sometimes this is just our life that were i watched uh wakanda forever right before coming in here ah is that the second one that's the second one is it good i've never i never saw it i would diminishing returns uh that was that doesn't that that came after uh he passed away is that correct yes like he's not in yes yeah yeah like sorry what's the name of the actor uh chadwick boseman yeah chadwick boseman um is that right i think i think yeah you are correct um i mean i'm here to talk adventure games and again ben i'm afraid we're grabbing ass right we're supposed to talking about marvel movies right now yeah i mean we've talked about magic we're talking about marvel we're talking about haranguing our johnsons i just don't know we're talking about untrammeled asses all right fine
00:08:01
Speaker
I have a question for for the two of you. You two fucking duke it out who goes first because it's not me. I'm not going first. What have you been playing? Grayson, why don't you take the lead as our guest? I'd like to extend maybe yeah and a hand of friendship that Ben has failed to up to this point. I'm going to bring up a game that's really going to test Ben's ability to not grab ass, because I've been playing Dune Awakening based on the novel and film series Dune. It's a survival game it's set in an... ah Ben, you'll love this. It's set in an alternate universe spice stream that Paul Atreides having about a universe where he was never born.
00:08:42
Speaker
wow All your favorite characters are still there. Like... Duncan. Duncan Idaho. don't know anything about it, dude. Slam Duncan Idaho.
00:08:52
Speaker
Duncan Idaho is like the easiest name to remember because it's like... It's one of the silliest names. And it's very sticky. You know?
00:09:04
Speaker
It's one of those things where I think it's grandfathered in because everybody loves... like Dune so much yeah i that it's like, it's hard to come up with good sci-fi names.
00:09:16
Speaker
And Dune has a lot of really good sci-fi names. And it also has Harkonnen, Idaho. And then it has Duncan Idaho. Yeah, like fucking Herbert.
00:09:27
Speaker
He was just taking, like, he's like listing off Atreides, Harkonnen, like all this stuff. And then like, he's at the very end of it. He's just like, oh, don't know. but there was ah there was so in idaho yeah There was an NPC, like, you know, you're walking around like a little town and the in the game and there's an NPC barks.
00:09:45
Speaker
And one of the NPCs, this was I was so curious if this referenced something from the actual books. one There was an NPC in the game who referenced FM radio as if they as if they still they still listen to FM radio
Gaming Developer Funcom
00:09:59
Speaker
in the game.
00:10:01
Speaker
That seems like something that would be in those books just because he's like... You know, he was just such a dork of that moment.
00:10:12
Speaker
How could Frank Herbert have not foreseen Sirius XM radio? Like how did I mean, if he's a futurist, how do you not see that one coming? Ben, how can you possibly defend Frank Herbert with this?
00:10:24
Speaker
Well, if you read the prequels by the great Brian Herbert, it actually goes well into that. well, fair enough. just know you're a big stern head, so you're you're big on the XM stuff.
00:10:40
Speaker
Sirius' satellites were taken down by Shai Hulud. Is that the worm? Who's worm? Yeah, the Shai Hulud. Here's the great thing about the terrible prequel novels written by his son, Brian Herbert, alongside somebody else whose name I forget, is that my dad, I think, read all of them. And I just remember, I haven't read any of them, but...
00:11:03
Speaker
my My dad, I remember like my dad reading them.
Nostalgic Golf Games Discussion
00:11:07
Speaker
man Dad, what are you reading? And he's like, oh, it's it's a prequel to the Dune books. The Dune books are really good. These are terrible.
00:11:15
Speaker
Never read these. And then he just kept reading them. He read all of them. There you go. He just wanted to know. he wanted to know about the Balerian Jihad. That's me reading every Star Trek novel ever. I'm just like, oh, this is terrible.
00:11:29
Speaker
And just put it down, pick up the next one. There I go. Yeah. You want to know what happens, you know, you you want to know what happens to your friend Worf. I want to know if Riker and Troy kiss.
00:11:42
Speaker
Do they? Sometimes.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty cool. All right, Grayson, do you have anything else to say about this game? Is it good? Is good game? Yeah, is it I like it quite a bit. It very much like a survival game la Valheim, that sort of stuff, where you run around picking up rocks until you develop technology to pick up better rocks, and so on and so forth. This all takes about 700 hours.
00:12:10
Speaker
So you really have to like the kind of game where you are just going, you're doing wars and ticking boxes and- Here's my question for you. Yeah. Is, I mean, so you're not, you're not a Dune Hef.
00:12:24
Speaker
Not particularly, no. So would you say that this brings anything to this kind of like, because there's a million of these games. Yes, exactly. Many of which I've played with you. um Like I played Valheim, which you aforementioned.
00:12:41
Speaker
Does it bring anything to that formula other than being a pretty good implementation in like this recognizable sci-fi property? And so that itself is pretty cool.
00:12:56
Speaker
I think i think it it it does a really good job bringing in a lot of the specificity of the weirdness of Dune. So, like, as an example, a lot of the resource harvesting that is kind of, like, normal orchid-based stuff in a lot of these games, in Dune, a lot of the resources you need are out in the desert, which means you have to, think of you have to like, think about the vibration meter that alerts the worm. Oh, yeah.
00:13:22
Speaker
So, like... they world Yeah, and there's little so there's little there. They do a good job taking like specific features of Dune besides just kind of look and feel of it and bringing it into the game in a way that I think is is pretty cool. And it's just, I think, a pretty good survival game if you like those.
00:13:41
Speaker
But if you're somebody who really loves Dune but hates doing chores in video games, I don't think this is going to change your mind about it. That's why haven't got it. Does it offer any nudity like the Conan the Barbarian survival game? From the same from the same developers. Oh, Funcom.
00:14:00
Speaker
Funcom. I have not seen anybody naked yet. There are people, have heard of trolls who get as nude as you can get, and they run around deliberately attracting the worm to greet people.
00:14:16
Speaker
Now this is funcom of The Longest Journey fame, right? So this is sort of like a spiritual sequel to that. it say It is a sequel. It is a sequel to The Longest Journey.
00:14:27
Speaker
But not Dreamfall. No. right, Jess, what have you been playing? The music's over for Grayson. Oh, man. Wow, you timed that really well. Ben, have been playing, and Grayson, too. I don't wanna
Inkle's Narrative Games
00:14:39
Speaker
to leave you out of this conversation. I've been playing Lynx, The Challenge of Golf, from 1990.
00:14:45
Speaker
Are you really? What? I have been. Yeah, I have been. I've been playing Lynx, the challenge of golf from 1990. I'm playing an access game right now. I'm playing Under a Killing Moon on my stream.
00:14:56
Speaker
And I started thinking about other access games I've played through the years. Right. And Lynx was one that I was obsessed with in the early 90s. And that was that was their major set. Like, that underwrote all the Tex Murphy games, right? have to think it did.
00:15:12
Speaker
Crazy popular, right? Yeah, it was wildly popular. I think they sold expansion packs with extra courses and all this sort of stuff. I mean, Lynx was a hugely successful game.
00:15:24
Speaker
I mean, it's sort of a basic golf sim. It uses the same real sound that lot accesses early titles did. It plays screechy voice and digitized sound effects through your PC speaker magically. So it's got that whole thing going for it. But, uh,
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, I like a good golf game. um Sometimes I just like to relax with little bit of a golf game. This one's wild, but i didn't remember about it from my childhood. You how in a lot of golf games you have the opportunity to like turn your character to aim where you're going to hit the ball and like, you know, you can... Yeah, of course, yeah. just sort of a basic how you reorient yourself on the course.
