If I keep stumbling upon games as novel and engaging as this one, ‘Police Week’ may never end. Approachable, jaundiced, and beautifully soundtracked, This Is the Police packs pithy RTS, management, and adventure game elements into the back of the same pungent paddy wagon.
Although Weappy Studio’s 2016 debut doesn’t possess Beat Cop’s intimacy or visual charm, it radiates a similar cynicism and generates challenge and dilemmas using a very similar conceit. Where BC’s rank-and-file hero is nudged from the straight and narrow by the need to make regular alimony payments, TITP’s aging police chief, Jack Boyd, is out to feather his nest before being forced into a retirement by an unsympathetic mayor. The you-must-make-500-grand-in-180-days is one of the less believable elements of a noir tale that, early on at least, is agreeably tangled and competently told.
Is it possible to ‘win’ TITP without cosying up to one of Freeburg’s gang leaders, or selling your soul to the city’s vile mayor? Based on the three hours of police chiefing I’ve done thus far, I suspect ‘no’.
Between narrative cutscenes, the player is kept busy managing personnel and assigning officers to call-outs. As the clock ticks above a stark architectural model of the city, the varied all-too-believable emergencies roll in.
Every shout is a mini conundrum. That nearby ‘burglary’ sounds like it might be a false alarm. Perhaps you can get away with sending one rather than two officers, and tasking one of your greenhorns. That East Side armed assault, on the other hand, smells serious. Better dispatch the recommended number of rozzers, and the SWAT team too.
Play it safe too often, and there’s a risk you’ll run out of manpower during shifts (Failing to attend an incident isn’t disastrous, but it does corrode your relationship with your paymasters at city hall). Cutting corners, on the other hand, can lead to dead officers and escaped suspects (failed arrests degrade cop stats, successful ones improve them).
Usually, when officers arrive at the scene, personnel stats are consulted, invisible dice rolled, and hidden victory formulas applied without any player input. If the bones bounce favorably – great – you arrest the perps and no-one gets killed. Sometimes, however, things are a little more involved. Before dice are cast, tactical choices must be made, and there’s the option to send reinforcements.
As core gameplay systems go, TITP’s assign-personnel-and-cross-fingers approach to crimefighting is pretty opaque. While the vast majority of my call-out outcomes have felt fair so far, one or two have prompted pursed lips and wide eyes. During one particularly calamitous bank robbery, I managed to get four officers – roughly a quarter of my uniformed workforce – killed. Because TITP conceals its arrest algorithms, doesn’t model non-fatal wounds, and doesn’t give all that much away in its tactical choice texts, before you get its measure, occasional harsh outcomes are a possibility.
Officer fatigue and indolence, long-term investigations, and the need to keep influential figures in city hall and gangland sweet, further complicate the game’s absorbing asset juggling.
Musically, TITP is a triumph. Each shift you get to peruse an expandable jazz-dominated record library, picking a platter to suit your mood. Last night, as Freeburg’s gang war was getting underway, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture was playing in the background. The juxtaposition was perfect.
I’m less enamoured with the bland cutscene artwork, questionable voice talent casting, and lumpy-in-places writing. Writer/director Ilya Yanovich may not be wholly to blame for the latter. Clearly out to emulate the likes of Chandler and Hammett, Yanovich may have been ill-served by his translator.
Memorable and, periodically, very cheap, This Is the Police seems to be more popular with users than critics. That could be down to play mechanics ill-suited to marathon sessions. While I can imagine myself happily overseeing a shift or two every night for the next few weeks, the thought of longer sessions doesn’t really appeal. Jack Boyd and his messy, compromised world are best experienced in short bursts.
I ran out of patience and uninstalled (8 years ago) because the game didn’t allow non-corrupt progression.
Which was a shame, there is much to enjoy in the game’s mechanics, visuals and gameplay.
The sequel (titled “This is the Police 2”) sadly had almost no gameplay in the first half hour – just terrible cutscenes one after another. It may be good after that but I got it in a bundle so cut my losses and switched to another game.