The final (for now) entry in this series.
Some positives: they decided to focus on the tactical missions from the second game and make it a full title. Which I rather like. The combat in the second game was pretty good.
You feel very unequipped and short staffed for this game, which is by design: the odds are stacked against you and you need to scavenge for anything and everything to use in future missions. The game rewards exploration and patience. And every officer feels useful. The roles feel more assigned.
So the core experience, what you're doing is good. But here's the negative: the way the game is structured and organized is atrocious.
The pacing first of all is horrible. The first 2 levels play out normally. They last a decent amount of time and end at the right moment.
Then you get to the third mission in the game. This third mission is FOUR HOURS LONG. Compared to the 30ish minutes the other ones took.
Oh my god. What is going on here? The map is utterly massive. It's like they took the previous map and multiples the space by 200. It takes forever just navigating from point A to Point B. But even then, it dosent even full like a standalone level. It's like they took 2-3 levels and just mushed them together and called it one. Because you start on like a farm? And by the head you're at an expensive looking vista and mansion. I don't understand what happened here. How did they develop this game and think this was ok to do?
The long missions are made even worse by this games frequent and constant crashing. Perhaps this is again a Switch issue since the second game is broken on the system. But it forces you to save actively. Only guess what, your saves are limited to! So I had to repeat so many sections from this goddamn mission so many times.
And the game never really gets better. Sure the levels are shorter: they decided one of the first levels in the game should be 3 times the length as the rest of the game? The levels are alright, but you start to get exhausted with this game. This one takes so much out of you. And the ending is so terrible too...
I'm totally mixed on this game. Because it is fun when things are, normal. But you will be so frustrated and that 4 hour mission will drive you crazy. It is a total mess.
Some positives: they decided to focus on the tactical missions from the second game and make it a full title. Which I rather like. The combat in the second game was pretty good.
You feel very unequipped and short staffed for this game, which is by design: the odds are stacked against you and you need to scavenge for anything and everything to use in future missions. The game rewards exploration and patience. And every officer feels useful. The roles feel more assigned.
So the core experience, what you're doing is good. But here's the negative: the way the game is structured and organized is atrocious.
The pacing first of all is horrible. The first 2 levels play out normally. They last a decent amount of time and end at the right moment.
Then you get to the third mission in the game. This third mission is FOUR HOURS LONG. Compared to the 30ish minutes the other ones took.
Oh my god. What is going on here? The map is utterly massive. It's like they took the previous map and multiples the space by 200. It takes forever just navigating from point A to Point B. But even then, it dosent even full like a standalone level. It's like they took 2-3 levels and just mushed them together and called it one. Because you start on like a farm? And by the head you're at an expensive looking vista and mansion. I don't understand what happened here. How did they develop this game and think this was ok to do?
The long missions are made even worse by this games frequent and constant crashing. Perhaps this is again a Switch issue since the second game is broken on the system. But it forces you to save actively. Only guess what, your saves are limited to! So I had to repeat so many sections from this goddamn mission so many times.
And the game never really gets better. Sure the levels are shorter: they decided one of the first levels in the game should be 3 times the length as the rest of the game? The levels are alright, but you start to get exhausted with this game. This one takes so much out of you. And the ending is so terrible too...
I'm totally mixed on this game. Because it is fun when things are, normal. But you will be so frustrated and that 4 hour mission will drive you crazy. It is a total mess.
I love the theme of this game. It's also a definitive improvement over TITP2's xcom stages. It suffers from bad pacing (The second mission the game throws you at is HUGE and you're not getting anything similar to that later.)
Also a short game which is a negative for me.
Also a short game which is a negative for me.
As far as XCOM clones go this is about as good as you can hope for. Extremely short but still presents enough interesting ideas to get behind.
Ends up as a different but mediocre title that completely loses the good story scenes, themes, and excellent varied soundtrack of previous title.
Rebel cops is turn based strategy game that follows a group of vigilante cops that leave their corrupt police department to fight against the remaining cops and an organized criminal organization while taking side missions to help the local townspeople that have secretly funded them. Brings back the main protagonist/villain of the previous two games to act as as both an antagonist and supporter against your enemies as he tries to expand his own department/criminal empire.
Makes the primary gameplay a somewhat altered version of the few turn based combat missions that are found in the This Is the Police games. It's an interesting, highly lethal turn based style that typically priories stealth and trying to capture enemies but it never works out well. Too much randomness, limited saves unless you turn on infinite which just makes it full of save scumming. Selling items found in missions becomes almost pointless as you will have far more than enough money, you also build reputation through side missions and donating money off of larger sales to the townspeople but this also becomes easily exploitable as you just have to sell under the amount around $360 and you won't be asked to share any money, while your reputation can be almost maxed out two missions in giving you large shop discounts (so you're just spending money to save more money).
The second missions in the game is both the most difficult and ridiculously large and time consuming, especially if you are on a harder difficulty and playing with the 3-5 limited saves allowed per mission. Annoying side objectives and high priced items that require an office to carry things to an extraction point, since time is really never a factor this does nothing but to waste yours. The lack of time limits also means that the strength attribute that does nothing but add to distance you are able to move while carrying things is pointless to increase before maxing speed followed by shooting. You gain points when capturing or attempting to capture people that can be spent on bonuses like giving everyone overwatch, everyone getting an additional action point, or one of the funniest and most expansive ones is to automatically arrest all spotted enemies if no alert has been sounded (for no point or officer XP gains). If you save up these points you can basically use them to auto arrest the entirety of the two missions before the finale (which starts with enemies alerted).
