Monday 23 July 2012

Game 21: Police Quest 2 - Won!

Sonny Bonds Journal Entry 4: “I can’t quite believe I’m writing this, but…Jessie Bains…The Death Angel…is dead! Keith and I followed a lead from the Steelton Police Station that Bains had made a phone call from the public phone at Burt Park. It was there I discovered a manhole, and following my intuition, plunged down into the sewers in hope that Bains might be hiding down there. A short while later I walked through a door to find Marie alive, but strapped to a chair! I released her, and then managed to shoot Bains as he entered the room. The bastard won’t be causing any more trouble for anyone and I couldn’t be happier. In fact, Marie has agreed to marry me, making this day the happiest of my life. It doesn’t get any better than this!”


Police stations all look the same, just like barber shops apparently.

On arrival to the Steelton Police Station, I was quickly directed to the Lieutenant’s office. He told me that Bains had already got to Colby, who was found with a bullet hole in his head. They had no solid leads, but they did know that Bains made a threatening call to Colby from the public phone in Burt Park. They’d already thoroughly checked out the park, but we were welcome to go back in and see what we could uncover. Detective Pitman would accompany us to the park, since we had no vehicle of our own to use. Before leaving, I noticed two speaker shaped devices on the table. When I looked at them, I discovered they were walkie talkies, so I took them with me.


Well, why didn't you say so!

As soon as we reached the park, Pitman was called to a burglary, leaving Keith and I to investigate on our own. We decided to split up, and the first thing I did was check out the phone box. It was only then that I realised I wasn’t able to check for evidence since I didn’t have my field kit. To make matters worse, the field kit was in my car back at Lytton airport! I hadn’t thought to take it with me as I wasn’t at all sure that I wasn’t going to be able to get back to it if needed. I had a decision to make! Should I restore back to the airport, get the field kit, then go through the whole ticket purchase and hijacking ordeal all over again? Or should I cross my fingers and hope that the field kit isn’t required for the rest of the game?


Splitting up is usually a way for someone to get killed or to force one character to confront something alone

I decided to go back and get it. I couldn’t imagine I wouldn’t need the field kit again, especially as I only had 196 points out of a possible 300. It only took me about ten minutes to get back to the park with the field kit, but I was still a bit pissed off when I tried to use it on the phone. “In the confusion, your kit was checked on another plane, and you don’t have it.” So I didn’t need the kit and all my efforts were for naught. Oh well, time to get on with it! The park was made up of five or six screens, which I carefully investigated before trying anything. There were only three things of interest that I could find there: a mugger, a dog, and a manhole.


I couldn't help expecting a fairy godmother or a frog prince to appear around here

The mugger approaches on any of three or four screens, and demands you hand over all your cash. The first couple of times he tried it, I tried taking him down in various ways. I actually drew my weapon and shot him out of interest, at which time I got a game over screen showing a newspaper with my name splashed over the front as having gone on a murder spree. If I drew my gun or my badge, the mugger would immediately turn around and bolt in the other direction. I eventually tried “use radio” as soon as he left, and that turned out to be the right thing to do. Keith got my message regarding the mugger, caught him, and brought him to me cuffed. I searched and questioned him, and then Keith took him to the station.


Nice Lethal Weapon reference. It's amazing that movie came out a year before this game!

As for the dog, I couldn’t see anything I could do with him. He runs around the screens and any attempts to catch him failed. The manhole was fairly well hidden, but easily discovered by simply typing “look”. “The park is pretty this time of year. The air is sweet and clear, except near the manhole cover.” If it wasn’t for that hint, I never would have found it. Down the manhole I found myself in the sewers. It was a nasty place to be, with missteps causing me to drown in human waste. There were some nasty little traps down there, including pipes that blew waste at me and made me fall to my death, and methane gas pockets, which killed me if I stayed too long within them. After a few screens I finally came across something I could interact with.


