This Is The Police 2 [PC, PS4, Switch, XBone]

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Sly Boots
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This Is The Police 2 [PC, PS4, Switch, XBone]

Post by Sly Boots » Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:32 am

I've been playing a heck of a lot of this in the couple of weeks since it came out... on the third playthrough in fact.

One of the days shortly after I loaded it up, a message from Dj flashed up to say "You're brave" :lol:

The truth is that he's right, in a sense. Although I find the gameplay loop for this one oddly compelling.

The first thing I will say is that you may well have seen distinctly middling review scores for it - but worth saying that the devs have been proactive about releasing patches, particularly those addressing balance and the early game, both of which seemed to (rightly) be the major criticisms on release. It's now far more forgiving for newcomers.

So what is it? Essentially you run a sheriff's department in a Fargo-esque setting in America, and have to respond to crimes that occur each game day. Each call-out takes the form of a short choose-your-own-adventure style mini-quest, and successfully completing these will net your cops experience so they can level up and stop being quite so useless as they are in the beginning. These can be failed, particularly early on when your guys may lack the skills or equipment to bring about a successful conclusion, and your guys can be put out for several days with injury, or even die if things really go tits up. There's a fair bit of humour in these, though of a distinctly dark, you-can-tell-the-devs-are-Russian kind of way. Like the woman beating the shit out of an old man who complained about the noise they make during sex, or the guy who wants to marry his cat.

Interspersed with these daily crimes are XCOM-style turn-based tactical missions where you pick a squad of cops and have to go through a map taking down a bunch of enemies (you can arrest them or kill them, but earn more of the game's currency - used to recruit more cops - by arresting). When they level up you can assign them a perk, and these will aid you in these missions and are of varying use and utility, but support different styles of play which is nice.

The third main gameplay element is investigations - crimes that you have to send one or more cops to to investigate, and over the course of several days they gather clues and evidence which you then have to piece together to find the culprit from the available suspects. It's quite fun and surprisingly challenging in some cases - on one occasion I convicted the wrong guy, and saved face by bribing the judge to send him down anyway :oops:

That leads into the next thing to say - this isn't a game about how wonderful the police are. Your main character is, to be blunt, a bit of a corrupt shitbag and it's hard to empathise with many of his choices (which play out in frequent, extended cutscenes which are my biggest criticism of the game - they can be skipped thankfully, though doing so will mean missing out on the story which is of interest, but plays out in the most interminable manner possible). Meanwhile, a lot of the cops are either incompetent or downright annoying in that some will only work with certain types of colleague, or flat-out refuse to work more than one job a day... combined with a loyalty system that means a lot of the time you're trying to win them over so they're marginally less frustrating to deal with. The more you hire the less problematic those issues become, though.

I recommend this Let's Play series (still ongoing) if you're curious, the guy is new to the game as well and in the first few episodes still feeling his way:



Also to note that it's a fairly cheap game to buy, currently £13.99 on Steam:



Sort of kind of recommended if you don't mind a slightly idiosyncratic title. As I said I've been having a lot of fun with it.

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Lee
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Re: This Is The Police 2

Post by Lee » Sat Aug 11, 2018 12:58 pm

Aye watched some videos on it and Worth a Buys on it. On the fence about getting it still.
Mr Annoyed and Proud of it.

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DjchunKfunK
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Re: This Is The Police 2

Post by DjchunKfunK » Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:25 pm

Think I'll be getting my turn-based kicks from Phantom Doctrine when it comes out next week.

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Gibby
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Re: This Is The Police 2

Post by Gibby » Sat Aug 11, 2018 2:09 pm

Phantom Doctrine looks great, I'm keeping me eye on that. Maybe it should get its own thread actually!

This is the Police 2 looks pretty interesting. I might have to give it a go some time soon!

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Re: This Is The Police 2

Post by Sly Boots » Sat Aug 11, 2018 6:09 pm

DjchunKfunK wrote:
Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:25 pm
Think I'll be getting my turn-based kicks from Phantom Doctrine when it comes out next week.
Yeah, me too actually. It's by the guys who did Hard West which was a bit marmite, so I might wait on reviews. But, yeah, if they pull it off then it looks very interesting.

Edit: I wouldn't really call this a turn-based game though. There are really only 7-8 turn-based missions across the 20-hour campaign.

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