Mesma coisa do primeiro, cansado demais.
I don't even know where to begin with this one. I'm not sure how to rank it either.
Let's just start and maybe I'll figure out the score along the way.
MAJOR DISCLAIMER: Do NOT buy the Nintendo Switch version of this game. It is broken and has been broken for many years. There is an extremely odd bug after certain levels late game, when you are selecting cops for your next shift, your controls will suddenly lock up. Only down on the d pad works and the select button. This means you can't actually select your units in the way you want to. This is a very very big deal because it happens many times.
The port is prone to crashing often. And the final cherry on top, completing this game corrupts your save file. This isn't a bug, this happens consistently. I have beaten the game twice and the save file corrupted each time. So I can't even show you my file to say I beat it. It is a broken version of the game.
So with that in mind, how do I rank this title? Do I rank it as a port? Because if I am going by that logic, it's like 1 star. It's terrible.
But, in the sake of a more interesting post, I am going to omit that for the ranking. We are going to judge the game as is. Just again note that you should avoid it on Switch.
Ok so, this game goes in a really interesting direction from the first one. There were many moving parts and systems and things going on in the first game and that's magnified here.
The cutscenes overall have better presentation. In particular, there are actual animated scenes this time. These work REALLY REALLY well. The movements are somewhat unnerving and offputting, but the scenes in question are intense by design. There are heavy camera shakes, a lack of music to sell you in on the moment, and decent voice direction for the most part. There are also many moments where the game presents something really odd and seemingly random. Without giving much away, these moments really really work at throwing you off, and giving you an idea of how demented Boyd's psyche has become. He was a morally grey character in the first game caught between a bunch of conflicting positions. In this game, he is a monster. Basically of his humanity has been stripped away. It's an interesting story, one that has sporadic moments of really tense moments.
But notice how I said sporadic. Because while the presentation is better, the dialogue is even WORSE. Oh. My. God. This dialouge. I cannot stand the writing in this game. They talk about utter nonsense at all times. Cracks on the wall, toilets, strawberries. Everyone stutters and stammers and draws out the dialouge in the most stiff ways. EVERY character is written this way. And now the cutscenes are LONGER. So you have longer worse scenes than the first game. The dialouge and writing is truly horrible. The game never knows how to just get to the point and you have to sit there for up to 10 minutes wasting your time listening to these idiot cops talk about a crack in the wall.
There is a review on this page going over the character of Lilly. She is on the poster of the game and meant to be one of the main characters. I think that review is quite interesting and explores a way to look at the character I couldn't. Because she's barely in this game. I would say the overall game is about 15-20 hours? She's in roughly 2-3 hours. She has no agency or real role in this story. This somewhat makes sense because her role is trying to be a better leader. But then the story ends and she contributed basically nothing to anything that happened. If you had removed the character from the story, I feel that nothing would have been lost, which is a big problem to have in your story. I like Lilly fine, she's probably the only likeable character in the game. But at the very least, even if you disagree with my take on the character, have her at least be in the game for more than 5% of the experience.
So overall, the story is shown in a better format but the story itself is just awful in every way. So once again, we have to lean on the gameplay to save us.
Thankfully, I once again enjoy the game very much. And there are many new additions that spice things up. Your roster of cops is more streamlined and everyone has individual quirks for the entire game. So for example, one cop smells really really bad and some officers won't work with him. Theres a woman who won't work with men at a lower rank than her own. There's a guy who amusingly will not carry a Baton and lose his loyalty to you if you give it to him too many times. Loyalty can be swayed for your officers. They'll disobey you if they aren't loyal and do things on their own. But it's easy enough to get them back on your side.
The game maintains the same format of sending your dudes out to solve issues. But now each cop has stats for each ability. Their strength, stamina, negotiation skills, etc. so now when you are presented with a problem, and one of the options is "chase the suspect" you want a fast cop selected to do that. Or if you want to talk down a criminal you get someone with high negotiation. This makes you consider who to send out in pairs. It gets even more complex when you factor in having items on each officer. Now you need to decide who's going to carry the stun gun or baton. Usually, these make encounters a lot easier and avoid causalities. The system is very simple but I actually like it a lot, it helps to further add identity to each officer as they become whatever role you want them to be.
Let's talk about the biggest change here, the tactical missions. Some crimes are way too big for just a handful of cops to handle normally. So what results is some planning during normal gameplay followed by full on levels where you control a party of cops in a turn based RPG style combat system. They did something pretty clever here, which is incorporating the stats you have during normal patrols, like high shooting or speed, and made it apply to this mode as well by making each stat represent unique abilities and attacks you can equip onto your officers. High speed, for example lets you travel further on the board. Intelligence lets you lockpick doors or windows. I actually really love this system because it is double layered and works in totally different aspects of the game. And once again it helps to promote variety for your officers. One can be an expert shooter while the other can sneak around and try to arrest everyone. These sections can get really, really intense. The odds are almost always stacked against you and a single bad shot can really mess up your officer. I like the presentation on these a lot and they really add a layer to the game I enjoy.
Finally I must mention this criminally overlooked soundtrack by Kevin Penkin. I always liked the first games OST but this soundtrack is a knockout. The variety first of all is spot on. There's fast paced hip hop and techno club music. There are heavy rock songs, with quiet tracks thrown in. The music in the tactical missions is extremely unnerving and tension filled. Not only do the tracks compliment the scenarios well, but on their own they are great pieces of music that I listen to actively.
The game has the same problems of repition as last time. And it has so many more frustrating moments. While I love the tactical battles, they can drag on for way too long. And there's no checkpoint in any of them. So if you die, you have to start all the way back from the beginning. It is also frustrating doing the routines and sending out patrols and that one jerk of a cop will just refuse to go out on a call when you really need them to.