00:16:01
Speaker
In Lynx, the challenge of golf, every time you do that, it has to redraw the entire hole, which I did not remember. It had to have done that when a kid too, much more slowly than it does on my computer now. oh yeah I was just oblivious. so yeah If you want to turn like five degrees to the left, you're ready to redraw the entire hole as you start reticulating splines and all that sort of stuff.
00:16:27
Speaker
I didn't play Lynx, but I did like... is like kind of 3d games of that style, like not of that style. So not like Wolfenstein or something like that.
00:16:40
Speaker
had that because I remember playing other games like that where like it would draw in, like it was like King's quest one. That's right. Like that. Um, What is the control scheme for the
Jim Walls and Police Quest Series
00:16:54
Speaker
swings?
00:16:54
Speaker
how How do you that? It is the swing meter where you like tap it to start. There's the target for the second tap for accuracy and then the final tap to, so sort of the standard, well we now think i was like the standard golf hit meter.
00:17:10
Speaker
I wonder what the first game with that, because it's like, because I know those primarily of course through Mario Golf. Yeah. The original Nintendo Golf, like the NES title. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Mario doing the golfing. And that was in the mid 80s, I believe. Like that was a pretty early. It had to have been like 86, 87. I would guess. Yeah.
00:17:36
Speaker
I like a good golf game, though. I used to spend a lot of time with Hot Shots Golf for PlayStation or Everybody's Golf, I guess, as it's known. The one where everyone was like, there were rude brode cartoons playing golf.
00:17:47
Speaker
These were mostly polite cartoons. They were like cartoonish people, but yeah, this was like an upbeat, positive turn around and spin to the camera and give a thumbs up after you sink your birdie putt kind of thing.
00:17:59
Speaker
This is one of PlayStation's like, well, Nintendo has a franchise. Can we make up some shitty characters nobody likes for ours? I used to go to, back when I was in grad school, I used to go to our Best Buy that had a kiosk playing Hot Shots Golf and sometimes just spend like an hour or so standing there playing some Hot Shots Golf. And I bet the employees loved it.
00:18:20
Speaker
And then I would step over and they had a Britney Spears dance game that would also play like a rhythm game. So, you know, lived a pretty full life as a man in my mid-20s. A good life. And what have you been playing?
00:18:34
Speaker
Well, Jess, I have been playing a game and I don't know if I... Did I talk about Expelled? The Inkle game?
00:18:44
Speaker
don't think so. Okay. Yeah. I've been going back to Expelled. The Inkle game. Oh, we streamed that briefly. We did stream it. It's not archived because apparently a lot of the music in it licensed.
00:18:57
Speaker
Go figure. it It sounded public domain to me. It all sounded very old, but when I streamed it, like massive chunks of it were muted. So was like, oh, okay.
00:19:09
Speaker
All right, well, I'll get rid of that then. And maybe that was like right after came out. Maybe that that's been streamed out or maybe there's like a preview mode of the options now.
00:19:20
Speaker
I didn't even check because I just... Don't expect that in adventure game. Expelled!
00:19:37
Speaker
overboard game. If you ever played the incredible overboard game where it a cover-em-up where you murdered someone on a boat and you have to cover up your murder.
00:19:55
Speaker
And there's a variety of different paths and ways to do it. And you're on a timer. And we should probably we should probably have an Inkle episode at some point.
00:20:08
Speaker
Maybe even more like even on just individual Inkle games because I could talk for a full hour. They're bare they're being very elaborate. And I say this totally parentheses complimentary. They're yeah very elaborate. Choose your own adventures.
00:20:22
Speaker
like yeah And it's very funny. ah that The writing is very funny. the The writing is excellent in all the Inkle games. they they're They're kind of visual novel-y.
00:20:33
Speaker
Like the head of the studio,
00:20:40
Speaker
I think he's the head I know he's one of the designers. john john n ingold Jonathan Ingold comes out of interactive fiction. So it has that like text adventure feel to the writing. And Expelled,
00:21:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Cool word, the word everyone likes at first. That's the word everyone likes at first. I knew would scoff at it. I scoff at it when you're 14. But you're accused of pushing someone out a window. You're like a private...
00:21:23
Speaker
school girl at like you know this clear your name or you'll be expelled that's the title of the game and also like she's like snarky and shitty and she's a obnoxious little little kid and you're like uh making her kind of worse and worse and worse as you play it's great uh anyway uh so that's what i've been playing
00:22:10
Speaker
all right well we've been putting it off long enough you know there's really ever one reason why you'd have Grayson on a podcast that's really only one literally one there's only one reason why you'd ever have Grayson on on this podcast and it's a sparkling personality hmm just I don't want to here's the thing there's there is only one reason and I don't want to give everybody a false impression
00:22:42
Speaker
I don't want to get invited onto a podcast for my sparkly personality and for them to go like, oh no, no, this isn't the reason. Well, the reason is, yeah Grayson is our resident.
00:22:56
Speaker
scholar of Jim Walls. He is our scholar in residence for the works of Jimothy Walls. Sir Jimothy Walls. i think I think scholar is a really generous way of putting it, Jess. I think
Eccentricities and Humor in Police Quest
00:23:10
Speaker
in a lot of ways you are more of a scholar of Jim Walls.
00:23:13
Speaker
That's your kind of professional background. I feel like I have also studied his work and I feel like I have a sort of empathetic connection with the man. And I'm just here.
00:23:24
Speaker
And Ben's also here as well. And I, you know, I'm hanging out. What's up, man? Hang tight. Ben's driving this train. Yeah, we're going to talk about, because we had so much fun a few episodes ago.
00:23:35
Speaker
We brought Grayson in to talk about Codename Iceman. ah Maybe Jim Walls' most infamous game at some level. Of course, Grayson is also the creator of Kid Name Iceboy, the fan prequel to Codename Iceman. Kind of like a prequel to Dune.
00:23:52
Speaker
Also a prequel to Dune. A lot of people don't realize the connections there, but I mean, you'll never catch. dad Kid Name Ice Boy as well. Have you played this prequel game, son? it's ah It's even worse. It's worse than ever playing it.
00:24:05
Speaker
My dad authoritatively said to me, and this is why all prequels are bad. my My dad was just like, there's no such thing as a good prequel. And then we showed him when Phantom Menace came out.
00:24:17
Speaker
LAUGHTER
00:24:21
Speaker
But no, this, we want to talk police quest one. We had so much fun cagging into at some level. I mean, Jim Walls and the police quest games, codename ass man have something of a a negative reputation.
00:24:36
Speaker
And I feel like we tapped into some unexpected joys of a Jim Wiles game there. So we wanted to give Grayson a chance to see if we could tap back into whatever that bizarre Wilesian energy was as we talk about Police Quest 1 pursuit, ah colon, in pursuit of the Death Angel.
00:24:59
Speaker
There's so much to say about that game. Yeah. and And I think the thing to like, I think you have to acknowledge at the top of of the of any discussion here, because you don't want to sound like you're sidestepping it or or being like like contrary or having a hot take. is right There's a lot of things about, there's a lot of aspects of these games that are very silly or kind of clumsy or like in the Police Quest games, like Copaganda sort of stuff, right?
