Started and finished Police Quest II: Vengeance this evening. This amuses me, because I vividly remember back in the day when Sierra adventures would take us weeks or even months to complete — in some cases we never even beat them at all!
On top of that, I remember vividly buying a copy of Full Throttle, playing it through with my brother over the course of a weekend and being a little peeved that we beat it in about a day and a half. For some reason, that game felt "shorter" than those classic Sierra games — even though practically speaking it wasn't; I think it was just easier.
Anyway, I'm not someone to whinge about game length — I actually quite like having short-form palate-cleansers now and then, particularly when I have other, substantial things on the go — so I'm not annoyed or anything, but I am glad I finally took the time to play through Police Quest II, which a lot of people seem to think is the best installment in the series.
I certainly enjoyed it a lot and I can see where that opinion comes from, but I'm undecided as yet. I enjoyed the expanded dialogue and narration of the Police Quest 1 VGA remake a great deal — though I understand even that is a bit divisive to some fans — and felt like Police Quest II was missing a certain amount of characterisation for Sonny in comparison, but such was the nature of games from that era; every little bit of text counted!
Obviously the VGA graphics of PQ1 Remake are "nicer", but I was actually impressed how well Police Quest II's EGA visuals hold up. Police Quest II was among the first of Sierra's games to use their newer SCI engine, so it has much less "chunky" visuals than early Sierra titles. And even with the radioactive skin tones of the EGA colour palette, Police Quest II still looks pretty good, with an impressive amount of detail packed into each scene, and some nice sprite animation.
Anyway, I have more to say, but I'll likely save it for a Retrounite post next week, since I wrote about PQ1VGA today. For now, I'm going to go sit in bed, watch VTubers and play Mega-Lo-Mania. Have a pleasant weekend!
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