That covers most of how I feel about this game. There are moments that I think are genuinely fantastic. Incredible even. I love
So much about this game. But wow, that story is so god awful. And wow is it frustrating to play.
I think this game and the first one are equal to me, for different reasons. I'm gonna give it a hesitant recommendation.
If you only have a Switch, don't bother.
Let's just start and maybe I'll figure out the score along the way.
MAJOR DISCLAIMER: Do NOT buy the Nintendo Switch version of this game. It is broken and has been broken for many years. There is an extremely odd bug after certain levels late game, when you are selecting cops for your next shift, your controls will suddenly lock up. Only down on the d pad works and the select button. This means you can't actually select your units in the way you want to. This is a very very big deal because it happens many times.
The port is prone to crashing often. And the final cherry on top, completing this game corrupts your save file. This isn't a bug, this happens consistently. I have beaten the game twice and the save file corrupted each time. So I can't even show you my file to say I beat it. It is a broken version of the game.
So with that in mind, how do I rank this title? Do I rank it as a port? Because if I am going by that logic, it's like 1 star. It's terrible.
But, in the sake of a more interesting post, I am going to omit that for the ranking. We are going to judge the game as is. Just again note that you should avoid it on Switch.
Ok so, this game goes in a really interesting direction from the first one. There were many moving parts and systems and things going on in the first game and that's magnified here.
The cutscenes overall have better presentation. In particular, there are actual animated scenes this time. These work REALLY REALLY well. The movements are somewhat unnerving and offputting, but the scenes in question are intense by design. There are heavy camera shakes, a lack of music to sell you in on the moment, and decent voice direction for the most part. There are also many moments where the game presents something really odd and seemingly random. Without giving much away, these moments really really work at throwing you off, and giving you an idea of how demented Boyd's psyche has become. He was a morally grey character in the first game caught between a bunch of conflicting positions. In this game, he is a monster. Basically of his humanity has been stripped away. It's an interesting story, one that has sporadic moments of really tense moments.
But notice how I said sporadic. Because while the presentation is better, the dialogue is even WORSE. Oh. My. God. This dialouge. I cannot stand the writing in this game. They talk about utter nonsense at all times. Cracks on the wall, toilets, strawberries. Everyone stutters and stammers and draws out the dialouge in the most stiff ways. EVERY character is written this way. And now the cutscenes are LONGER. So you have longer worse scenes than the first game. The dialouge and writing is truly horrible. The game never knows how to just get to the point and you have to sit there for up to 10 minutes wasting your time listening to these idiot cops talk about a crack in the wall.
There is a review on this page going over the character of Lilly. She is on the poster of the game and meant to be one of the main characters. I think that review is quite interesting and explores a way to look at the character I couldn't. Because she's barely in this game. I would say the overall game is about 15-20 hours? She's in roughly 2-3 hours. She has no agency or real role in this story. This somewhat makes sense because her role is trying to be a better leader. But then the story ends and she contributed basically nothing to anything that happened. If you had removed the character from the story, I feel that nothing would have been lost, which is a big problem to have in your story. I like Lilly fine, she's probably the only likeable character in the game. But at the very least, even if you disagree with my take on the character, have her at least be in the game for more than 5% of the experience.
So overall, the story is shown in a better format but the story itself is just awful in every way. So once again, we have to lean on the gameplay to save us.
Thankfully, I once again enjoy the game very much. And there are many new additions that spice things up. Your roster of cops is more streamlined and everyone has individual quirks for the entire game. So for example, one cop smells really really bad and some officers won't work with him. Theres a woman who won't work with men at a lower rank than her own. There's a guy who amusingly will not carry a Baton and lose his loyalty to you if you give it to him too many times. Loyalty can be swayed for your officers. They'll disobey you if they aren't loyal and do things on their own. But it's easy enough to get them back on your side.
The game maintains the same format of sending your dudes out to solve issues. But now each cop has stats for each ability. Their strength, stamina, negotiation skills, etc. so now when you are presented with a problem, and one of the options is "chase the suspect" you want a fast cop selected to do that. Or if you want to talk down a criminal you get someone with high negotiation. This makes you consider who to send out in pairs. It gets even more complex when you factor in having items on each officer. Now you need to decide who's going to carry the stun gun or baton. Usually, these make encounters a lot easier and avoid causalities. The system is very simple but I actually like it a lot, it helps to further add identity to each officer as they become whatever role you want them to be.
Let's talk about the biggest change here, the tactical missions. Some crimes are way too big for just a handful of cops to handle normally. So what results is some planning during normal gameplay followed by full on levels where you control a party of cops in a turn based RPG style combat system. They did something pretty clever here, which is incorporating the stats you have during normal patrols, like high shooting or speed, and made it apply to this mode as well by making each stat represent unique abilities and attacks you can equip onto your officers. High speed, for example lets you travel further on the board. Intelligence lets you lockpick doors or windows. I actually really love this system because it is double layered and works in totally different aspects of the game. And once again it helps to promote variety for your officers. One can be an expert shooter while the other can sneak around and try to arrest everyone. These sections can get really, really intense. The odds are almost always stacked against you and a single bad shot can really mess up your officer. I like the presentation on these a lot and they really add a layer to the game I enjoy.
Finally I must mention this criminally overlooked soundtrack by Kevin Penkin. I always liked the first games OST but this soundtrack is a knockout. The variety first of all is spot on. There's fast paced hip hop and techno club music. There are heavy rock songs, with quiet tracks thrown in. The music in the tactical missions is extremely unnerving and tension filled. Not only do the tracks compliment the scenarios well, but on their own they are great pieces of music that I listen to actively.