00:25:23
Speaker
Very much so in the Police Quest games. And that's all there. But I think what there is this weird auteur energy to Jim Walls that is fair that is also fascinating.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yes. And so it's it's it's just kind of trying to synthesize all of like, a bizarre number of ways that you can look at these games ah for for what they seem like at at first glance.
00:25:46
Speaker
Absolutely. And if listeners aren't familiar with but with Jim Walls, the designer of the Police Quest series, ah Jim Walls was a retired California highway patrolman who basically threw a chance encounter can with... Can I tell the story, please? Please, Ben. Please tell the story. Thank you.
00:26:03
Speaker
So ah Ken Williams, the the the head of Sierra online, was at the hairdresser. and And that man had some great hair.
00:26:17
Speaker
He did have a luscious head of hair. And I believe he still does. um And i he was chatting with ah with her.
00:26:28
Speaker
And she mentioned, I believe this was her husband. hmm. uh was a retired cop uh because is and i and and i i might have some of these details a little fuzzy it's been a minute since i've read all these but he was a retired cop he like there was an incident during like uh i believe like a traffic stop or something like that that that kind of like uh you know he he stepped back after close call as i understand and
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, like, so he had a close call and, ah you know, kind of stepped back. And I believe what Ken Williams did, forget if this is in ah Hackers or not, the Stephen Levy you ah book.
00:27:17
Speaker
But I, again, it's been a minute since I read that.
VGA Remake of Police Quest
00:27:20
Speaker
But like, he took him so like racquetball court and like tried to like convince him into playing police or like into working for him.
00:27:30
Speaker
Is that right, Jess? Am making up this racket? I believe that sounds right. Because the racquetball thing is like the craziest detail if this is someone that's like shook up with like some sort of like you had a ah close call of some kind and they we're going to play the loudest sport possible bangiest sport there is and i just want to make sure that this isn't some sort of received like story and not you know that that's how men that's how men socialize side to side not face to face especially like in movie movies from the 80s like that's so like that's a power move your boss takes you to the racquetball court
00:28:05
Speaker
He kind of, you know, like really like shows you up because you don't play racquetball. You're not in that sort of tax bracket that you're out there playing racquetball and yeah you're sweating and you're like wearing the all white outfit that you were loaned by the racquetball court.
00:28:19
Speaker
I mean, yeah, we've we've all seen this. I mean, and. Yeah, the boss is just like really showing you up left and right. And eventually you accidentally bounce one off the wall and right into his face. And it's ah it's sort of an awkward moment because you're like, I'm never landing this job now.
00:28:36
Speaker
And he's laughing off. That's how you know it's the place you want to work. It could have been more awkward. It could have taken him to Highlight Court. The world's fastest game. How about Greyhound Racing was the world's fastest game?
00:28:53
Speaker
I kind of... appreciate this idea here of uh mr williams i i don't call him ken i call him mr williams i'm respectful yeah of of the office of president of sierra
00:29:10
Speaker
ah for i respect the office yeah much like you don't talk about former presidents uh negatively until they're long out of office you also respect the office of president of sierra online that's right uh and and so But but like I love this idea where it's like, okay, so you have, you know, King's Quest, this, this you know, popular fantasy storybook series.
00:29:41
Speaker
And the the idea here, I believe, is this idea of broadening the the audience to be more adult.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
00:29:50
Speaker
and to tell more adult stories and not like i mean and yes adult stories in the sense of like there's a leisure suit larry which was a massive hit but then also you have something like police quest and it's like this is a game for grown-ups uh but it's not
00:30:14
Speaker
necessarily uh uh you know like very titillating yeah i think one thing i think is really interesting about these games on that line is it's obviously adult and the kind of violence police investigation side of it right that's kind of that that rated our sort of side But there are just a lot of scenes where, like there's romance.
00:30:36
Speaker
It's like there's, you know, Jim Walls wrote a romance into that game. There are scenes where he, that the Sonny Bonds character is just hanging out at a bar with his friends and they're just chatting about things that are important in their lives as middle-aged men.
00:30:49
Speaker
Tough things they're going through some level, yeah. It's adult in a kind of adult drama sense to like give it a little more credit than is really warranted. But like it, it, It's adult. No, it's warranted. but And I'm not just saying that because it's about police. Police.
00:31:04
Speaker
ah ah But I think that's the thing that I think is really, is really you're almost struck by with these games where you're like, wow, this isn't, like we may, I think the reputation they have is it's it's the but the police procedure stuff is so finicky and and strange. And they're right.
00:31:19
Speaker
And they're right. That is very finicky and strange. But there's also this layer of like actual adult drama that is very i mean yeah it's not very common in games of that era i oh god was just gonna say you know circling back to what ben was saying though i kind of love this idea i'm can mr williams yeah think i think i'm just like i've found a person these colors don't run yes i found a person with an interesting story to tell I can probably just teach him to make a computer game.
00:31:52
Speaker
Like, I kind of love this, like fly by the seat of your pants approach. And, you know, he he has varying degrees of success with, you know, it's like, I want to make a pervy game, find me a pervert. And he found Al low in the bushes.
00:32:05
Speaker
And he's being a real sicko out there. And he was like, I'm going to design a game for us. And that worked. I mean, but I like this big swing. Like the idea, I mean, how many retired cops are there in America? He knows this one because it's his hairdresser's husband. like, how would you like to come and work at my multimillion dollar entertainment software company?
00:32:25
Speaker
And you can be a game designer too. We'll leapfrog you over several of our long locktime employee and really give you a high ranking creative position while they toil away at their own projects at much lower levels of pay.
00:32:39
Speaker
I love it. It's amazing. Like, it is, i I, yeah, I just, I just love that it, it is something so different and remains different because it's also like,
00:32:55
Speaker
i it is, it is very steadfast. And what, you know, players would soon discover is the Walsian style of ah being like deeply ah interested until scenarios where it's not in like dry as a cracker police procedure. And like, it is not like, it is very interested in being like kind of this,
00:33:31
Speaker
uh, like quote unquote realistic. Now, does it succeed in actually being realistic? I would, I think we would all say no, but ask you guys a question. How old were you when you first played police quest?
00:33:45
Speaker
Uh, i i've watched it over my older brother's shoulder, the VGA version. And I must've been, I don't know, six or seven. And in ah the ah there's the scene where you see the car crash site and you see like ah the the body of the car crash like site.
00:34:05
Speaker
And that's like that scarred me and I ran away and I oh and i was all done ah with police quest until I played it on the screen. but so i don't know i fully uh played police quest when i was i don't know uh 35 uh 36 um but uh like but i saw it yeah as like a don't know six or seven year old and it scared me and it's a game for adults as said what about you jess
00:34:37
Speaker
Well, for me, actually, you know, I played this one, i think I was an 11 or 12 year old, roughly in that time. It was one of the earlier Sierra games that played. And this is the original. This is the EGA version.
00:34:50
Speaker
And I have to say, for me, where this really succeeded as a kid was that idea of all the weird, finicky procedural stuff. It made me feel like I was doing an adult job, like not even so much the adult content of there's drugs and, you know, all this other sort of stuff that's wrapped in in the story, but just the idea that it's like, I have a job, i have to pull people over for speeding.
