Andy Sierra Review Series Hero Sonny

Naturally nobody is satisfied with his arrangement and so there are secret conversations, lies, and murders as the night ticks away.

The name alone is enough to conjure up titanic waves of nostalgia for any gamer with a sense of history.

With that legendary crest logo and accompanying theme, they were, in there heyday, like the Hollywood of electronic entertainment, or at least the Disney.

Now, it and fellow adventure legend LucasArts are both seen as icons of a bygone age though, perhaps bygone isnt exactly the right word, seeing as adventure games seem to be having a comeback.

But for much the 80s and 90s, Sierra was an indisputable powerhouse and set the standard for the graphical exploration-based game; heck, they practically invented it.

For many of us, these were our introduction not just to computer games, but to computers in general; I cant say for sure that Id know half of what I do about Windows if Ken and Roberta Williams didnt force me to make sure I had sufficient heap space to run their software (and if you get THAT reference, you probably need a hug and a good cry).

But with appreciation slowly returning for these classics, it seems a fitting time to re-examine the best works developed by this dream-factory.

Shall we.

The concept was ambitious, as Ken Williams and former police officer Jim Walls sought to create an interactive crime thriller not only set in the real world but beholden to actual regulations and procedure.

Andy Sierra Review Series Hero Sonny

In the first game, in which series hero Sonny Bonds was a California patrol officer in the fictional town of Lytton, it meant pulling people over and spending a lot of time gambling undercover.

In this sequel, Bonds has been promoted to detective, and while protocol is still an issue, the activities you get to do are a little more varied and engaging than giving speeding tickets.

You must track down your old foe, criminal mastermind Jessie Bains (supposedly based on a real person) before he kills you, your girlfriend and the others who testified against him.

This necessarily leads to gunplay, SWAT team raids, bomb disposal and even a scuba diving mission.

And as with the first game, one unlawful move could sink your entire career and net you a finger-wagging endgame message from the pixelated head of Jim Walls himself (the Game Over screen in the third Police Quest was even more hilarious ).

You would think all of this would make the game too strict, but it actually makes it more fun, in a weird way, since theres at least logic to the puzzles, even if its government-mandated logic.

Dont forget the funky synthesizer score, another element that makes this feel like an episode of some lost 80s cop show.

The one good game to follow this model, Lighthouse, had its fair share of frustrating moments, but balanced that out with an intriguing concept and an involving expansion of the Myst formula.

The story has you journey from an Oregon lighthouse into an alternate dimension to find and rescue an eccentric scientist and his newborn daughter from the titular Dark Being.

This Dark Beings evil plan is to bring bad technology to his otherwise idyllic dimension, and stopping him means you must also fight weird-looking monsters and clockwork bird-people.

Essentially, Lighthouse is Myst, only with more of a plot, more characters, timed action sequences, an inventory, and a villain that appears onscreen.

Yes, theres the underground track maze (mazes are the bane of my gamer existence) and the unlocking-the-safe bit took me forever to do right for some reason.

The Dagger of Amon Ra was punishing and badly written but the whole campy 1920s murder-mystery thing had potential.

As such, we can take heart in the fact that the first Bow game, The Colonels Bequest, does a few things right that its later sequel missed.

You are indeed Laura Bow, a young journalist and would-be sleuth visiting the plantation of a friend in order to hear her aged old uncle declare his will to his remaining offspring.

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