The game has the same problems of repition as last time. And it has so many more frustrating moments. While I love the tactical battles, they can drag on for way too long. And there's no checkpoint in any of them. So if you die, you have to start all the way back from the beginning. It is also frustrating doing the routines and sending out patrols and that one jerk of a cop will just refuse to go out on a call when you really need them to.
That covers most of how I feel about this game. There are moments that I think are genuinely fantastic. Incredible even. I love
So much about this game. But wow, that story is so god awful. And wow is it frustrating to play.
I think this game and the first one are equal to me, for different reasons. I'm gonna give it a hesitant recommendation.
If you only have a Switch, don't bother.
I really enjoyed this game.
This review contains spoilers
Tāda pati kā pirmā spēle, bet dažas mehānikas izņēma, dažas pievienoja. Ļoti patika jauna operāciju mehānika, kur soli pa solim jāveic savi gājieni.
Un vēl Džekam galīgi šiveris aizgāja.
Un vēl Džekam galīgi šiveris aizgāja.
I'm going to start this off just by saying this: it's not as good as the first one. Granted it still has a lot of the same stuff that I liked with the first one: the story, the characters, soundtrack is still good. The whole point of the game is still to manage cops and send them out on calls (some of which can fall flat, some of which can be actual crimes though I'll say that finishing the game years later after I started it I understand why I stopped playing it for a little bit. The difficulty curve is absurd (like for example, though I understand it's a small country town is full of alcoholics, ESPECIALLY your cops. Some of your cops are whiny as hell and refuse to come in for stupid reasons (one example, this one dude constantly smells and needs to take baths constantly). I get it, difficulty, but truth be told it just kind of feels absurd at certain points? I also felt the small time town vibe didn't mesh as well as it did the big city stuff with the mafia and such from the last game though I can understand that it's sort of the natural direction this game took? But the BIGGEST issue for me was the turn based combat, like I don't hate it, it just kinda mid and with how I was playing it made me wonder if I just didn't exactly get the system? I don't know but other games did it better.
Pros:
Story is interesting
Soundtrack is still good
Characters are still interesting to me
Cons:
Turn Based combat
Strange difficulty curve (though I could've just misremembered the last games thing too? So idk take this for what you will)
Same as the last review, great ideas but some missteps (even moreso this time). I still wish they added a free for all sandbox mode where we can customize but that's me. It's not a bad game but I like the first one more. I'll give it a thumbs up just to show support but I wish there was more to it.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Pros:
Story is interesting
Soundtrack is still good
Characters are still interesting to me
Cons:
Turn Based combat
Strange difficulty curve (though I could've just misremembered the last games thing too? So idk take this for what you will)
Same as the last review, great ideas but some missteps (even moreso this time). I still wish they added a free for all sandbox mode where we can customize but that's me. It's not a bad game but I like the first one more. I'll give it a thumbs up just to show support but I wish there was more to it.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Much worse than the first game, which already wasn't particularly good. Some of these voice performances are seriously embarrassing, and so is all of the dialogue. The wannabe Xcom gameplay is total dogshit. The central message of the game is "cops should help each other." Fuck that fraternalistic bullshit. ACAB
Slow, weird, and missing most of the charm and fun from the first.
This is the Police 2 tried something cool, mixing management sim with turn-based strategy, but it never quite gels together. I liked the idea of running a police station, digging into cases, and even sending cops into tactical missions. But, the story's kinda weak, the XCOM-like combat is frustrating, and it all just feels a little...dull after a while. Cool idea, but the execution needed some serious work.
This review contains spoilers
cw: Personal trauma talk, cop talk, and misogny talk
I'm a complete hypocritical wuss. I think we all are, and I don't mean to shine a spotlight on myself and pretend I'm the only one who experiences this. Far from it. But there's really no other way to open this review, y'know? That's the straight dope, that's what this is gonna be about: the weird hypocrisy I have the most Concentrated Emotions about.
I love cop dramas, and I always have. Maybe I always will. I hate cops, and have since at least when I was 14. Nothing in particular 'happened' at the time. I grew up the daughter of an accountant and a P.I.. I grew up around tons of cops, my father (the detective type I just mentioned) hated them, but they were the people he had to work with so y'know. I grew up in some shitty apartment in a town of mostly immigrants in the American South. They were shitty American South cops the whole time I knew them, but I didn't know how to feel. Until, as I said, I was about 14 and I just kinda realized I fucking hated them. I wouldn't have a cop encounter with a cop until years later, when someone would try to kill me and the police at my university laughed me off when I asked for help. I was under no impression they would help me, honestly, but they were the first person I saw, so I thought I'd ask. But still, hypocritically, I love cop dramas.
Every cop drama is about one of three things, in my experience: being too old, too young, or too much of a woman. I've always been able to relate. Funnily enough, ever since I was a child, people would comment that I acted like an old person, and thought like one too. So, when you pull up a cop drama about some old guy feeling like he's part of the past on my TV, it doesn't matter how young I am: I'll always related. This is the Police 2 tries it's hand at all three of these conflicts. And, most importantly, it's relationship with policework is unplaceable.
Something I fail to see brought up in reviews of TitP2 is that it's a Belarussian game. One of the first countries accepted into the Soviet Union, and one of the ones hit hardest by the collapse enforced upon it. It's easy to read into the uncomfortable mundanity of the player's crimefighting efforts, and how they might reflect American policing. Or, by extension, Belarussian policing. But, to truly see the depth of the interactions, I reccomend viewing each of your attempts at policing under the guise of the 'new police force' which took the former Soviet states overnight. In mainland Russia, specifically, the Russian mafia families would do the policing (with American assistance) while the newer police forces and government heirarchy were formed. The aesthetics of the 90s cop drama, particularly Silence of the Lambs and it's character dynamics in Police 2's case, are transplanted onto this relationship. With the former sheriff being killed, Lily Reed is expected to take their place overnight. Regardless of her abilities, she doesn't feel at all prepared. And that's where you, the player, come in, taking on the role of her mob-connected mentor.