00:35:16
Speaker
And when I do it, i have to follow this proper procedure. I think for that age, it were, I mean, again, effective copycanda against Steve. I was like, that for me was really an effective part of this. I think at that age, the adult part of it wasn't so much in the thematic content as it was just like, I'm doing a big kid job.
00:35:36
Speaker
I'm doing a you know real serious thing. i yeah I love that, Jess. as a As an adult, and maybe this is just adult cynicism, but as an adult, you're like, oh this guy this guy is like essentially providing cover for his own grievances where he's like, my job is so hard and detailed and technical because there's a lot of characters in the game who are like very anti-cop and berate Sonny Bonds, the protagonist, and curse Adam and call pictures.
00:36:06
Speaker
so It's honestly a very funny thing about the game, playing it as an adult. ah And as ah as a you know So, right, I think there's two sides of it. One there's this kind of strange...
00:36:20
Speaker
granularity to how it just how it deals with just like an ah essentially an office job like filing papers and looking at your computer and stuff and then that also ties into it if you're just a paper pushing guy who's clocking in every day and doing your job it also makes these people who are being rude to you seem like even bigger assholes
00:36:40
Speaker
it is it is it's It's very funny how, like, kind of stereotypical ah the, like, the people that you pull over ah are, like, in the the segment where you're traffic cop.
00:36:55
Speaker
And can I can I quote something here, Ben? Yes, of course you can. I was I was flipping through video game. Yeah. And um there's one. This is from the EGA version ah where literally the the onscreen narration, you you pulled over a speeder and it says, quote, please sign next, ma'am.
00:37:15
Speaker
And then the narration is you politely instruct her. ah And then she she hands you the ticket book back and suggests that she's with a sarcastic smile.
00:37:27
Speaker
She's being sarcastic with you. And she says, why don't you shove that pen where you're so where the sun don't shine, officer? And like just a needlessly, needlessly rude speeder. The game is asserting that you're being polite and professional to her.
00:37:42
Speaker
And she's being just insanely out of proportion mean. it is it's it's It's very funny. It's also, it's like the i your reward for i like doing something i like incorrectly, not by procedure, is immediate death.
00:38:06
Speaker
yeah Yes. Yes. I mean, the most infamous of these is the yeah walk a circle around the patrol car before you take it out for the first time to do the full inspection. The instruction manual, of course, tells you you have to do this. You want make sure there are no flat tires or other other potential hazards like that. But yeah, you back out of the the parking lot and just immediate death. Nothing ever You're never reprimanded. You're never given a chance to get things right. It's just like, yeah, that's what happens. you I think that's a great example of when you're a kid, you're like, Oh my God, a job is so serious.
00:38:38
Speaker
And then, and then as an, a you're like, of course a big grownup job, you have to make sure your car is not going to kill you. And then as, as an adult, you're like, that's so funny. That's like no cop, no cop did that except maybe Jim Walls. I, I, I have to say, i love this idea playing police quests that this is exactly the type of cop that Jim Walls was like,
00:39:02
Speaker
like this courteous, like straight, like, uh, absolute follows, like by the book, uh, guy, i maybe a familiar face that internal affairs, maybe he drops by their office pretty frequently to, uh, sort of a situation, uh, thousand complaints about fellow officers, you know,
00:39:23
Speaker
Well, yeah, but they weren't like Serpa code type things. They were they were like, ah one of the other cops didn't properly file this. All right. as He had his uniform buttoned down one button too far, which is not code. That's not that's not dress code. One guy didn't like shower correctly.
00:39:44
Speaker
ah He didn't use his shower hot key. There's a lot of showering. There's a lot of showering and changing your clothes in this game, which again, it's just... as a As a kid, there's just so I'm sure there's something to that where you're like, yeah, I got to go into my big grown-up changing station and get into my big grown-up uniform.
00:40:04
Speaker
And as an adult, you're like, this is so stupid. Why is a video game? I've got to wash my big grown-up body. No, that's what I'm thinking the whole time. I'm thinking that right now. but i mean i love that i because it gets like in king's quest graham didn't have to take a quick shower before he popped out to look for the lost treasures of daventry and that's what made police quest to me as a kid like a grown-up game it's like yeah grown-ups have to wash their asses occasionally yeah and uh there's a little ass meter in the top right hand it's like i think i was responsible for that one
00:40:40
Speaker
yeah and Yeah, every time, like, if it if if it fills up without you, like, showering, ah you you die. I have a question, because I know Ben got ah a peek at this game as a kid, and some of the, when it kind of shades into the grislier sequences, it gets a little scary, especially especially for a young kid, right?
00:41:02
Speaker
And even as an adult, like, there are some pretty violent scenes depicted in the Police Quest games, especially the ah VJ remakes. Yeah. Jess, do you have any recollection recollection as a child of what you thought about the like really quote unquote adult stuff like the violence or or the prostitution? Like there's this there's a prominent sex worker character in the game. Yeah.
00:41:25
Speaker
Well, let me say right up front and Ben, you already probably can guess this. I was oblivious to the fact that Marie Sweet Cheeks was a sex worker. I was such a naive. They call her that. They literally do. They literally do.
00:41:39
Speaker
I didn't know what those words meant. So I just blew right past um that like just hu That's a strange word. I think my brain knew I didn't want to know yet. I was a i was an innocent young child. you can't You can't do that, at least not now.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, you can't unring that bell. Once I know what a prostitute is, all I'm thinking about prostitutes from then on. So I have to be real careful with that. Yeah, i mean, it was, yeah, that was, for me, I think that I was oblivious to that. Like, I knew, I understood some of the drug themes. I watched Miami Vice with my parents. I knew what that was all about.
00:42:12
Speaker
ah But yeah, you know, I don't think that the content of the game itself, think, the actual plot elements and things like that struck me as particularly adult so much again, it's just like the procedure and the, the jobbiness of it all.
00:42:28
Speaker
Uh, it's a job simulator, which wasn't super common back then. So, so now like we, we, we, we talked a lot about this, but, uh, what is, what is the plot of this game of, of police quest?
00:42:43
Speaker
pursuit of the death angel Grayson over to you yeah so it's set in I guess a little BTS just mentioned we could talk about this specific fact forever but it's set in Lytton California, ah and at least the VGA remake states that according to Western Lifestyles magazine, ah that Lytton, California managed to survive the craziness of the 60s and ah hung on to its high moral values and simple lifestyle.
00:43:19
Speaker
um Even though it's also a very prosperous and growing city, but with that comes crime and debauchery. um The Death Angel is essentially a drug pusher who is operating in and around Lytton.
00:43:33
Speaker
um in the course of the game, you kind of, you kind of get wise in the course of normal police work. you kind of hear about drug cases and you get wise to drug to, to this, to the death angel. It eventually becomes your main kind of target.
00:43:46
Speaker
Um, you meet Marie sweet cheeks, Marie, as she's known in town, a local sex worker. Um, and through older high school flame. but Yes. yeah Before she went down a different sort of path.
00:43:58
Speaker
Uh, but don't worry. Uh, eventually she'll become your doting white in future games. Yeah. um and eventually you just you learn about i believe Jesse Baines is the death angel um so I'm named after yeah yeah where the game and Ben you alluded to this earlier it's very concerned with a police quest is very concerned with police procedure and realism until it's not yep and eventually you catch Jesse Baines because Sonny Bonds, the protagonist, disguises himself as a high-rolling poker player named like Henry Bankston or something. Well, in the original, he's Whitey, right? like so In both games and both games, he's like Henry Bankston or something, nicknamed Whitey, which again, it such a funny, like from ah from a propaganda angle, literally, ah the police officer literally called code named Whitey is a very funny detail.