Hmmm...let's hope I don't have to collect twelve keycards down here

There was a ladder leading up out of the sewer. There were still places I hadn’t yet explored in the sewer, but I decided to head up the ladder to see where it led. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to open the manhole at the top, and apparently made a lot of noise in the process. When I climbed back down, Bains came flying onto screen and shot me dead, alerted to my presence by the noise. I suddenly realised that I was in all likelihood very close to finishing Police Quest 2. Was this where Bains was hiding? Was I about to have the final confrontation? The short answer is yes! Around another couple of corners I found a door, which I eagerly entered.


Go back three spaces?

Inside I found Marie, strapped to a chair, but no Bains! She was trying to tell me something, so I quickly removed her restraints and uncovered her mouth. She was so happy to see me that she squealed and hugged me in delight. This of course attracted Bains, who once again came in and killed me. As had happened on other occasions, the game over screen told me the solution to the puzzle. “Next time try to calm her before untying her.” I get the feeling that the creators gave players hints to the more confusing or challenging puzzles in the death scenes, perhaps during the play-testing period. I can’t say for sure whether I would have tried “calm Marie” if the game hadn’t told me to. Maybe!


...she slowly began to unbutton her top? No? Wrong game?

With Marie calm when I ungagged her, she whispered how happy she was to see me instead of shouted it, and then told me she could hear Bains coming back. I hid behind a tube, and when he was close enough, I shot and killed him! I couldn’t quite believe that Bains was actually dead. I mean, these games often end with the villain getting away, or at least being put in a position that they might one day be able to escape and have their revenge. Not this time. The Death Angel was dead, and I was victorious. Now the only question was whether the shooting review board would find that I’d unlawfully killed Bains or had acted in self-defense.


Couldn't have happened to a nicer fellow!

This is where perhaps evidence comes into play. I wonder what would have happened if I’d failed to find any evidence that Bains was involved during the game. Perhaps I would have been found guilty and stripped of my position? Perhaps I would have done some time of my own? Could I have arrested Bains without killing him? I didn’t even try! In my case, the board concluded that the killing was totally and unquestionably legal and justified. Not only that, I also received a Silver Commendation Award for superior effort and performance while engaged in a life-threatening situation, and given a two week “Rest and Relaxation” holiday.


Seriously, does that dude ever not have an icecream?

Police Quest 2 finishes with Sonny asking Marie to marry him. She of course says yes, and they fly off into the sunset. A very satisfying, if not devoid of cliches, ending on all accounts! Well, that’s another game that can be ticked off the list! At least it can be once I apply the PISSED rating to it. The game was staring a sub 50 score in the face after my first session, but it has recovered so well that now I’m genuinely interested to see how far up the leader board it can go. I can’t ignore the flaws, but the story, the puzzles, and the innovative way that evidence is handled throughout the game make it an enjoyable adventure game that successfully builds on its predecessor.


That's quite alright. Thanks for making it!

Before I end this shorter than usual post, I wanted to draw attention to the fact that The Adventure Gamer blog is about to go over the 100000 views mark! It seems like only yesterday that I was celebrating 50000, but in truth it was almost exactly three months ago. To celebrate, I’m looking to give out some CAPs. As usual though, I’m going to make you earn them.


...and counting!

Anyone that emails me an photo of an open beer (or some other beverage of choice) with a note next to it that says “Celebrating 100000 Hits”, and signs it with their blog name, gets 20 CAPs! If anyone manages to take a screenshot that proves they were the 100000th viewer, I’ll give them 50 CAPs. The view tally is at the bottom of the menu system, and you’ll need to tell me the exact time it happened too (I'll be watching), just to confirm you haven’t photoshopped it. Never have this many CAPs been thrown around, so make the most of it! I have a bad feeling that all this CAPs are going to come straight back at me to make me play Emmanuelle in 1989. ;)

Session Time: 1 hours 00 minutes
Total Time: 10 hours 00 minutes

99 comments:

  1. Starting hitting refresh in order to be the 100 000th one... ;)

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  2. Good job finishing the game. I had a tough time with it, I got especially frustrated in the sewer when he kept asphyxiating. Forgot you could turn up the movement speed. Once again, well done.