We finally get to talk about the gameplay of the video game now! Sorry for making you wait! If you played the first game, it's that but with some more to it. Once more, but with feeling, etc etc. You send cops out on jobs, sometimes they're false alarms. Other times, something's up, and you enter a choose your own adventure mode to solve the case. The phrasing is terribly mundane and vile. In one case, you happen upon a homeless man attacking people for money out of desperation. The in game options in such a scene will likely read something like this: Threaten to kill the homeless creep, attack the homeless man with your baton, or use a taser on the hobo. It varies in how much hatred it will treat the subject with at seemingly random, and even the ones lacking hatred are grossly impersonal. Just reading the text "hit them with your baton" lacks any sort of visceral detail, but when the following results slide says "the offender is dead" or "the offender has been caught", there's universally some discomfort. In reality, the police report should read as grossly detailed if handled correctly. Here, each time it's just the one sentence.
New additions to your police brutality management sim involve personality traits for your officers. None of these are good. Some of your officers are gonna be straight-up misognists, and refuse to work with women unless you threaten to fire them. Some are heavy drinks, and they'll crash on the way back from the job and end up in the hospital for four or five days. It's a stresser. But, the most notable new addition is tactical missions. Turn-based tactical RPG-style encounters where you can either stealth through and arrest every suspect, or create a bloodbath on your way to the win screen. There's no real tangible benefit to sparing lives here. In fact, it just makes it harder for you to do. But, it helps you as the player feel a bit better about what you're doing. So, y'know, of course I did it every time. I'm an empathy machine sometimes, it's hard to stop me from feeling bad about an in-game murder.
These mostly make the experience more interesting, and tougher overall compared to the first game. I like them, and they help play into this whole 'episodic' tv-like structure the game drills into your head. Shows like Homicide: Life on the Street, where a series of random weekly escapades happens before being wrapped around into a broader point.
Despite what I said earlier, I don't think the points about police corruption and abuse have nothing to do with the story. In fact, I think it plays it what makes my favorite part of this narrative, Lily Reed, so compelling. Every cop in this series is is treated with utter revulsion and disdain. I'd go as far as to say there's something unlikeable in every single man we see in this game. Except for Lily, who is this unfortunate paragon we see broken time and time again. From the start of the narrative, she's not even perfect, but she's at least trying. Unlike every person around her. Whenever she appears on screen, I dreaded whatever was about to happen. Most reviews of this game I've seen lament the game entirely because of these cutscenes.
It's easy to label the responses to Reed's characterization as sexism. It probably is in some cases, but I think it's fair to say most gamers only really 'get' comedy narratives and ironic humor when it's told to them about as explicitly as Starship Troopers would have it. There's a very Coen Brothers-esque tone to the comedy present in most cutscenes, but it's never 'funny' like those films would be. All the archetypes of a Coen Classic appear here, delivering their usual lines, but because most of it is in reaction to Lily or corrupt temp-sheriff Jack Boyd, it's hard to laugh like I have at Fargo so many times before now. To most, this seems to read as a failure to create a truly comedic product. That, or they believe it creates a tonal dissonance between how Lily is treated and how they're supposed to feel in the moment.
The purpose of this tonal choice, at least in it's effect, is to problematize the dark comedy often used in film of the last two or three decades. Even when attempting to magnify the horrible aspects of misogny for comedic effect, there is rarely ever a strong stance against misogny being made, or anything deeper going on. It simply remains a unique depiction of the concept.
I wanted to write some more stuff here, but I'm really runnin' outta juice right now and I know if I don't post this review now I'll never remember to do it, y'know? Probably just some sentence or two where I complain about Tarantino and the casual sexism his movies have inspired within the film world, or some other selfish point on my part of that nature. I don't know, check this game out? I like it a lot.
I'm a complete hypocritical wuss. I think we all are, and I don't mean to shine a spotlight on myself and pretend I'm the only one who experiences this. Far from it. But there's really no other way to open this review, y'know? That's the straight dope, that's what this is gonna be about: the weird hypocrisy I have the most Concentrated Emotions about.
I love cop dramas, and I always have. Maybe I always will. I hate cops, and have since at least when I was 14. Nothing in particular 'happened' at the time. I grew up the daughter of an accountant and a P.I.. I grew up around tons of cops, my father (the detective type I just mentioned) hated them, but they were the people he had to work with so y'know. I grew up in some shitty apartment in a town of mostly immigrants in the American South. They were shitty American South cops the whole time I knew them, but I didn't know how to feel. Until, as I said, I was about 14 and I just kinda realized I fucking hated them. I wouldn't have a cop encounter with a cop until years later, when someone would try to kill me and the police at my university laughed me off when I asked for help. I was under no impression they would help me, honestly, but they were the first person I saw, so I thought I'd ask. But still, hypocritically, I love cop dramas.
Every cop drama is about one of three things, in my experience: being too old, too young, or too much of a woman. I've always been able to relate. Funnily enough, ever since I was a child, people would comment that I acted like an old person, and thought like one too. So, when you pull up a cop drama about some old guy feeling like he's part of the past on my TV, it doesn't matter how young I am: I'll always related. This is the Police 2 tries it's hand at all three of these conflicts. And, most importantly, it's relationship with policework is unplaceable.