00:44:53
Speaker
um But he wears like, ah it's a little different in both games. In the EGA version, he wears like a white Miami Vice suit with a blue t-shirt underneath.
00:45:04
Speaker
And he carries cane with a Derringer hidden inside of it. Now, ah I thought this was pimp-coated. Yes. as yeah yeah Okay. yeah Absolutely. Because he he's partnered with Marie.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yes. That's right. Yeah. So all this is. Yeah. And then in the in the VGA remake, I don't believe he has a cane with a hidden Derringer inside of it, which is a very funny thing to carry. um But he still has this kind of white Miami Vice suit on.
00:45:32
Speaker
um In both cases, it's kind of pimp-coated. um You go to Hotel Del Farina or something. Big high rolling. Del Ruria. Delphoria, a great HBO show.
00:45:43
Speaker
And i can't wait till the next season comes out finally. yeah And I and Zendaya, you had to play a poker minigame, I think, in both versions.
00:45:54
Speaker
um Eventually, you are one of Jesse Baines's associates recognizes you in the remake because you are the a police officer of the year.
00:46:05
Speaker
And so he recognized you from like the newspaper. which really calls into question why you're an undercover cop if you're also like a highly public publicized face of the police force.
00:46:16
Speaker
um they They make it very clear. Speaking about airing grievances, there's a comment in it. I think it's when you get transferred from traffic to homicide or... or or narcotics or Narcotics. Narcotics, that's right.
00:46:31
Speaker
When you get ah swapped over to narcotics, it's ah like there's a throwaway line of... It's like due to severe understaffing. And yeah to me, that just reads as another...
00:46:43
Speaker
they I just can't imagine any, like, you know, this was you know this was a ah different time, perhaps, but I cannot, ah like, understand the idea of an understaffed police de department.
00:47:01
Speaker
it's ah And eventually in the course of the story, think of the first game, um in both games, you call in backup and you blow Jesse Baines away. He's he's he's ah incapacitated but not killed. because he's Yeah, he's he's not killed.
00:47:16
Speaker
Spoiler alert, he does not disappear from the Police Quest franchise. um yeah They might have retconned that a little bit with the remake. I'm not quite sure. um ah and i think an interesting detail in the remake is that Sonny Bond specifically does not shoot Jesse Baines.
00:47:32
Speaker
He gets the Disney protagonist ending where the bad guy is violently eliminated, but the protagonist is like hands clean. No blood on my hands. ah That's not true in the original?
00:47:44
Speaker
No, in the original, I believe, I think in the original- I'm pretty sure you shoot him. In the original, I believe he eventually pulls out his dare his hidden cane derringer and pops a few shots off, in addition to his backup. But, like, Jesse Baines is annihilated in the original.
00:47:57
Speaker
Like, he just violently shot to death. And then you are given the key to the city by the mayor, and ah it ends with him basically being like, oh my god, and and my first date with Maria is tonight. She thought ah is, of course, smitten and forsakes the sex worker lifestyle.
00:48:16
Speaker
All right. Well, there you have it. worry i was I was on the edge of my seat. I didn't even mention, yeah, he has friends in town that one of his daughter gets addicted to drugs. like There's a whole...
00:48:28
Speaker
There's a whole kind of de met like ah like a real adult drama layer to it all. Those dope world animals got her hooked. The game really traffics in like this naive American idealism of it's just like everything was good until it became today.
00:48:48
Speaker
And then crime happened. Like... The 60s were bad. The 60s almost corrupted Lytton, but Lytton manages to survive.
00:49:00
Speaker
We don't want to say what about the 60s, but some things happened in the 60s that were crazy. Like, like, it's just like, you know, like once Dwight Eisenhower left, uh, left the office in the 50s were officially over uh like all of a sudden you know people discovered crime but and like also has like a very 80s like it's it's very dare uh yes yes big dare energy here which is ironic of course considering that eventually the creator of dare would take over the series
00:49:38
Speaker
but right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about that eventually. yeah we won't quest quest year six. Tune in. um but no, i mean, yeah, it definitely has big dare vibes.
00:49:49
Speaker
Did you guys still, I mean, i'm a few years older than both you. Do you still had dare at your schools when you were still around in high school for, for, our international, uh, listeners? What is dare?
00:50:01
Speaker
Oh gosh. what does it stand for? don't remember. Drugs are really excellent. No, that's exactly what it doesn't stand for. You stand for nothing, Grayson, first of all. But D.A.R.E. was a drug awareness program ah that emerged during the war on drugs here in the United States in the 60s and persisted at least through the 60s in the 80s and persisted at least through the 90s. There's too much craziness in the 60s.
00:50:27
Speaker
um But, yeah, i mean, it basically... drug resource officers would come to your school and uh i give you talks about how drugs are bad mean mostly what i remember it for was our guy brought in real drugs and i got to see what they looked like it was like drugs look so cool like a real real hardcore abstinence approach to drugs all drugs like i got to see a reefer stick for the first time it was wild wow it was it was there was a lot of And I mean, in my, in my dare experience, it was only limited to elementary school. Was it, did it ever go past that for you, Jess? Like think it was only fourth, fifth grade for me. It was like, I think it was over by like, once I was past sixth grade, uh, they were like,
00:51:14
Speaker
Which which is interesting, because it's like, why do they stop like, not that I'm endorsing dare, but it's like, you know, your prime drug years are are coming up. Like, yeah like, if I were in fourth and fifth grade, you might as well just have like someone come and talk about the dangers of lightsaber fighting.
00:51:30
Speaker
Because that's so far from like, what I'm likely to encounter in my day to day life. I think they're, I think they're targeted like super young kids because I forget if they're like, get it early I think, I think if I forget if they invented the idea of gateway drugs, but their whole idea was, was like purely yeah pure abstinence. And I think to your point, Ben, at a certain point, a lot of your audience is going to just kind of by, by virtue of their personal experience, going to not believe the dare message. They're going to be like, well, I know weed isn't a gateway drug.
00:52:01
Speaker
Cause I've had weed. I'm 16, you know? Well, did. i ah Grayson, you watched with me that I think it called like The Way Back or something.
00:52:14
Speaker
ah Did you watch that that 30 minute ah like anti-drug Was it one about the Navy? sixty nine nineteen seventy anti-drug ah ah video was it the one about the navy No, this was the way I think it was called the way back. And what it is, is it is this 30 minute monologue ah from this like middle-aged woman ah about ah like ah telling ah like, and she's talking to a high school
00:52:45
Speaker
uh, telling them never to do drugs and that marijuana is like a gateway drug. So yeah, that predates dare. This isn't the Jerry blank inspiration is the thing that was an inspiration for Jerry blank from, uh, uh, strangers with candy. And if you've never watched this, if if you're familiar with the comedy central sitcom, strangers with candy,
00:53:11
Speaker
i you owe it to yourself to watch this because I remember I put it on thinking like, Oh, like I'll just see like five minutes of this. And then like, that'll, that'll be enough.
