Blue Force Wallpaper

[Tawmis]

Took the image and flipped it then photoshopped. Looks creepy.

[notbobsmith]

He looks a little cross-eyed. Interesting what happens when the artist didn't anticipate someone doing this. Before it looked like an intense stare, now he looks just silly. I wonder what would have happened if the artist made the full head and then cropped it.

[Tawmis]

Moved his eyes which helped.

[Rath Darkblade]

It looks like:

1. he's a monkey;
2. he's covered in snow; OR
3. he has lethal amounts of dandruff.

What is this?

[Tawmis]

What is this?

Have you never played BLUE FORCE?

It's made by Jim Walls, who made PQ1-3. When he left Sierra and went to Tsumani - he made this. And it's REALLY good.

[Rath Darkblade]

Nope, never played "Blue Force". What is it?

[Tawmis]

Nope, never played "Blue Force". What is it?

It's a police game; similar to Police Quest 3.

[Rath Darkblade]

Yes, I could guess that. The wiki-page told me that much and more -- and the fact it was badly received, and that Jim also designed "Codename: Iceman".

Apparently, the reviewers hated this game and gave it 2 stars out of 5. From wiki again:

Computer Gaming World's Charles Ardai in 1993 stated that Blue Force "is simply not as strong as Walls' previous games". He criticized the game world ("prop-up facades"), "abysmal" dialogues, "appalling spelling errors and factual inconsistencies", and slow speed. Ardai concluded that "Walls and Tsunami both have better work in them ... they have nowhere to go but up".

Is it really that bad?

[JasefWisener]

Blue Force is great. The only Police Quest game I like more than it is Open Season, which, coincidentally, wasn't a Jim Walls game. BF has its issues for sure, but I think the game itself and the story are miles ahead of PQ.

[Tawmis]

As I said in my previous post in this thread - it's Great. Jasef also seems to think it's great too.

[Rath Darkblade]

Fair enough. What makes it so good, then? *wonders*

[Tawmis]

Fair enough. What makes it so good, then? *wonders*

Have you played PQ2 and PQ3?

If so, it follows that same exactly feel - except the character is a motorcycle cop.

This could have EASILY been Police Quest 4.

(Although to be fair, Jasef said he liked the actual PQ4: Open Season over the Jim Walls PQ - which, I'd disagree with - I absolutely loved PQ3).

[notbobsmith]

Personally, I wasn't thrilled with Blue Force. The whole point of a PQ game was that you had to follow police procedures. There were a bunch of times in Blue Force where I was wondering "Don't I need a search warrant?" The plot was fine, but when taking this into consideration, it should have concluded with "Case dismissed because of illegally obtained evidence!"
There were a few plot points that seemed confusing to me, like Jake's father's partner. Some of the dialog made it sound like he was a P.I., but sometimes it made it sound like he was a cop too.
One thing that was missing was all of the little bits of information when you click on something for a description. In Blue Force, you might read "A desk" but most Sierra games would same something like "You wonder how Sgt. Smith manages to find anything on his desk." It's a small thing, but it adds character to the world.
I have the two Ringworld games from Tsunami as well, and I think Blue Force is probably the bast of the three that I've played.

My personal favorite was PQ1.

[DeadPoolX]

Each Police Quest game excelled at something different.

PQ1: Best game at following police procedure and attempting to portray a real cop in a computer game. The one drawback was this game was extremely unforgiving when it came to procedure and driving from place-to-place in the original AGI version could be unbelievably aggravating at times.

PQ2: The most fun and lighthearted entry in the series, PQ2 felt a lot more like a Hollywood movie. You still had to follow some procedures, but there was definitely less emphasis on being "by-the-book" and more on the "rule of cool."

PQ3: Best story and characterization of any the three original games. The downside was that it went a bit heavy on the melodrama.

PQ4: This game felt a LOT different than the other three (for good reason) and I'd say it sits somewhere between PQ1 and PQ3 in terms of realism and story-heavy writing.

Blue Force is a weird one, in that it feels and plays a lot like a classic PQ game (and that makes sense considering it was headed by Jim Walls), but there's something off about it. Maybe the quality control just isn't there or maybe I can't help but see it as a knockoff. Whatever the case, I enjoyed the game, but I'd say it sits closer to PQ2 (in terms of fun) than the other PQ games, but that's not a bad thing. Sometimes you want a game that doesn't take everything about itself seriously without becoming a comedy, like the LSL series.

I'm not going to discuss the SWAT games. I enjoyed them, but they were so different from the earlier games that it's nearly impossible to compare them.

[Rath Darkblade]

Fair enough. *nod* I agree with NBH -- I also prefer a little more description than "A desk" or "A chair" or "A sergeant".

Then again, like Tawm, I also liked PQ1-3 much better than PQ4. (My favourite was a toss-up between PQ1 and PQ2, but only because I didn't like the PQ3 ending. The whole 'satanism' angle has been overplayed to the point of cliché).

PQ4 also felt like a cliché, especially in terms of the dialogue ("This here's mah hood" etc). The move from Lytton to Los Angeles didn't do this game any favours, unfortunately.