Something I fail to see brought up in reviews of TitP2 is that it's a Belarussian game. One of the first countries accepted into the Soviet Union, and one of the ones hit hardest by the collapse enforced upon it. It's easy to read into the uncomfortable mundanity of the player's crimefighting efforts, and how they might reflect American policing. Or, by extension, Belarussian policing. But, to truly see the depth of the interactions, I reccomend viewing each of your attempts at policing under the guise of the 'new police force' which took the former Soviet states overnight. In mainland Russia, specifically, the Russian mafia families would do the policing (with American assistance) while the newer police forces and government heirarchy were formed. The aesthetics of the 90s cop drama, particularly Silence of the Lambs and it's character dynamics in Police 2's case, are transplanted onto this relationship. With the former sheriff being killed, Lily Reed is expected to take their place overnight. Regardless of her abilities, she doesn't feel at all prepared. And that's where you, the player, come in, taking on the role of her mob-connected mentor.
We finally get to talk about the gameplay of the video game now! Sorry for making you wait! If you played the first game, it's that but with some more to it. Once more, but with feeling, etc etc. You send cops out on jobs, sometimes they're false alarms. Other times, something's up, and you enter a choose your own adventure mode to solve the case. The phrasing is terribly mundane and vile. In one case, you happen upon a homeless man attacking people for money out of desperation. The in game options in such a scene will likely read something like this: Threaten to kill the homeless creep, attack the homeless man with your baton, or use a taser on the hobo. It varies in how much hatred it will treat the subject with at seemingly random, and even the ones lacking hatred are grossly impersonal. Just reading the text "hit them with your baton" lacks any sort of visceral detail, but when the following results slide says "the offender is dead" or "the offender has been caught", there's universally some discomfort. In reality, the police report should read as grossly detailed if handled correctly. Here, each time it's just the one sentence.
New additions to your police brutality management sim involve personality traits for your officers. None of these are good. Some of your officers are gonna be straight-up misognists, and refuse to work with women unless you threaten to fire them. Some are heavy drinks, and they'll crash on the way back from the job and end up in the hospital for four or five days. It's a stresser. But, the most notable new addition is tactical missions. Turn-based tactical RPG-style encounters where you can either stealth through and arrest every suspect, or create a bloodbath on your way to the win screen. There's no real tangible benefit to sparing lives here. In fact, it just makes it harder for you to do. But, it helps you as the player feel a bit better about what you're doing. So, y'know, of course I did it every time. I'm an empathy machine sometimes, it's hard to stop me from feeling bad about an in-game murder.
These mostly make the experience more interesting, and tougher overall compared to the first game. I like them, and they help play into this whole 'episodic' tv-like structure the game drills into your head. Shows like Homicide: Life on the Street, where a series of random weekly escapades happens before being wrapped around into a broader point.
Despite what I said earlier, I don't think the points about police corruption and abuse have nothing to do with the story. In fact, I think it plays it what makes my favorite part of this narrative, Lily Reed, so compelling. Every cop in this series is is treated with utter revulsion and disdain. I'd go as far as to say there's something unlikeable in every single man we see in this game. Except for Lily, who is this unfortunate paragon we see broken time and time again. From the start of the narrative, she's not even perfect, but she's at least trying. Unlike every person around her. Whenever she appears on screen, I dreaded whatever was about to happen. Most reviews of this game I've seen lament the game entirely because of these cutscenes.
It's easy to label the responses to Reed's characterization as sexism. It probably is in some cases, but I think it's fair to say most gamers only really 'get' comedy narratives and ironic humor when it's told to them about as explicitly as Starship Troopers would have it. There's a very Coen Brothers-esque tone to the comedy present in most cutscenes, but it's never 'funny' like those films would be. All the archetypes of a Coen Classic appear here, delivering their usual lines, but because most of it is in reaction to Lily or corrupt temp-sheriff Jack Boyd, it's hard to laugh like I have at Fargo so many times before now. To most, this seems to read as a failure to create a truly comedic product. That, or they believe it creates a tonal dissonance between how Lily is treated and how they're supposed to feel in the moment.
The purpose of this tonal choice, at least in it's effect, is to problematize the dark comedy often used in film of the last two or three decades. Even when attempting to magnify the horrible aspects of misogny for comedic effect, there is rarely ever a strong stance against misogny being made, or anything deeper going on. It simply remains a unique depiction of the concept.
I wanted to write some more stuff here, but I'm really runnin' outta juice right now and I know if I don't post this review now I'll never remember to do it, y'know? Probably just some sentence or two where I complain about Tarantino and the casual sexism his movies have inspired within the film world, or some other selfish point on my part of that nature. I don't know, check this game out? I like it a lot.
This is the police 2 learnt from its predecessor's mistakes and truly made a hidden gem. The story is like watching a Quentin Tarantino movie.
If you liked TITP's gameplay, you'll love this one too.
If you liked TITP's gameplay, you'll love this one too.
Tirando o sistema de gerenciamento e um modo novo de jogo que mescla SRPG com estratégia, tudo nesse jogo é pior que o antecessor. Narrativa absurdamente desconexa, personagens ruins e diálogos mal escritos.