00:53:22
Speaker
I watched all 30 and I was screaming the whole time because it's Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert. Fantastic. It's, it's very, it's very funny to, to watch this because you can see why Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert and Paul Danilo like saw it and we're like obsessed. Like we're going to be like that. This is a whole comedy show because it's this middle-aged woman. She's like, I've done horse.
00:53:48
Speaker
I stole a TV. I've done everything. I've been up and down this country. I've done like, and there's like, so at one point during the, uh, like this untrammeled monologue, uh, if that's a correct usage of the word, uh, during this, uh, monologue,
00:54:08
Speaker
i i like she he does open it up to to a Q&A and someone says like you know I have a lot of friends that do marijuana and they just stop there and like that's fine and she's like no they won't i mean she has the experience to know yeah she stole the TV um anyway that's what I've been playing this week laughing
00:54:39
Speaker
We can add that back smoothly if we decide we need the cutting any of this. um Thank you, ben Perfect. um But no, I mean, this, yeah this is definitely of that same, know, just...
00:54:53
Speaker
Typical 80s anti-drug kind of story. I mean, and again, it's funny because as we've said before, when talking about Jim Wiles, you a lot of the pros and especially like the descriptions are very workmanlike. I would say, you know, you look at a table, there's a good chance the game's going to say it's a table.
00:55:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. But then like the purple prose comes in when it's time to talk about these drug world themes. yeah Like that is that is where you're going to get these just like over the top. These people are destroying America, destroying lives, et cetera.
00:55:26
Speaker
And it's kind of fun. Like, I mean, it's melodramatic in a way that, again, if you're trying to convince a 12 year old they're playing an adult game, it's a pretty good maneuver. ah Grayson took a couple screenshots that we were ah sharing and Grayson, could you please read one of the most beautiful dialogue box. This is unbelievable, ah like dark place ism.
00:55:51
Speaker
This is real Darth Rangy's Dark Place writing. This is from us from the original the original EGA release. ah There's a courtroom scene. ah Narration says, Judge Palmer whispers softly to you, quote, well, Mr. Bonds, it appears your friend has his tit caught in the ringer.
00:56:11
Speaker
And there's a lot of like, there's a lot of like, like homey, homey, homey aphorisms that, that some of which I'm i'm sure are, are, ah Jim Walton event, some of which maybe he did.
00:56:23
Speaker
there's weirdly collected ringer There's weirdly clever turns of phrase. Like, there's a ah police operation where where Marie, ah the sex worker, is used as bait to catch some drug dealers.
00:56:36
Speaker
And in the game, it's referred to as Operation Trick Trap. which is which is a pretty funny... Oh, man. Ever since we played this game on stream, that just pops into my head every now and then. Sometimes it um each to save to each other. It's so fun to say. It is like Operation Trick Trap.
00:56:55
Speaker
and we And we were talking a little bit about this, where the remake has...
00:57:01
Speaker
the remake almost has slightly purplier prose and more writers worked on it. Um, and kind of beefed it up a little bit, but the original does have still these like quite dramatic turns of phrase. We're just like, a lot of it's very workmanlike. And then all of a sudden you hear about ah a tit and a ring. What is wells up inside you.
00:57:22
Speaker
You vow revenge for Kathy's senseless death by tracking down the dope world animals responsible What do you think the dopest world animals are? I think it's going to be kangaroos. Elephant.
00:57:35
Speaker
Grayson, over to you. Oh, man. I mean, you picked one and two. <unk> wonderfulful The dopest world. I don't know. Gazelle? no that's no good. It's just a fancy deer. no but This is great. It is over the top. Just, you know, all the hatred wells up inside you.
00:57:59
Speaker
And i think I think the other thing that is, is it's not just workmanlike, like bare bones prose. There's just a lot of very self-satisfied descriptions of police per procedure procedure. Like you talked about the circling your car to inspect it, Jess, where it's the narration says, having performed the prescribed walk around safety check of your vehicle, you're now ready to hit the streets.
00:58:20
Speaker
And it's like Jim is, and this is where the game rides this really strange line where it really does feel like Jim is congratulating you for doing that.
00:58:33
Speaker
He's like, good job. You did like, you should feel good that your car is safe and you're not going to immediately die when you pull out of his parking lot Cause I could tell you stories. Trust me. i worked with people who their car immediately exploded when they rolled out of the parking lot because they didn't check their tires.
00:58:50
Speaker
But this is, I think there's a lot of just kind of like retired dad writing a novel energy where like, it's not good, but you're like, wow, I didn't know my dad had this story in him. I love that. Yeah.
00:59:04
Speaker
i love it guess
00:59:09
Speaker
ah As somebody who's retired dad did write a retired dad book. um and who Shots fired at Ben's dad. Jazz fest dad, you're on blast.
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah. My jazz fest dad. oh So this, this game has a feature that is ah repeated also in police quest three. Now,
00:59:37
Speaker
When I played Police Quest 1 for my stream, I only played the the VGA remake, so I cannot comment the original, which I believe people liked this.
00:59:50
Speaker
But of course, ah it has driving. That's what I was getting to And I've heard that the driving on the AGI version, the original,
01:00:07
Speaker
is not bad. Is is that correct, Jess? I found it incredibly fun as a kid. Ben, this will be one of the saddest things I'll ever say on Quest Quest, but I literally used to load up Police Quest and just drive around the town. It's adult fantasy.
01:00:23
Speaker
i believe It's adult fantasy. I would absolutely do that as a kid. Yeah, just drive around Lytton. i i mean I loved driving a little car in games. Yeah, is a yeah like a little tic-tac of ah of a few like a four-pixel car on this overhead map. It looks...
01:00:40
Speaker
like the the the rug yeah the hdi version it looks like the rug it looks like it's one of those things where like it's an like i don't want to draw this connection too literally but it is one of those things where you're like wow there's a little like kind of pseudo open world driving. Like it it's not entirely unrelated to the Grand Theft Auto lineage of open world games, right?
01:01:08
Speaker
um And so it it is one of those things where like, you have these games poke around, so and often not very enjoyably, but they poke around in interesting little game design corners.
01:01:19
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, you think about something like it has a weird poker sim built into the end, which a lot of CR games had gambling many games at this time. But, you know, again, it's trying to stretch out the boundaries of what the traditional adventure game might be with some of these segments.
01:01:36
Speaker
Yeah, driving in the original EGA was a pleasure. Ben, ah the VGA, how did you find the driving there? Fucking terrible. Oh, it's awful. It is frustrating. Great music.
01:01:47
Speaker
Wonderful music. the the it the The VGA driving, I think, is only worse ian um in 3, which obviously we'll get to.
01:02:03
Speaker
But like the the driving nightmare as a nightmare in in those games is like just so I've been saying this a lot because on on my stream, I've been ah playing i that ah ah Amazon Guardians of Eden. And that game is terrible.
01:02:29
Speaker
ah Just just to to enliven myself on ah on this, i'm I'm looking at a YouTube of somebody driving in Police Quest 1 VGA, and i'm just getting upset.
01:02:43
Speaker
But ah in Amazon Guardians of Eden, like, nothing feels good. Everything feels bad. um Like, just like when you click something, it takes a while for it to feel like it, like, responds to your actions. That's such terrible feeling. In any game, it's inexplicable in adventure.
01:03:05
Speaker
Like, where... Yeah. Yeah. but Oh, it's awful. And in... ah the VGA ah police quest one. It like, that's how it it feels. The driving, like everything just feels like so unpleasant and like unresponsive and it only gets worse after this. Yeah.