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    1. That's funny. You can speed through the toxic cloud by tweaking the game speed?? There's actually a cabinet with a mask in one of the screens.

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    2. Yeah, I found the mask but failed to mention it in my post.

      Does speeding it up really work though?

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    3. From what I remember from a few years ago, yes. I remember not being able to make it across one screen, but when I raised the speed he just ran across and lived. I could be mis-remembering, though. But it sticks out to me because I thought it was kind of ridiculous.

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  3. Thanks! I'm actually quite surprised. While it wasn't an easy game, it was the first in a long while that I've got through without any assistance. I felt like I was a bit lucky to get through the first session, but after that either logic prevailed, or things I missed didn't actually stop me from completing the game (only missing out on points).

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  4. Congratulations! I won with 243 points, but I had to peek at hints a couple of times where I couldn't find a way to progress (driving to Marie's comes to mind...). Did you ask for assistance just once?

    Police Quest 2 was a welcome surprise in many aspects. I got a good chuckle out of the field kit incident (sorry!) which I had forgotten to pack anyway. I never got the mugger either and simply ignored him! Meanwhile, down in the sewers, my rattling of the manhole cover did attract Bains but he missed his shot and escaped! Not sure how he managed to kill you?

    We'll probably go in detail of the pros & cons in the PISSED post, but for now I ask which was more annoying:

    - The sometimes finicky "position puzzles"? (I'm RIGHT NEXT to the door, dammit!)
    - The red herrings? (where are the passwords for the "Burglary" and "Firearms" folders? I demand them!)
    - Officer Mario Galespi's (sp?) "italian" accent?
    - The %$@! "gun calibrating" minigame? (especially when you've tried hundreds of adjustments before noticing that if you type "look at target" the game tells you what you should adjust generally)
    - The fact that there's no Day 3, so you don't get a lab report on all that hard-earned evidence!

    All things considered I have to admit that the fabled Sierra unfairness was very mild in this one. There were dead ends, but in general it was clear where and why. More common were the cases where you'd need to backtrack to get something you forgot.

    It'd be nice to have a master list of possible actions to tick which ones we did and which we missed...

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    1. I got no hints at all for this one, which I'm quite proud of. :)

      I don't want to give too much away before the final rating post, but for now I will simply say "you can look at the frickin target???!!!"

      That was definitely the most annoying of the things you mentioned, but might not have been as bad if I had known that.

      Asa fora the Italiana accenta, I founda ita funnya fora bouta minutea. Youa wouldn'ta get awaya with it todaya though....a.

      It's certainly not the worst case of stereotyping I've seen in a Sierra game. That would have to go to the gay guy in Leisure Suit Larry 2.

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    2. That's why those games are million times better than this modern crap, no PC bullshit back then.

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  5. I realised I haven't put a time limit on sending in photos. Hmmm...ok, the cutoff time to send them in is the introduction post of Psycho. That gives everyone at least a couple of days to celebrate. :)

    One has come through already.

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    1. Was that mine?
      99,924; mostly mean moving through my RSS feed of comments I fear, however.

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    2. Darn, here I was hoping to use the earlier lack of cutoff to try and get an easy 20 CAP three and a half years after the fact.

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    3. That would have been a neat trick :P Perhaps there will be something similar, when we hit million views.

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  6. And congrats with finishing this game unhelped! It seems nothing can stop the Trickster now! You're becoming really good at this and I don't see you stuck very long on a lot of games after the definitive disappearance of text parsers!

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    1. Let's not get too carried away. After all, I needed help twice on Manhunter and at least twice on Larry 2.

      I guess it will be different when dead ends are removed from the equation. That way I at least know that the answer is there somewhere and I don't have to start again or restore to find it.

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  7. I'll add my congrats for finishing without help. It's been a fun read.