Jack Boyd mais amargurado do que nunca depois dos acontecimentos finais do primeiro jogo agora possui um pseudônimo de Warren Nash e está vivendo em uma cidadezinha interior chamada de Sharpwood, essa é a base de todo o enredo desse segundo jogo que novamente traz consigo o forte da até então Duologia This is The Police que é uma história muito bem contada e extremamente interessante sobre a corrupção do tão querido chefe de polícia de Freeburg. Em This is the Police 2 as melhorias do seu antecessor são leves em torno do seu gameplay principal e por mais que novamente ainda não seja dos mais atrativos devido a mesmice ao longo do tempo ele consegue alternar com as abordagens diferentes em certas missões de ação baseada em turno e pelo menos aqui é quase certeza que todo dia terá uma cutscene para deixa-lo preso e entretido na história (enquanto no antigo demorava dias para pelo menos uma simples cutscene aparecer) em minha opinião, eu acho que ainda não acertaram em uma gameplay apropriada para interessar os jogadores de verdade até o fim devido a repetitividade do gameplay principal mas a ideia da estratégia baseada em turnos inserida foi ótima para pelo menos diferenciar um pouco da mesma coisa todos os dias...
This is the Police 2 is heavily story focused and tells an interesting, slow, and uncomfortable story of fetization of power and those with it, toxic masculinity, and people doing or trying to convince themselves that they are doing the right thing often while abusing the power given to them to combat other people abusing their own power. Rarely getting into how the police force as a whole abuses the town through their normal actions, you won't be causing accidents with speeding cameras, meeting quotas of black people to arrest, no stated abuse of the sex workers you arrest, and your officers aren't framing people for crimes on their own time. It's not a story about the systemic problems of the wider organization. The plot primarily follows the main character of the previous game, former police chief Jack Boyd, now on the run and hiding out in a small snowy town of the poor and forgotten middle America in the late 80s. A town filled with a cartoonish level of crime, murders, gang wars, sacrificial pagan cults, and Christians wanted to purge the nonbelievers, and all with a new sheriff that is unable to control the men working under her.
Voice work has the the characters sounding like they are always on the edge of a breakdown if their own sudden monologue become incapable of convincing them to keep going. Everyone is perfectly acted, even when overacted, and practically everyone is unlikable adding to the uncomfortable nature of the narrative. The scenes are primarily done in motion comic style panels with characters that are given no eyes and at times appear completely faceless, there are random lengthy dialogue bits about what color and how long the mold has been showing on the roof of the dilapidated police station, even done in a motion comic style it effectively allows panels, sounds, and darkness to linger long enough to convey the mood of the scene. The style is unique for a game and striking. Even the moments that could easily be cut or shortened were such amusingly strange or foreboding things to watch that I wouldn't want them to be. The soundtrack is excellent, varied, and perfectly matches the tone of the game.
The main gameplay involves looking at an over-world map of the town as you answer emergency and investigation calls that have you choosing what officers to send on the call and if you want to send your volunteer sniper with them, or if you think the call is a prank or a mistake that you should just ignore. The prank calls are often pretty easy to identify by what kind of information is being given and who is giving it. There are certainly some Karen wants to speak with the manager style call ins. You will choose what and how many officers to send based on their professionalism level with each calling having a minimum required amount, what their skills are and what you believe you will need, what equipment they each carry, and how much energy they have. Skills consist of strength, intelligence, speed, stealth, shooting, and negotiation with each having three levels. Every call gives an officer 10 professionalism if they were just there for the ride, 30 if they were the one that solved the situation, or -10 if the offender wasn't caught. Officers can become tired or drunk which can cause them to crash their cars leading to a few days of injury if they are sent out in those conditions. Once your officers arrive you get a description of what is going on and then choose an officer to take on of three options that might either end the event or continue it with a new series of choices until it is solved. An event might end with an escaped, killed, or captured offender, a safe, wounded, or killed victim, and possibly a wounded or killed officer. As you help townspeople you will also unlock options where you can pay to train your officers in each skill, help them to end their alcohol addiction, recover their stamina, or you can gain access to stores to buy and sell given or confiscated materials.
What you will need in calls often makes sense based on what kind of call it was, if two otherwise normal people are fighting a negotiation skill will likely work, if someone seems to be trying to beat someone to death you will likely need more strength and possibly a baton or taser to deal with the situation, armed suspects might be negotiated with but might be better dealt with stealth or a stun grenade, car chases are unlikely to need your personal strength or speed skill, investigations need intelligence, and a call sending you to respond to someone armed and with a body count will likely need an officer with a high shooting skill and possibly a taser for a better outcome. When receiving call for favor from town residents they will tell you what they need your officers to be good at and if they need them to being anything. Calls can range from being extremely dark, to sad, to being completely ridiculous and amusing.
When a day starts you can assign available batons, tasers, taser ammo, stun grenade, shockers, and pepper spray to your officers with each one having four open slots and each one always carrying a gun and knife. Each new day will likely have officers not show up to work, ask for the day of for mostly ridiculous reasons, and disloyal officers that refuse to wear their full uniform will only come to work every other day. You will also assign your more intelligent officers to investigations, Each investigation can have 1-3 people assigned to it with one looking for clues and the others looking into the 2-3 potential suspects. You will have to look at the clues and piece together the events that took place for the suspect you believe did the crime before being able to arrest them. There are two larger gangs where you will follow a chain of crimes by asking the right questions of the gang members you capture, or torture if you fail to ask the right questions, that will lead you to missions where you arrest the leader of the gang.
