Writing antiheroes is tricky: They’re going to do bad things, but you want to root for them in some way. Sometimes you want to root for them to pull back from the darkness like Kylo Ren. Sometimes, you want to watch them indulge their baser instincts, like any movie where Jason Statham plays a criminal and punches people. Sometimes, it’s fun watching bad people be bad, like The Gang in It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. When you fail, you’re left with a bunch of assholes, and that’s the problem with This Is The Police 2.
This is the Police 2
Developer: Weappy Studios
Price: $14.99
Platforms: PC (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch at a later date.
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
It’s hard to make authentic sexism engaging when you’re reading about #MeToo, sexism in gaming, and the gibbering Hellmouth of Twitter. Do we really need a game that opens with a woman being treated like shit by a bunch of men? Did we ever need that?
This Is The Police 2 starts with a block–and I emphasize “block”–of exposition. There’s a rudimentary tutorial introducing you to the game’s tactical combat, then a whole mess of juvenile edginess. During the tutorial, there’s a shootout and the old sheriff is killed. The new sheriff is, plot twist, a girl!
Her colleagues don’t listen to her. They talk over her, treat her like she’s not there, and mock her at every opportunity. Keep in mind, this isn’t over 20-30 hours of plot. This is how you’re introduced to the department you’re supposed to run. It’s hard to play the kind of conservative, unit-preserving strategy game unveiled at the end of Dickhead Cop Simulator 2018 when you’re just kinda hoping they all die. Why would I want to save these idiots? Instead of playing the game, I wanted the new sheriff to clean house, throw these dickheads out on their ears, and get some new cops.
While there might be some potential in a department rife with sexism being cleaned out by the new sheriff in town, it’s swiftly exchanged for the story of a white dude. Jack Boyd from the first installment–if you missed it, he was fighting corruption and now everyone on both sides wants him dead–shows up and he’s way more important.
Once you’re through the initial part of the Z-grade Tarantino knockoff, you’re managing the police department of a small, Fargo-esque town full of crime. Comic books, video games, and movies demand that even sleepy burgs have an enormous amount of crime (see Hot Fuzz or Super Troopers), because it wouldn’t be interesting if your guys were writing DUI tickets and answering domestic disputes all day.
From an overhead view of the city, you dispatch teams of officers in response to 911 calls. There’s a fine line to walk: You only have so many officers and there’s a “professionalism” requirement dictating the minimum number you can send out. Send out too many and those guys won’t be available for the call across town. Or, worse, you’ll send the wrong group of bumbling idiots over and something will “just get real“, something that can’t be solved by yelling and firing your gun in the air.
Once the units arrive, there’s a couple different routes they can take. There’s choice-driven dialogue where they can try and avoid violence by talking things out. It’s a lot like a Sherlock Holmes game or LA Noire, where you have to divine the perp’s nature and motives and say just the right thing. If that’s boring, there’s always violence.
For violent situations, we shift to an overhead, grid and turn-based system familiar to anyone from XCOM. Call it XCOP. Each officer has a few abilities and skills like kicking down doors or jimmying windows. Weapons vary, but usually involve a service sidearm and then non-lethal options like tasers, pepper spray, and the baton. It’s usually a good idea to keep quiet lest your outnumbered officers get swarmed. A typical “battle” might be sneaking forward, pepper spraying and handcuffing a dude, before sneaking up on the next few guys, and so on.
Of course, there’s always the option to start blazing away. The downside is that a single hit can be fatal, but that’s pretty much it. This small town isn’t touchy about cops blazing away, so if you think the boys can win, you may as well let the bullets fly. There’d be something compelling in a more realistic police game (since those have existed) where a regular patrolman going Rambo would trigger a ton of investigations and paperwork, but this isn’t one of those. Pick the wrong battle and your coterie of jerks may be down a few jerks, but that’s all.
The Final Word
This Is The Police 2 is shooting for something morally grey and messy but never quite has the narrative heft to carry it. None of the characters are sympathetic or even all that interesting. Pick an Asian cop movie or pick an FX cop show and you’ll find conflicted, morally grey characters that also stir some connection. By contrast, This Is The Police 2 is full of dicks that you hope don’t survive their next patrol.
MonsterVine Rating: 2.5 out of 5 – Mediocre