01:03:30
Speaker
I mean, you feel like this is the sort of thing where if Sierra had used maybe a more traditional QA process, beta testing, some things like this that you would expect out of a company nowadays, surely at least some of the feedback in that, drink because it does a lot of that thing that some of Sierra's early point and click games did where if you miss click somewhere, no feedback other than just if I were recall correctly, just the red X that appears on the screen, right? You like the little you can't click there, but it doesn't give you any sort of feedback on what you did wrong or where you do need to click.
01:04:03
Speaker
And everything is sluggish. You think you're hitting it just in time to turn at that next turn. And you just blast through the intersection. oh it's awful. It is such a downgrade from what was a perfectly serviceable driving Sam in the original.
01:04:19
Speaker
And i think part of it is also that the original you're using a keyboard, ah which lends itself a little bit more ah for that type of sequence.
01:04:31
Speaker
And ah the VGA driving is all like very mouse. It's entirely mouse driven. And that's just not, you can't really have a responsive driving thing that is only controlled by a mouse.
01:04:49
Speaker
No, it's not great. You should move the car with a click and drag like you were like you move in Under a Killing Moon. That's how I would drive the car. Just constantly rolling the mouse forward. to Or just like, yeah, more like a trackball experience where the faster you roll mouse forward, the faster the car goes.
01:05:06
Speaker
A total trackball conversion of Police Quest 1 VGA. finally or you you move around like in a golf game like in links uh like yeah draws the whole city of li and um i like this idea and i think we're working on some good good stuff here i mean the vga version in general is sort of a fascinating remake i mean we've talked about some of these vga remakes before in the past uh sort of the The general consensus on them is it's rare that most of Sierra's remakes really improve on the original.
01:05:40
Speaker
Quest for Glory 1 is oftentimes maybe held up as the exception to that, where it certainly has... Do you know the difference? ah but Ben, I think I do, but Grayson might not. Uh...
01:05:52
Speaker
the quest for glory one remake is only better. Uh, the only reason it's better is because it has all the fucked up clay modeling, uh, for the monsters in people's faces. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
01:06:09
Speaker
yeah now grace i bet you've played clay fighter maybe even clay fat or sixty four of course I rented the Blockbuster exclusive version. Yeah, it's that same thing. They've got some clay and they mated the hell out of it. They just absolutely mationed it.
01:06:23
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So I mean, this VGA version is wild. Um, if it's Debbie again, i don't know. i mean, I guess the area where I'd say it improves most clearly is it has a banging soundtrack. It is a soundtrack.
01:06:37
Speaker
I really want, especially on like a Roland MT 32. This is a really good soundtrack. This is something that the police quest games two, three, the VGA remake all have really nice sound. I can't wait until we get into two because there's all sorts of sounds I can't wait to talk about, but I gotta, I gotta, I gotta bite my tongue. I gotta bite my tongue.
01:06:57
Speaker
at a time. I know where you're going, Ben. And I know going. We all know. Everybody knows what I'm referring to. I know what you're laying down here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, this one's interesting in that, you know, we've talked about how the original is maybe sparsely written at some points, again, except for when isn't.
01:07:13
Speaker
ah There's a lot of additional content added in the VGA remake, not new puzzles or quests or anything like that, but rather just a lot more text. And a lot love this was contributed. I think that Scott Murphy and Lorelai Shannon are credited for this. Lorelai's name is misspelled in the credits, which is never a good sign.
01:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
01:07:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oops. Yeah, that's good. I mean, I think it's it's the driving outwithstanding. think you got to give the edge to the VGA. Maybe I just have a fondness for it because i I've played it and I haven't played the first one.
01:07:53
Speaker
But I think it's a little weirder in some ways that are fascinating to me. Like there's definitely a little bit more of this weird under current of sunny is having a crisis of masculinity yes at some level like this which isn't present at all in the original but like you see little hints of it i mean there's a scene at one point where uh you're you're talking to another officer on a break at uh at the coffee shop was at carol's caffeine castle or something like that something like that yeah and and sunday says quote got my computer in narcotics what do i need with women when i've got a computer uh which is interesting but the one that just really gets me at one point he's in uh the blue room which is like the cop bar yeah
01:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, where he and his pals hang out. And on the wall, there's just a framed, ah you know, like the the traditional symbol for masculinity. ah Oh, my God. That's right. Yeah.
01:08:54
Speaker
And when you look at it, it says, quote, it's the universal symbol of masculinity. The bullseuch. Just looking at its rock iron curves and angles makes your testosterone levels rise.
01:09:06
Speaker
yeah you Oh, sorry. I mean, I actually, I don't know that I need to comment on that. Please. I was going to say, do you, because we talk so much about Jim walls, like constantly, almost telling on himself in these games.
01:09:23
Speaker
And do you think, I don't think he worked on it. I don't think he had very much do with the remake. Do you think that the writers who did work on the VGA remake, do you think they, how much of that did they pick up? Did they think, cause I do think the VGA remake kind of elevates what is interesting about Jim Walls as a writer.
01:09:45
Speaker
it kind of makes fun of it a little bit. Cause like, like, right. There's, there's a crisis of masculinity that is kind of highlighted. And so do you, do you think that, anyway do you think the VGA remake is making fun of Sonny Bonds? I think it is.
01:10:00
Speaker
mades in in extension I think it is. And I think it is because if, if it's listing ah Scott Murphy in it, he's such like a, like,
01:10:13
Speaker
kind of a darkly like comic cynical guy. i that like who who who loved taking the piss like this reads to me absolutely as a scott murphy line that is making fun of maybe the inherent masculinity of role-playing as a cop going around know shooting bad guys and and stopping jim let's be clear jim never makes fun of himself
01:10:44
Speaker
No. You know, like, Jim, jim the games where where Jim is kind of in the forefront of of the writing and the game design, like, there's there's there's comedy sometimes. There's jokes.
01:10:55
Speaker
ah And there's, like, banter. But there's never, like, this sort of introspection. right no no no no i think this is absolutely if i would be shocked if it's not scott's handiwork on that you feel your testosterone levels rising just by looking at this bull that symbol that that feels like a line that could have been in a space quest absolutely absolutely delivered snarkily by gary owens i think is the tone you're supposed to imagine for this yeah All right.
01:11:25
Speaker
Well, any final thoughts? Well, guess the question is, is Police Quest 1... a good game is it a so bad it's good is it so bad it's bad is it legitimately good what what is it that's most fascinating to you about this one uh i mean i think that this is a much better uh like obviously the the very bottom of the pile is codenamed iceman right like ah that game is yeah unpleasant to play um It's just a fascinating art artifact.
01:11:59
Speaker
This is fine. Like, yeah, it is ah to to me. it is this bizarre alternate universe game in the same way that Codename Iceman was kind of fascinating, but but much more a pleasure to play.
01:12:19
Speaker
ah because you're not this terrible submarine for most of it, i where it it's this like very prescribed, absurdly rule-based world that we don't exist in.
01:12:36
Speaker
but one that it, like, it feels like it believes exists. Yeah. And I might believe that Jim Walls believes it exists. Right. And yeah it it feels like playing it that, like, you know, ah we we talked about this last time and Grayson ah mentioned this already, but, you know, ah like this auteur sense of it where where you're getting...