There is a lack of basic information like showing distance of weapons, viewcones of spotted enemies, and line of sight for your characters and enemies. Does have a feature I liked that if two characters are near each other once a turn they can warn one another if you are moving into someone's line of sight, allowing you to choose to continue or to stop.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1573558731186765825
Rebel cops is turn based strategy game that follows a group of vigilante cops that leave their corrupt police department to fight against the remaining cops and an organized criminal organization while taking side missions to help the local townspeople that have secretly funded them. Brings back the main protagonist/villain of the previous two games to act as as both an antagonist and supporter against your enemies as he tries to expand his own department/criminal empire.
Makes the primary gameplay a somewhat altered version of the few turn based combat missions that are found in the This Is the Police games. It's an interesting, highly lethal turn based style that typically priories stealth and trying to capture enemies but it never works out well. Too much randomness, limited saves unless you turn on infinite which just makes it full of save scumming. Selling items found in missions becomes almost pointless as you will have far more than enough money, you also build reputation through side missions and donating money off of larger sales to the townspeople but this also becomes easily exploitable as you just have to sell under the amount around $360 and you won't be asked to share any money, while your reputation can be almost maxed out two missions in giving you large shop discounts (so you're just spending money to save more money).
The second missions in the game is both the most difficult and ridiculously large and time consuming, especially if you are on a harder difficulty and playing with the 3-5 limited saves allowed per mission. Annoying side objectives and high priced items that require an office to carry things to an extraction point, since time is really never a factor this does nothing but to waste yours. The lack of time limits also means that the strength attribute that does nothing but add to distance you are able to move while carrying things is pointless to increase before maxing speed followed by shooting. You gain points when capturing or attempting to capture people that can be spent on bonuses like giving everyone overwatch, everyone getting an additional action point, or one of the funniest and most expansive ones is to automatically arrest all spotted enemies if no alert has been sounded (for no point or officer XP gains). If you save up these points you can basically use them to auto arrest the entirety of the two missions before the finale (which starts with enemies alerted).
There is a lack of basic information like showing distance of weapons, viewcones of spotted enemies, and line of sight for your characters and enemies. Does have a feature I liked that if two characters are near each other once a turn they can warn one another if you are moving into someone's line of sight, allowing you to choose to continue or to stop.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1573558731186765825
This game is currently in the Humble Choice for January 2022. If you are interested in the game and it's before February 1st, 2022, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.
XCOM with cops… not normal cops but rebel cops.
Rebel Cops is an interesting twist on the typical tactical game. Players play as rogue cops fighting against a corrupt city and trying to take out bad guys, usually, players are outnumbered, underfunded, and relatively weak. So rather than slugging it out, Rebel Cops seems to focus a lot on stealth and works well there. However much of the game is still heavy percentage-based gameplay.
While this game is a vast improvement on This is the Police or its sequel, it does have issues where the stealth is a mixture of systems that aren’t the most informative. Not knowing what an enemy can see, and lacking many attacks that are guaranteed will likely upset some people. Limited saves will upset others, though players can turn on unlimited saves, and the gameplay feels ok but not amazing.
Pick this up if you like turn-based tactical games. Having to work your way through rooms and areas works well here, but there are reports of difficulty spikes, and if this game gets difficult it’s also going to get very frustrating quickly. Especially because one bad roll could tank a mission playthrough that was successful up to that point.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/j3gs3-4WiQI
XCOM with cops… not normal cops but rebel cops.
Rebel Cops is an interesting twist on the typical tactical game. Players play as rogue cops fighting against a corrupt city and trying to take out bad guys, usually, players are outnumbered, underfunded, and relatively weak. So rather than slugging it out, Rebel Cops seems to focus a lot on stealth and works well there. However much of the game is still heavy percentage-based gameplay.
While this game is a vast improvement on This is the Police or its sequel, it does have issues where the stealth is a mixture of systems that aren’t the most informative. Not knowing what an enemy can see, and lacking many attacks that are guaranteed will likely upset some people. Limited saves will upset others, though players can turn on unlimited saves, and the gameplay feels ok but not amazing.
Pick this up if you like turn-based tactical games. Having to work your way through rooms and areas works well here, but there are reports of difficulty spikes, and if this game gets difficult it’s also going to get very frustrating quickly. Especially because one bad roll could tank a mission playthrough that was successful up to that point.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/j3gs3-4WiQI
Bom!
kinda wanna come back to this game
I havent played it since I got it from one of those random steam key bundles but I’d feel bad if I removed it from my account
Rebel Cops é um spin-off da duologia This is the Police onde conta a história de alguns ex-policiais rebeldes que trabalham entre sí para tirar um grande mafioso chamado Viktor Zuev do total controle da cidade de Ripton (cidade vizinha de Sharpwood onde acontece todo o segundo jogo). Aqui até temos melhorias interessantes e muito bem-vindas na jogabilidade que não tinham no This is The Police II, como o próprio sistema de colete e capacete para proteger seus policiais e de silenciadores para facilitar a abordagem nas missões, mas o que antes nos prendia até o final que era a história aqui não é bem assim pois o jogo inteiro só apresenta uma única cutscene e é justamente no final do jogo, fora isso, quase todas as fases são extremamente cansativas e exageradas em suas dificuldades, e novamente trouxeram uma gameplay repetitiva e preferiram arriscar em um spin-off por ser inteiramente baseado em turnos para testar a aprovação dos fãs do que uma sequência de fato.