Part 16: Episode Twelve: This and That
orenronen posted:
I have this book, along with the similar ones published for King's Quest and Space Quest. It's probably rotting away in some closet in my parents' house. As much as it pains me to admit today, they provided me hours of unironic entertainment as a teenage fan of Sierra games.
Oh, and if you think the author of this book had to struggle with the novelization, imagine what had to be done to turn the King's Quest games into a coherent narrative.
There's also one for the Leisure Suit Larry games, I think. Which is, if you think about it, not just semi-official fanfiction but semi-official erotic fanfiction.
That is a truly terrifying thought. You really are making a lifelong study of this despair thing, aren't you?
So, since I feel badly about forcing you all to read that, let's have a bit of a Police Quest 2 Bonus Update.
A couple of people pointed out a death I'd missed... and I'm glad they did, because I was unaware of it, and it is hilarious. Of course, we all remember the sewer level, right?
Yeah, that's the one. There are several pockets of methane gas, as you'll recall:
So, what happens if you try to fire your gun in one?
Yes, that's right. An earth-shattering kaboom!
That's one heck of an easter egg. But wait, there's more! Recall the beginning of the game.
Sonny is in his car pulling up to the police station... but who says he has to go inside? Let's see where else he can go. The game itself is very linear, but we have this convenient text box we can type any command we like into.
It pains me to type this, but the game does not let you use a quotation mark here.
No radio chatter... no Keith smoking... it's just not the same.
And here we are at Marie's.
She isn't at home, and we aren't married yet, but we can totally poke around her empty house like a creep if we want to.
Note that it is not wrecked, and the lamp is intact, and there are no signs of a struggle in the bathroom yet. They built this whole room despite the fact that most players will never actually see it.
Thanks, Marie! It won't feel weird at all when I use this to buy you a flower later.
This is probably the most interesting thing in the room, but we'll come back to it later.
We can actually go to pretty much any location in the game. Let's check out the Warehouse district.
No dead body in a trunk, and no bad Italian accent.
Quite so, Mr. Walls. Quite so.
Oh, we'd better get out of here, then. Let's go look at Cotton Cove.
No jogger, still no Italian stereotype, and everything is nice and peaceful. We can mess with the phone here, too.
Not much good, though.
This is where Bains would try to shoot us and run us down, but he hasn't escaped yet.
No drag marks, and...
...nothing in the trash yet.
If you keep driving around, eventually this happens.
Uh-oh! Apparently being late to work without calling to tell anyone what's up makes your boss upset! Who knew? I wonder what he will do?
Got that, FELLA? You can only see this close-up interaction scene if you screw up, which is why I wanted to show it to you.
Now fascinating as it is to look at a bunch of screenshots where absolutely nothing is happening, how about I show an easter egg that our good friend Larry Laffer alerted us to in the airport in the main playthrough?
Back to Marie's...
...because there's a phone there.
These numbers were, of course, accurate at the time. I wouldn't advise trying them now.
Wah wah waaaaaaah... Well, let's try that BBS.
Remember BBSes? I used to run a local one back in the day. Hell, I remember when I had enough time to be playing TradeWars on six local BBSes at the same time. I can't imagine doing that now. Ah, well. Good times. Anyway, let's try that customer service number again and see if we can get something out of him if we try a different reply...
This doesn't actually work as a command, but he just keeps talking anyway.
Yes, that's right, Al. Have a nice day, everyone!