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  8. Congratulations man! What's the last one you completed without giving out CAPs for it? Space Quest II? Not sure I'd have the patience for some of the puzzles in PQ2 without going for hints.

    I'll be joining you for Psycho, so don't start without me. :p

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    1. I also have Psycho ready to go. I fully expect it to go, Introduction -> Won! + Final Rating.

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    2. I'm getting the feeling guessing high was the right move for me, though I'm not sure I guessed high enough.

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  9. I'll echo the congratulations for finishing without hints.

    It seems you may have gotten lucky with the ending. This is from a FAQ: "Also if you shoot first you have just violated the law and get the bad ending. If he shoots first it will count as self-defence."

    Apparently taking Bains into custody isn't an option.

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  10. Congratulations on both counts. With all the dead-ends, I'm surprised I ever finished this one way back when. I must've gotten help somewhere. BTW, is there a way to "track" your posts here? To see responses, I have to remember to click on the right blog post and check the comments section. I don't get any notifications...like if I get an answer here, I'll have to remember to check for it.

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    1. Cush, for this and any other blog in Blogger, you can subscribe to the comments via RSS and then use a feed reader. That way you will be notified of any new comments to any post. I use Google Reader myself to keep track.

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    2. OK, I originally set up blogs in Google Reader and then just started using Google Blogger to follow them. I'm still getting updates in Google Reader, but I don't see the comments in there. How do you subscribe to comments and see them in Reader?

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    3. @Cush: Take a look at the left column on this blog; just above the last widget "Total Adventurer visits" you will see the buttons for subscribing to the posts and the comments. :-)

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    4. I subscribe to each post via email (Habit from The CRPG Addict, since he didn't link to the feed I didn't know it existed), so I can read most comments on my phone. Then I also have the feed in my RSS reader (Sage, for Firefox) for when I want to come to the blog to view them.

      99,926.

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    5. OK, I think I got it. I managed to get it subscribed. I have to do this for every post I want to see comments for if I'm understanding you guys correctly. I've got the blog itself in Google Reader (and Blogger) and that's a one shot deal. But to see comments, I have to subscribe to each post's comments individually?

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    6. Nope, the feed will catch any new comment on any post. That way you can keep track of comments posted on older entries.

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    7. I think I had to subscribe from the homepage of this blog, not this particular post. When I hit subscribe from advgamer.blogspot.com, I now have a subscription tracking all comments. Very cool. I think that got it sorted and now I won't miss a thing! :) Thanks.

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  11. If you come to Canada I'll see about hooking you up with some of my Dad's beer; He is in brewmaster school right now, and the brewery he is working at this summer just released his first beer.

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  12. Congratulations on winning the game, and without any assistance! Well, this appears to be final in a long series of Sierra games - during the next game we can all probably see how great the non-Sierra games were ;) Never played Psycho, but I am eager to see whether the game is as horrifying as it sounds.

    And cheers for the 100 000 mark! Since I don't drink beer, would a photo of a glass of milk suffice?

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  13. Thankfully he amended the criteria to be any beverage of your choice, so as long as it's categorized as a liquid I'd guess it would be fine (must be drinkable) :p

    Waiting for the 1989 series for the next high point though, both Sierra and non-Sierra.

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    1. I thought it was a different criteria when I first read it this morning! I sent him in a couple of pictures, hopefully one will work. I wonder if I was the first to send in a picture?

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    2. As soon as Trickster mentioned he'd already got a picture I thought of you Canageek :-)

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    3. Nope, it wasn't Canageek. He came in a close second, not for the last time today either. ;)

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    4. Yeah yeah, how is the TIMESTAMP on my picture, is that first? ^^ I snuck into the lab to take it, but had to wait to lunch to email it. Might have raised questions what I was doing with an open bottle of ethanol and a camara...

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  14. 99,914 now, 99,916 when I loaded the previous post to see how many CAPs we had pledged.