Officer skills also come into play during the tactical turn based events. Some days will have a hostage situation, bomb threat, gang assault, or robbery that will need you to choose officers to respond to call. Once they arrive each officer can choose four skills based on what they have unlocked through their skill ranks. They might be able to move more spaces, get an extra turn if they remain undiscovered, hide better and with more cover, see further, go into overwatch, shoot faster or more accurately, locate and disarm traps and bombs, negotiate for more time in hostage situations, hold up and ask criminals to surrender, break open or silently open windows and doors, jump fences, etc. Combat is lethal, every shot allows you to aim for the head, body, arm, or legs. Headshots are kills, body shots down a person and put them in a bleed out timer, and leg and arm shots create a slower bleed out timer but prevent either movement or shooting while leaving the combatant active. You never want to get into a gunfight as it is better to use stealth to get into range where you can hold up or stun with gadgets so you can handcuff your enemies, both safer and leads to a better outcome. Sending a cop that isn't loyal to you will cause them to be AI controlled, they will basically just run up and shoot at people causing everyone to get killed, meaning it shouldn't even have been an option to send them in the first place. It's overall a decent system with tense combat if you end up in it or are forced into it, stealth is pretty simplistic, some skills are clearly better than others, and some skills that would be cool in a more focused game are never really utilized. The sequel to this, Rebel Cops, made an entire game focused on this turn based stealth combat with additions. Each tactical stage allows you to retry it, so messing up or being bad at it won't cause you to have to suffer a huge loss or to replay the rest of the day.
Something I can certainly praise this game for is that when it comes to your decisions during events it is often quite clear what would be a good or bad idea, what skills would effect your options, allowing having the right equipment and using it to almost always be a successful option, and the events that allow you options outside of your normal skill range usually give you all the background information you could need to make your decision or are only set dressing. You will never get a random left, right, straight option where two of the choices lead to failure and random death. Though I can't say the same for some of the game's overworld events where taking on a cleaning lady can make one of your officers retire to marry her or where taking in some pound dogs can either lead to two of your cops playing with them for fun or one of your cops getting bit while trying to pet them and instantly dying. If something just utterly ridiculous does happen that is out of your control, you could even just reload the fairly short days to either make a different decision or for the random event to play out differently.
It would be nice if this loyalty and ridiculous number of calls-ins system was mostly dropped in favor of giving you fewer officers with more interesting and varied personalities and backstories. As it is now you do have a few characters with unique quirks, typically only shown with an annoying habit or one unique line they say. Two work very well together and double each others professionalism score, two are germaphobes, one won't use batons, one steals things, one likes to play dress up and won't go on tactical missions, one refuses to go out on call more than once a day, a man refuses to work with women, a woman refuses to work with less professional men but doubles everyone's experience when sent out in all female squads, and a few characters tend to be naturally loyal or disloyal or start out as alcoholics. All of them also have their own appearance, with most definitely looking cooler in their street clothes and hair when they are disloyal to you, you both gain and lose when they finally put on their officers hat that they respect you.
The game is unfortunately, full of half baked ideas that, luckily, effect so little or it is so easy to get around them that most do little to sully the experience but they do interfere thematically. The collection of goods and money needed to continue the game or to complete side activities becomes pointless as once you have access to two of the shops money no longer means anything as you can just buy leather shoes and chocolate from one store to sell to the other at 2-4 times the price. Money no longer being an option and two activities you can pay for to help with stamina or to raise loyalty essentially make stamina meters, loyalty, and to an extent even call ins have no real effect on you. One of the shops will even sell you police equipment which you are unlikely to need as you can already buy more by doing well in main activities, this and the lack of a need for money makes all side missions where town resents and organizations request you to do terrible things pointless. Sitting on $200,000 with everyone loving me after a couple weeks kind of hurts the narrative of desperately trying to acquire money and power. You can refuse to perform the more questionable actions that people want out of you, but you can never take the good option and arrest the person making the request, and the linear narrative of the game gives you no reason to believe your character would have the morals to deny many requests. Though, rolling in money and trust from all my other good work did allow me to take the moral high ground of ignoring any calls to bring in sex workers or recreational marijuana users.
There is a brief point where the station's cook leaves and you need to spend a combination of station and your own money to feed the on duty officers, some of them will make requests, some that contradict other officers, and not getting someone the french fries they wanted that day might cause them to lose their loyalty to you. This strange distraction is likely over a few days later as you are given the option to pay for catering for the rest of the game. Most of the tactical missions happen on each day but two force you to plan for four days, assign officers to roles, and gather information, this would all be great except that it forces skill and equipment choices on characters and adds in an extremely odd system where the chosen six characters are unable to come to work until the assault happens but they are unable to be used at work but they can be taken off the team and just added back to it if you want to use them in a normal day but taking them off gives them no equipment for the day. Even this really doesn't matter as you will likely have more than enough officers to just not assign anyone until right before the mission happens, it's just a very what the hell were they thinking kind of system.
It ended up being a lot more interesting that I thought it would be, with some good ideas, some common ideas that were better realized than most games, and some bad ideas that for the most part came together in a way where none of them caused many real issues with the overall experience.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1249818269659234304
Voice work has the the characters sounding like they are always on the edge of a breakdown if their own sudden monologue become incapable of convincing them to keep going. Everyone is perfectly acted, even when overacted, and practically everyone is unlikable adding to the uncomfortable nature of the narrative. The scenes are primarily done in motion comic style panels with characters that are given no eyes and at times appear completely faceless, there are random lengthy dialogue bits about what color and how long the mold has been showing on the roof of the dilapidated police station, even done in a motion comic style it effectively allows panels, sounds, and darkness to linger long enough to convey the mood of the scene. The style is unique for a game and striking. Even the moments that could easily be cut or shortened were such amusingly strange or foreboding things to watch that I wouldn't want them to be. The soundtrack is excellent, varied, and perfectly matches the tone of the game.