01:13:06
Speaker
a little bit of this slice of this person and like a person who's, you know, point of view, like I've, you know, like not someone I, I don't know very many Jim Walls is in my life.
01:13:18
Speaker
It's not, not really the type of person I hang out with. And so it's like you, you play this, and on the wrong side of the law. Yeah. You play this game that offers this very clear vision.
01:13:36
Speaker
of uh of of the world and it's not only like you know i i've been thinking a lot as we're having this conversation there was like this overplayed ah quote of uh ken levine's when he was uh promoting uh bioshock the guy that developed bioshock And I kind of find Ken Levine kind of annoying and a lot of his sound bites really annoying.
01:14:01
Speaker
And this is no different. But I've been thinking about it, which was he's like, he said something like, most game designers have only ever seen two movies, Lord of the Rings and Alien or Aliens.
01:14:15
Speaker
Uh, and, and so I'm making a game that isn't based on, I've seen third. Yeah. I've seen, yeah, I, I saw another movie, um, but it was like something like that. It was it like, you know, it was, it was a quote like that. And I'm kind of like, you know, this is just a perspective that you do not see in games.
01:14:36
Speaker
Um, this is a game by someone who's never seen a movie. This is a game by someone who's never seen a game. That's I mean, literally quite literally like, yeah, not even like, ah oh, he's never like it's he's certainly seen a movie, but he's definitely never played a game like come on.
01:14:56
Speaker
Grayson, what do do? mean, is the is this a good game? I think the first... well so I think we have two pretty different... It's interesting because we have two pretty different versions of the game, right? Where we have the first game, which is, I agree with Ben, it's this pretty kind of over-the-plate auteur game.
01:15:16
Speaker
that will never get made again. No one will ever, like, this app's, like, was with all the people... You can't even, like, in AGS, because this requires someone like Mr. Williams to, like, pull this guy and be like, I'm gonna give you a lot of money to make this.
01:15:32
Speaker
So it's not as if somebody's just going to make this. Yeah. and i think you el jim wall and I don't think Jim Walls could make this game in 2020. No, yeah yeah there's there is it's it's such a historical artifact. and if and And I think Ben's also right that in the realm of Sierra games, it's far from the least playable.
01:15:50
Speaker
It's finicky, but like ultimately it's pretty fair, right? You'll you'll you'll get you'll power through it eventually. um And certainly if you're playing it like in a modern walkthrough sense, it's absolutely fair. Yeah.
01:16:04
Speaker
And then I think if you're somebody who wants to enjoy the game, but with that little bit of like another writer's sort of flair on it, another writer kind of highlighting what is...
01:16:18
Speaker
a little bit like, um like a little snarkier as making more fun of it. It's maybe not as true to the auteur thing, but it's maybe highlighting what is, what is it's gone through the Hollywood factory.
01:16:29
Speaker
Yeah. But if it's, but if it's highlighting the stuff, that's just more like straightforwardly kind of funny and enjoyable where it's like, yeah, he, like it it is, there are, dopey things about the game. And if you want to play the version that highlights the dopiness and has a bunch of kind of purple prose, silly characters, you know, bull cinches on the wall, you play the VGA remake.
01:16:51
Speaker
um And, and yeah, I think it's, I don't know. I, it's, I think but the general thesis I have on Jim Walls is it's hard to say to a modern gamer that hey, with no context, you should play Police Quest 1.
01:17:09
Speaker
like that's I don't think you would, you would not tell somebody that, but I think anybody who's kind of just interested in this period and for some reason hasn't played this game, I would say absolutely. I wouldn't have to like, I wouldn't have to like provide a bunch of context for that. say if if you, if you think you're interested in this, you should play it.
01:17:26
Speaker
Where I would not say that. Not about Codename Iceman. That's for sickos. If you think you're interested in Codename Iceman, hit yourself in the head with a hammer. Like, you know. But Damia, I think this is a ah good point. I mean, you mentioned that it plays mostly fair.
01:17:44
Speaker
And... I do feel like if you know going in, hey, this is going to game where I'm going to have to reference the instruction manual to find out the proper police procedure to do all these sorts of tasks and everything.
01:17:57
Speaker
You know, if you know that going in, i think it very much plays by its own rules at that point. i mean, there aren't really that many traditional puzzles, if any, really, in this game. Like, it's not a puzzle game so much as it is a procedural in every sense of the word.
01:18:11
Speaker
You can say some, like, you can, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and I think that's, you know, again, for me, it's one that, especially the EGA version, part of this is always nostalgia, but, you know, even the VGA version to some degree, I usually have a pretty good time when I fire up Police Quest 1. Again, it's not a game that I leave with a mild headache after playing for an hour, like I might codename Iceman.
01:18:39
Speaker
So there you have it. Please quest one's a great game. Yeah. It's fine. Officially. It's a good old game. I hereby announce. ah Through my.
01:18:50
Speaker
ah You know, connections. That it will now be sold on. On the Epic game store. Yeah. On the Epic game store. Yeah, that's Be sure to use coupon code. Quest quest. The adventure get.
01:19:01
Speaker
And that's where it cuts off. We couldn't get any more characters. ah Besides these three. Am I right, folks?
01:19:10
Speaker
all right. Well, thank you so much ah for joining us for Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. And thank you, Grayson, for joining us. I have to, as Ben's regular stream co-host. He makes me come on every now and then. Yeah.
01:19:24
Speaker
Keep job over on Adventure Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah, it little in the pot. Grayson, do you have anything to plug? ah hate... we We did this the first time I was on.
01:19:35
Speaker
it's... I was laughing. i was laughing as did brain as I wound up for it. It's a funny thing. It's a funny bit because I'm going to plug the same thing you I assume you plug every time then.
01:19:49
Speaker
Don't listen to the podcast except when I'm on it. ah Adventure Tuesday. The Adventure Game streamcast a every Tuesday. You bring the Tuesday.
01:20:03
Speaker
We bring the adventure. that's our new that Have you have you have you ah brought that new slogan to this podcast yet? Does this podcast know about that? No. but And my new slogan is Retro Adventure Wednesday. We keep it raw.
01:20:19
Speaker
Well, i if ah if you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a positive review. Tell a friend. skeet about it skeet about it skeet about it um skeet about it yeah or uh or pinterest it penitrist it uh play in your favorite website guest book Oh, yeah. Go on to your favorite website's guest book and write about this podcast.
01:20:46
Speaker
You know, a great way to get people's eyes on this podcast is actually to go to other people's podcasts and leave comments there recommending this one. If there's a gaming podcast you love, be sure to get in their comments and plug Quest Quest TV.
01:21:00
Speaker
ah You didn' hit up triple click and just like spam, spam their comments with, uh, with quest quest propaganda. Finally time to start a beef with a podcast that like, you know, like an off off day has like 50. We haven't seen the metrics. We haven't seen the metrics, but that's true.
01:21:22
Speaker
Jesse Thorne is hiding all the, all of his numbers. Jesse Schauer, please We're stepping up the books at Maximum Fun, Jesse. Also, Jesse, if you'd like us to join the MaxFun Network, we are available. That's questquestpodcast at gmail.com. Open up the books. Audit the fed That's what I've been saying.
01:21:42
Speaker
All right. Well, ah thank you so much for for listening to Quest Quest. ah Join us next week when we have ah Grayson on again ah discuss all of his exciting plugs.
01:21:56
Speaker
We'll see you then.