    " I have a bad feeling that all this CAPs are going to come straight back at me to make me play Emmanuelle in 1989. ;)"

    We are at 90/200 so far, and if people are willing to help me write a wikipedia article then we could move it from Disregarded to Borderline, in which case we'd only need 10 more CAPs. Is anyone willing to help me write the article? If people are willing to help me figure out the important points to mention it shouldn't take me too much editing to get it working, and I can use the last article I did for this blog as a template.

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    1. Has anyone else noticed that the community can cheat Trickster to play borderline games for half the price? We should pay 100 CAPs for a borderline game if we pool our points. Instead, we could deviously transfer 50 points by other means to one person, who could then buy the game by himself – we could, say, pay Canageek for five Wikipedia adds (was it 10 CAPs per addition?).

      Now, the easy solution would be to deny the possibility to transfer points from one commenter to another, but I wouldn’t want that and I know Trickster has wanted to encourage us making all sorts of transactions. Wouldn’t it then be simpler to give up the two-level pricing of the borderline games (50 for individuals, 100 for pooling) and have just one price, no matter how the game is bought into the list?

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    2. Nah, I guess the result would be increased cost for individuals, or else it would be far too easy to make him play every adventure game there ever was. I kinda like it how it is.

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    3. OK. I could help you make the Wikipedia article Canageek - there seems to be few reviews of it in the internet, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Then I could also save you all some CAPs and purchase the game individually with 50 points.

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    4. Yes, I'd like to stick with the current system at least for a while. The way I'm handing out CAPs at the moment, we might end up in a situation where I'll be playing a LOT of games come 1990.

      I still have an element of control, since only I can transfer points around. If people want to start cheating the system, I can always change it. In the end though, I want you guys to have some fun and to have some control over which games I play. I think the current system achieves that without making it too easy.

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    5. Is it just me, or does editing a wikipedia article for the purpose of saving CAPs take away from the whole point of using wikipedia's notable adventure game list in the first place?

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    6. Ilmari: 10 CAP up front, plus a percentage of future CAP earned; It took me a few hours to edit that last one into shape, plus several more on markup. 1 CAP if there is a Wikipedia article and it just needs to be added to the list, negotiation if I'm helping write it, depending on how much work I have to do.

      TBD: As someone whom has been editing Wikipedia since 2005, I'd much rather see it improved then preserve the integrity of Trickster's list. Look at it this way though; If we are willing to do the work to write a full Wikipedia article, it is probably notable. I will remove any game without an article from the list if I notice, and won't add games with only stubs.

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    7. Yeah, Canageek, that's a good point. I'm all for making Wikipedia more complete.

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    8. @TBD: But your point still remains. In a perfect world we'd have an official master list of notable adventures backed by some kind of verifiable criteria. The will to invest time & effort in a subject (hey, I'll pay to see Trickster play this POS just for a laugh. Dance, Trickster, dance! :-)) is not per se an indicator of notability. Moreover, Wikipedia being what it is, "notability" is an elastic concept that depending on the niche status of the subject may simply reflect the unchecked opinion of a very small set of very dedicated people. We may not have a better solution for now, but I thought I'd point out that we're arguing different things here.

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    9. @Canageek: Oh, I had totally forgotten that our deal contained the clause of you getting the third of my earnings until the end of 1989. I have a feeling that Trickster has forgotten that also - after all, he should be one handling all the practical things. Then again, I am actually not that sure when and where all my points have come, which makes the case even more difficult.

      @Everyone: Which brings me to a more general point. Even if no one will anymore make such deals as me and Canageek did, I feel that at some point the CAPs economy will become a bit too much to handle in its current form. I foresee two problems. a) When CAPs begin to fly around in every post, everyone loses track of all additions and substractions of points. b) When Trickster tries to track down all the CAPs in the various comments, he will finally either have a mental breakdown or then move to an easier hobby, like go.

