coming in late here but im gonna nominate police quest (and sequels) from my childhood, old sierra adventure games made with the help of some actual retired cop. its like kings quest but you get to play an oppressor who actually has power!
like disco elysium theyre broadly adventure gamey in style, except these ones are completely linear and railroaded. and the key part of it is the importance of being completely by-the-book and following correct police procedure at all times or you will literally die (or sometimes just be fired). like you have to check the car tyres before you get in every time or otherwise you will have a flat tyre and crash and die. cross the street at a non-designated place? hit by a car and die, every time. mess up the strict police procedure in any way like doing stuff in the wrong order? immediately fired lol. you have to constantly check in and check out your gun etc from storage or else someone might steal your gun from you and you die. huge amounts of the games are about sitting at your desk and doing a whole bunch of paperwork correctly. filing evidence into little baggies and checking them in to evidence lockers. my strongest memory of these games is an early part in (i think) the third one, where you go to some lake area and theres a cRaZy dude in his underpants terrorising picnickers. its clearly some guy having a mental health crisis, but instead of talking him down or anything the correct approach when he rips your badge off is to search through his discarded clothes to find his car keys and throw them in the lake as revenge. shocked pikachu this enrages the guy and the next step is to equip the truncheon and beat the shit out of him when he comes near you, and then you have to frisk him or it turns out he has a knife in his underpants and you die (because of course everyone having a mental health crisis is an immediate threat to your life so you have to apply pre-emptive violence to them), then handcuff him, then take him to the station to check him in and do paperwork, etc etc etc. the main plotline in that one is even about stopping a satanic cult (this is supposed to be a highly-accurate real-life cop simulator series remember) cos satanic panic was still kinda in vogue in the mid 90s i guess?
its this amazing copaganda from a cops eye view where every cop is completely by the book, baddies are bad because theyre bad, and the cops just have to act the way they do because every interaction with the public will literally kill them if they arent completely on edge at all times
i was obsessed with those sierra adventure games when i was a kid, even though a lot of them were objectively pretty shit. but yeah the police quest ones were easily the worst and most boring, and had the most bullshit insta-deaths from a company whose games were renowned for bullshit insta-deaths and other frustrating shit to encourage you to buy hintbooks. also half the police procedure stuff was kinda transparent copy protection where you refer to the manual for infraction codes or whatever so if you pirated them like we all did then it was even more bullshit guesswork
still have a weird soft spot for them all though lol
coming in late here but im gonna nominate police quest (and sequels) from my childhood, old sierra adventure games made with the help of some actual retired cop. its like kings quest but you get to play an oppressor who actually has power!
like disco elysium theyre broadly adventure gamey in style, except these ones are completely linear and railroaded. and the key part of it is the importance of being completely by-the-book and following correct police procedure at all times or you will literally die (or sometimes just be fired). like you have to check the car tyres before you get in every time or otherwise you will have a flat tyre and crash and die. cross the street at a non-designated place? hit by a car and die, every time. mess up the strict police procedure in any way like doing stuff in the wrong order? immediately fired lol. you have to constantly check in and check out your gun etc from storage or else someone might steal your gun from you and you die. huge amounts of the games are about sitting at your desk and doing a whole bunch of paperwork correctly. filing evidence into little baggies and checking them in to evidence lockers. my strongest memory of these games is an early part in (i think) the third one, where you go to some lake area and theres a cRaZy dude in his underpants terrorising picnickers. its clearly some guy having a mental health crisis, but instead of talking him down or anything the correct approach when he rips your badge off is to search through his discarded clothes to find his car keys and throw them in the lake as revenge. shocked pikachu this enrages the guy and the next step is to equip the truncheon and beat the shit out of him when he comes near you, and then you have to frisk him or it turns out he has a knife in his underpants and you die (because of course everyone having a mental health crisis is an immediate threat to your life so you have to apply pre-emptive violence to them), then handcuff him, then take him to the station to check him in and do paperwork, etc etc etc. the main plotline in that one is even about stopping a satanic cult (this is supposed to be a highly-accurate real-life cop simulator series remember) cos satanic panic was still kinda in vogue in the mid 90s i guess?
its this amazing copaganda from a cops eye view where every cop is completely by the book, baddies are bad because theyre bad, and the cops just have to act the way they do because every interaction with the public will literally kill them if they arent completely on edge at all times
I remember my friend's chud dad played the shit out of those. We tried once or twice, but it was the most boring game in the world when you're a kid,
i was obsessed with those sierra adventure games when i was a kid, even though a lot of them were objectively pretty shit. but yeah the police quest ones were easily the worst and most boring, and had the most bullshit insta-deaths from a company whose games were renowned for bullshit insta-deaths and other frustrating shit to encourage you to buy hintbooks. also half the police procedure stuff was kinda transparent copy protection where you refer to the manual for infraction codes or whatever so if you pirated them like we all did then it was even more bullshit guesswork
still have a weird soft spot for them all though lol