Hey i bought this and I'm just wondering what's the difference between VGA and not VGA? What is the "right" one to play?

Actually, I'd recommend the non VGA aka AGI version as long as one isn't adverse to the text parser interface.

I don't have a problem with the text parser, but I still prefer SCI version. ;)

Ahh okay. But what excactly makes the non VGA a game "completionisty"? Is there extra content or?

As I said before, some puzzles were changed with some other things (nothing big though), but the main difference is that AGI uses text parser while SCI is point and click adventure.

Ahh okay! Well i think I'm going to go with the AGI, since i am of the Completionist guy. But I'll probably do a second playthrough at one time or another and do the SCI one too. But thanks for answering, helped a lot!

I've just replayed Police Quest I, both the original version and the VGA remake, in preparation to replaying Police Quest II and in my opinion, the original was clearly the best version, although I recognize I may be giving too much credits to insignificant details that would probably be overlooked or deemed unimportant to another player.

Gameplay wise, I feel the transition from text parser to point and click resulted in a clear lost in puzzle depth. In the case of Space Quest I, with the exception of two, maybe three puzzles if I recall correctly, most puzzles involved either GET ITEM, USE ITEM ON THING or GIVE ITEM TO PERSON and so, when that game was remade, there wasn't a whole lot of puzzle depth that was lost in the transition but in the case of Police Quest I, the text parser is used not only for the typical GET ITEM/USE ITEM commands, but it is also used to issue orders to the criminals you arrest, or to answer questions that other people ask you in the game, and so a good chunk of what used to be puzzles in the original version were turned into non-puzzles or cutscenes in the remake because you just need to use the Hand or the Talk icon repeatedly to proceed further.

I also felt a whole lot less satisfaction out of using the verb icons rather than the text parser at several moments through the game, because some of the commands you need to type have so much weight to them. It could be nostalgia, or because it was the first time I played the game, or because I was much younger, but I recall, the first time I played the game and arrested my first real bad guy in Police Quest, I felt "Oh my god! I did it! I arrest the bad guy!" because you need to type commands like "FREEZE! HANDS UP!"... but in the remake, that feeling is lost because using the Talk icon repeatedly on the bad guy just doesn't feel the same, it's just *click* *click* "Alright, the guy's down, let's cuff him."

I also felt there was much less room for mistakes in the remake, in the original you need to remember to read your suspects their rights and to search them for weapons, whereas in the remake, you are very much likely do these two, either by accident, or automatically as you try to arrest criminals.

Driving was also not as satisfactory in the remake as it was in the original in my opinion. Sure enough, in the original driving one pixel off the road resulted in a fiery death, but when you spotted a suspicious car or a criminal as you patrolled the streets of Lytton, well you'd press F10 to turn on the lights and you'd chase the criminals, being careful not to drive off the road or crash into other cars, until they gave in and stopped their car. In the remake all you gotta do is turn on the lights and increase the speed of your car. No skill required, you'd catch them and they'd stop. I dunno... I feel like the driving sequences had a reason to be included in the original game, with the chances of failure and all that, but in the remake it felt like nobody wondered "Would it be better if that part was left out?"

Story wise, I felt it was better written, better narrated and better told in the original than in the remake. The remake features some expanded dialogues here and there, but many scenes also had their dialogue changed (for the worse) or truncated a bit compared to the original, too many to list here, but most noticeably, the ending in the remake is missing the Dragnet closing narration and The Death Angel's verdict scene in court. In the remake it is also possible to spoil yourself a plot detail if you decide to fool around and dial up your fellow police officers' phone numbers before a specific event happens in the game. And there's one minor character in the original that got its name and gender changed in the remake, normally that wouldn't be a big deal but that minor character happens to have a minor role in the sequel, so if you only play the remake, when you play the sequel you might end up wondering if you're supposed to know who that guy is.

In the original there was also a moment where you were given the chance to check the evidences, pick up your phone, dial 411 to get a couple of detectives' phone numbers and ask them about your case. It served no other purpose other than acquiring a couple of bonus points to your score, but I thought it was a nice touch that was missing in the remake, you know, just doing some detective work.

The original also had a certain whimsical charm to it that is completely missing in the remake: The original had the infamous Death From Shame scene, you could also talk with fellow police officer before your shifts, the newspaper in the briefing room and the clipboard and cabinet in the narcotics division had extra details in them... all those little touch here and there that served no other purpose than lighten up the mood of the game a bit. The scene where Sgt. Dooley is reading your transfer memo was funnier and more whimsical in the original. Another whimsical scene I recall from the original was, I was sitting at Sonny's desk, stuck on this puzzle for a good thirty minutes, and I picked up the phone on Sonny's desk, dialed 411, asked for Sierra's phone number, dialed at Sierra: "Hello! You've reached Sierra On Line customer department, how may I help you?" >ASK FOR HINT "Oh! You want to purchase an hint book?" followed by their typical hintbook sale pitch from their early games... all of this is sadly missing in the remake.

And once again, the original game's ending, which was truncated in the remake, left me with the impression that Jim Walls poured his very heart and soul and personal experiences into this game and the game feels very intimate and personal as a result and it feels very much like a love letter to the profession of police officer. And the remake, done after Jim Walls' departure, feels much more like Sierra was going through the motion of retelling the game but in the process they left out many, seemingly unimportant, little details which gave the original all of its charm.

All in all, I reckon it's all subjective in a one man's trash is another's treasure kind of way, and while both games tell the same story, I think the original tells that story much better, and while both games features more or less the same puzzles, too many of those puzzles got turned into non-puzzles or into semi interactive cutscenes in the remake because the Hand or Talk icon solves them automatically. And so, in my opinion, if you're not allergic to sixteen colors blocky graphics and text parser, I advise that you play the original and save the remake for a second playthrough afterward just for the sake of completion.

Excellent and very true, blueskirt42.

The EGA is the best version. More puzzles, more dynamic system, etc.

Also the remake is more of a reboot it changes all the dates (it chronologically takes place after PQ3 oddly enough).PQ1 is set in 1985-1987, PQ2 is about 1988, and PQ3 is set in 1991 or so. The remake of PQ1 moves the date up to 1992 or 1993. This may cause some people confusion.

Some of the characters have changed names and/or genders. This will add confusion if you are playing PQ2 and PQ3 afterwards..

Another thing is a clear development of the city as it grows over time, and police headquarters expands to accommodate a larger force. This is something that the narrative made a big point in pointing out across the original trilogy. The remake however goes right with the PQ3 style headquarters, and the city already progressed to 'metropolis' level. So it completely screws the setting over as it was portrayed in Police Quest 2, and the reveal of the new headquarters in the third game.

It's also interesting to note according to an interview in the The Police Quest Casebook, that Daryl F. Gates was very critical of the police procedure of the original games, but he's most likely referring to the PQ3 and PQ1 remakes, as those are the photos shown in the interview. He described them as being too 'sensationalized', and he goes into description of the drug house bust in PQ3 as an example of where its all done wrong, and a few details of why it was not procedurally correct (there is a little sidebox explaining how it really would have been done if police were involved). However, PQ4 might be more procedurally correct in some ways over PQ3... It also has the most bizarre story, and really no 'heart'... I don't care for the character as much..

However, if by chance you were to play both versions of PQ1 back to back. There are enough differences to make both fun in their own way. They are very different games IMO.

But Blueskirt is right on just about every detail on why the first is the best version.

The sequel has many characters removed, many details removed, many puzzles removed, and the chronology is all wrong. It screws with the continuity in fairly major ways.