      I have two suggestions for rectifying the situation. 1) We'll make the changes to CAPs more open. There's still room in the Companion assist points.doc in Google Docs for all sorts of things. I think we don't need to retain information on all past transactions, but only the most recent ones, say from the time of the latest concluded game. We could even add one column for all deals like me and Canageek have. So, one line would look something like ”Ilmari 150 (55), +5 for a hint, + 10 for guessing the riddle, -10 for a lost bet, -30 for spoiling, third of earnings to Canageek until end of 1989”. But isn't this just adding to the work Trickster has to do, you ask?

      2) We'll share the burden of tiresome book keeping within our blog community. In practice, a few nominated volunteers would regularly (say, after a game has been completed) go through all the recent comments checking all the CAPs won and lost, all the CAP deals between players etc. and reporting to Trickster what changes to CAP.doc have to be made (ideally in a format where Trickster can just copy/paste everything). Because mere mortals usually hate book keeping, I think that the role of book keeper should rotate, say, after every three or four games – and perhaps a modest salary of CAPs would also be in place. That way Trickster won't have to do all the nitty gritty things involving CAPs, but still has the ultimate authority over them.

      Or am I overthinking this? :)

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    10. An easier way would be to make all transfers of that sort of 1 'year' duration. Then we simply note each persons score at the start of the year, at the end, and how much they pledged and to whom. Then at the end of the year you do some quick math and bam, CAP transfer.

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  15. And there it is! It was a race between the US and Canada (I wonder who that could have been). Did anyone get the shot?

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    1. I don't know, but if you give out points for closest, and no one got it, I have it *bracketed*!

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  16. Dammit, I shouldn't have stopped to hit the printscreen on 99,999!

    http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u160/Canageek/100001.jpg
    http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u160/Canageek/99999.jpg

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    1. Congrats, I froze up on 99,999 looking for printscreen!

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    2. Thanks. I got lucky. I think others were trying also.

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  18. Congratulations MacDuff! You just raced up the leader board.

    I can go to work now. Been waiting for the big moment.

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  20. Direct Link to 100,000 image:

    http://i734.photobucket.com/albums/ww344/MacDuff2000/advgamer/100K-Visit-advgamerblogspotcom.png

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  21. *Tears up bet ticket* Oh well.

    It's interesting to see you have such a good time with PQ2. As I said I played through earlier this year but didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Maybe playing and replaying PQ1 and PQ3 coloured my perception?

    As for your missing points (247/300), I know one of the things you seemed to have missed is that one of the Narcotics officers is secretly abusing on side which you find out on the computer after you get the passwords. Once you find out you can talk to him and help him sort his problems out. As far as I can tell it has no bearing on the rest of the game, but apparently cracking the password to inappropriately access personal information is entirely ok if its to help a work mate, only because you looked through EVERYONES personal information.

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    1. How complex is that to do? Is it a full sidequest?

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    2. I realised after a while that I never used one of the passwords. That must have somehow led to that info.

      I know I missed the evidence in the black station wagon too. Plus quite a few of you wrote about evidence I missed in ROT13 on earlier posts. It's about time I went back and read them all.

      It really is fascinating reading all the comments you guys made in ROT13 after I complete a game. Didn't someone make a bet?

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    3. That sounds fun, as I skipped a lot of ROT13. Might join you for that.

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    4. Tk made a bet: http://advgamer.blogspot.ca/2012/07/game-21-police-quest-2-introduction.html?showComment=1342210218112#c724760994186300518

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    5. Man, if you are still using copy-and-paste for ROT13 reading this is going to take you a longggg time. I just read them all, and yeah, there are some interesting things you probably want to read, including an adventure game kickstater I posted that you never commented on. ^^

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    6. Yeah. Here is the thing. I spend so much time in that lake. For the life of me I couldn't work out the correct terms for the parser to accept. I don't know what it was, but nothing I was doing worked. And then it turns out that you could skip that part! In fact it turns out that was many parts you could skip.

      @Canageek I saw that you pointed out that there were rot13 decoding extensions for chrome and firefox. Right click -> decode -> done! It's really quite handy.

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    7. Don't know if you could count this as a bet: "well, I could bet that you forget to adjust your gun during the second day and thus fail to kill the terrorists in the plane, but you'll probably figure it out yourself and won't need to ask assistance." Probably not ;)

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    8. I'm still refusing to install the ROT13 decoder as it makes what it already tempting way too easy. I'm only human after all!

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    9. I'm sure you know that doesn't count Ilmari. but you were bang on the money though. :)

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  22. And hits counting! Wow I haven't see that since... 1999? Back when the internet was geocities, and guestbooks.

    Haha I feel so old.

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    1. And Lycos, and Altavista and Webcrawler! I won't mention Gopher because that would be just depressing.

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  23. Congrats on winning the game with no hints needed, Trickster!

    I finished with only 223/300.

    One thing I found that you didn't is the ability to spend the night with Marie.

    If you give her the flower, then kiss her *4* times, you both immediately skip dinner and head straight to her place. There is no special art, just special text on the "evening in the city" screen. Your available cash is deducted for the cost of the dinner anyway though.

    I didn't see anything about spending the night with Marie in the walkthrough I read after completing the game. I don't know if you get any extra points for it.

    It is also possible to not even go out with Marie. If you don't call her, you get in your car at the end of Day 1 and it gives you a message about how you missed out on seeing Marie that night.

    Also, I don't think I ever re-adjusted my gun sights on Day 2. I did go to the range and emptied out the clip I used during the Cotton Cove shootout though. I wanted to have 2 full clips in case I needed them.

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  24. Hey Tricky Mr. Trick sir, I hereby pledge 50 of my hard earned CAPs for Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess (aka KULT: The Temple of Flying Saucers) in 1989.

    Also considering joining you for it, as it's a game I've never played.

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    1. Whew, Lars-Erik to the rescue. I was wondering if no one would step up until the last minute. Yeah, devious of me... ;-)

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    2. That's great news Lars-Erik. It's actually one of the games I wanted to play, so was hoping someone would be willing.

      I'll add it to the list shortly and remove the CAPs from your available funds.

      I'm halfway through the Final Rating post, but will have to finish it tomorrow I'm afraid. I'll sort out all the CAPs at that point too.

      In the meantime, keep the celebration photos coming! A few have trickled in, but I'm beginning to doubt people's commitment to sparkle motion. 10 points to the first person that can name that reference, but only if you can also tell me what item fell from the sky.

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    3. OoOooh an easy one! Donnie Darko, and it was... a plane engine?

      Delete
    4. Correct you are! 10 CAPs to Charles!

      I'm going to make these harder from now on. You're all (well mostly) adventure gamers after all. :)

      Delete
    5. You know, we could set you up with 'Cheat Points' that let you cheat on the list. Say, 5 points for finishing a game, minus 1 point for each time you have to ask for help. 10 points for each time you get an adventure game creator to speak on the blog, and 10 points for each year you finish.

      You could then 'cheat' on your list and add a game that doesn't qualify by spending 50 cheat points. Or you could remove a game for any about, though we can spend an equal amount of CAP to put it back on your list. You could also use these points to raise the cost of games you don't want to play.

      Delete
    6. Haha, that sounds like a fun idea Canageek! I hope Trickster is tracking some metadata, like ranking the games by amount of assistance requests, time invested, general difficulty, etc.

      Oh and by the way Trickster, I feel bad for waiting for someone (Lars-Erik, it turned out) to spend full price for Kult, especially since I intended to chip in. So what do you say you split the 50 CAPs between him and myself?

      Delete
    7. @Charles: But that would be pooling CAPs. I think if we want to stick with these rules, we should be consistent with them, or else we will be continually complaining to Trickster that "you let us do this before".

      Delete
    8. @Ilmari, I'd typed an answer in but had to log in before I could post and lost it. Yup, the rules clearly states that pooling points for borderline games gives a cost of 100 CAPs for it, which means my 50 goes and 50 unnecessarily from you Charles.

      If you really want to spend them though, why not add them to Emmanuelle? Just missing 110 CAPs now in our pool. :)

      Delete
    9. Oooh thanks guys. I need to re-read the rules.

      Delete
    10. Hah, no worries, I had to double check myself.

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    11. I may consider contributing to Emmanuelle, but I was waiting for the similarly-themed Fascination... where is it? I have it boxed but never played it. :-)

      Mmmh all this talk of CAPs as currency has put me in a post-apocalyptic nuclear mood, if you know what I mean...

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    12. I don't know where we'll be by then, but I've been saving mine up to get Trickster to play Sentient (1997). I guess that's quite a ways away though.

      Delete
    13. Never heard of it. 1991, is it?

      I'm not averse to a bit of Fallout myself when the mood hits. :p

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    14. @Zenic, seems like Sentient will be 200 CAPs when you reach it, it isn't on the list and it doesn't have the necessary number of ratings on Mobygames. Still, plenty of time and games until we reach that point.

      Delete
    15. Wow, Sentient? That's obscure. I remember reading about it in and old Strategy Games Plus magazine back in the 90's. IF it's the same game, it was soundly trashed by the review.

      Which makes it a perfect candidate for Trickster to try his hand at it >:D

      Delete
    16. It already has a Wikipedia page, so adding it to the list would require just few CAPs to Canageek.

      Delete
    17. Hey Canageek, I don't know your going rate, but here are two games to add to the Wikipedia list.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rama_%28video_game%29

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentient_%28video_game%29 (I know this is kind of stub-ish, so let me know if you need any other info, and I'll see what I can dig up.) I have the PlayStation version of the game if that helps. Now all we need is 13 people to vote on it over at Moby... ;)

      Delete
    18. Call it 5 CAP each, split among anyone you want.

      Delete
    19. I have the points, I'll pay you all 10. Trickster, please transfer 10 points to Canageek. You will play these games. Rama is cool, Sentient is interesting... ;)

      Delete
    20. Rama is added. Man, have you seen how many people have added stuff to the list? When I edited it, I made it into a proper sortable list instead of just a set of hardcoded names and dates. I also added spaces for what platforms it is on, who published it, stuff like that. It seems a bunch of people have descended on it and filled in all these details! SO COOL!

      Anyway, checking the next one now.

      Delete
    21. Added Sentient. The article there is a bit sparse, and not well written. If anyone wants to help me improve it, I'd be grateful. Since it already exists, I'll add it to the list, but if you are writing an article I'm not going to accept that level of quality before adding it to the list.

      Delete
    22. I notice that Obsidian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_(video_game)) is not on the list. They had a cool ad on PC Gamer. Notability! Sure, why not. I reckon it's a Myst Clone in a similar vein to Rama or Lighthouse.

      Delete
    23. Willing to do the work yourself, or poney up 5 CAP?

      Delete
  25. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ceville/
    "GOGcom ‏@GOGcom
    Ceville is bound to win the hearts of all classic adventure game fans--$9.99"
    ....Wait, that isn't a sale! Curse you GoG! Why are you cluttering my twitter feed with stuff that won't get me CAP?
    Is it even a good game? The two reviews on the GoG site are not exactly inspiring.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's better than a sale, it's a new release! That's still 5 points Canageek.

      I plan to put some clarity around what releases / sales get points shortly. I need to find a good balance.

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    2. OH, I see. I saw the 2009 release date, and thought it was an old game, not a new to the GoG store game.

      Delete
  26. Also before you get the intro to the next game up. Congrats on 100,000!

    WOOOOOOO!

    I'm glad you didn't start the next game before Friday night!

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  27. I'm not sure where to put this, but a search for "Emmanuelle" here turns up this post, so I figured it was as good as any. The star of the films has passed away: http://www.imdb.com/news/ni38675105/

    ReplyDelete
  28. Has anyone seen this?

    http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2010/11/japanese-version-of-police-quest-2.html

    ReplyDelete