The main gameplay involves looking at an over-world map of the town as you answer emergency and investigation calls that have you choosing what officers to send on the call and if you want to send your volunteer sniper with them, or if you think the call is a prank or a mistake that you should just ignore. The prank calls are often pretty easy to identify by what kind of information is being given and who is giving it. There are certainly some Karen wants to speak with the manager style call ins. You will choose what and how many officers to send based on their professionalism level with each calling having a minimum required amount, what their skills are and what you believe you will need, what equipment they each carry, and how much energy they have. Skills consist of strength, intelligence, speed, stealth, shooting, and negotiation with each having three levels. Every call gives an officer 10 professionalism if they were just there for the ride, 30 if they were the one that solved the situation, or -10 if the offender wasn't caught. Officers can become tired or drunk which can cause them to crash their cars leading to a few days of injury if they are sent out in those conditions. Once your officers arrive you get a description of what is going on and then choose an officer to take on of three options that might either end the event or continue it with a new series of choices until it is solved. An event might end with an escaped, killed, or captured offender, a safe, wounded, or killed victim, and possibly a wounded or killed officer. As you help townspeople you will also unlock options where you can pay to train your officers in each skill, help them to end their alcohol addiction, recover their stamina, or you can gain access to stores to buy and sell given or confiscated materials.
What you will need in calls often makes sense based on what kind of call it was, if two otherwise normal people are fighting a negotiation skill will likely work, if someone seems to be trying to beat someone to death you will likely need more strength and possibly a baton or taser to deal with the situation, armed suspects might be negotiated with but might be better dealt with stealth or a stun grenade, car chases are unlikely to need your personal strength or speed skill, investigations need intelligence, and a call sending you to respond to someone armed and with a body count will likely need an officer with a high shooting skill and possibly a taser for a better outcome. When receiving call for favor from town residents they will tell you what they need your officers to be good at and if they need them to being anything. Calls can range from being extremely dark, to sad, to being completely ridiculous and amusing.
When a day starts you can assign available batons, tasers, taser ammo, stun grenade, shockers, and pepper spray to your officers with each one having four open slots and each one always carrying a gun and knife. Each new day will likely have officers not show up to work, ask for the day of for mostly ridiculous reasons, and disloyal officers that refuse to wear their full uniform will only come to work every other day. You will also assign your more intelligent officers to investigations, Each investigation can have 1-3 people assigned to it with one looking for clues and the others looking into the 2-3 potential suspects. You will have to look at the clues and piece together the events that took place for the suspect you believe did the crime before being able to arrest them. There are two larger gangs where you will follow a chain of crimes by asking the right questions of the gang members you capture, or torture if you fail to ask the right questions, that will lead you to missions where you arrest the leader of the gang.
Officer skills also come into play during the tactical turn based events. Some days will have a hostage situation, bomb threat, gang assault, or robbery that will need you to choose officers to respond to call. Once they arrive each officer can choose four skills based on what they have unlocked through their skill ranks. They might be able to move more spaces, get an extra turn if they remain undiscovered, hide better and with more cover, see further, go into overwatch, shoot faster or more accurately, locate and disarm traps and bombs, negotiate for more time in hostage situations, hold up and ask criminals to surrender, break open or silently open windows and doors, jump fences, etc. Combat is lethal, every shot allows you to aim for the head, body, arm, or legs. Headshots are kills, body shots down a person and put them in a bleed out timer, and leg and arm shots create a slower bleed out timer but prevent either movement or shooting while leaving the combatant active. You never want to get into a gunfight as it is better to use stealth to get into range where you can hold up or stun with gadgets so you can handcuff your enemies, both safer and leads to a better outcome. Sending a cop that isn't loyal to you will cause them to be AI controlled, they will basically just run up and shoot at people causing everyone to get killed, meaning it shouldn't even have been an option to send them in the first place. It's overall a decent system with tense combat if you end up in it or are forced into it, stealth is pretty simplistic, some skills are clearly better than others, and some skills that would be cool in a more focused game are never really utilized. The sequel to this, Rebel Cops, made an entire game focused on this turn based stealth combat with additions. Each tactical stage allows you to retry it, so messing up or being bad at it won't cause you to have to suffer a huge loss or to replay the rest of the day.
Something I can certainly praise this game for is that when it comes to your decisions during events it is often quite clear what would be a good or bad idea, what skills would effect your options, allowing having the right equipment and using it to almost always be a successful option, and the events that allow you options outside of your normal skill range usually give you all the background information you could need to make your decision or are only set dressing. You will never get a random left, right, straight option where two of the choices lead to failure and random death. Though I can't say the same for some of the game's overworld events where taking on a cleaning lady can make one of your officers retire to marry her or where taking in some pound dogs can either lead to two of your cops playing with them for fun or one of your cops getting bit while trying to pet them and instantly dying. If something just utterly ridiculous does happen that is out of your control, you could even just reload the fairly short days to either make a different decision or for the random event to play out differently.
It would be nice if this loyalty and ridiculous number of calls-ins system was mostly dropped in favor of giving you fewer officers with more interesting and varied personalities and backstories. As it is now you do have a few characters with unique quirks, typically only shown with an annoying habit or one unique line they say. Two work very well together and double each others professionalism score, two are germaphobes, one won't use batons, one steals things, one likes to play dress up and won't go on tactical missions, one refuses to go out on call more than once a day, a man refuses to work with women, a woman refuses to work with less professional men but doubles everyone's experience when sent out in all female squads, and a few characters tend to be naturally loyal or disloyal or start out as alcoholics. All of them also have their own appearance, with most definitely looking cooler in their street clothes and hair when they are disloyal to you, you both gain and lose when they finally put on their officers hat that they respect you.
The game is unfortunately, full of half baked ideas that, luckily, effect so little or it is so easy to get around them that most do little to sully the experience but they do interfere thematically. The collection of goods and money needed to continue the game or to complete side activities becomes pointless as once you have access to two of the shops money no longer means anything as you can just buy leather shoes and chocolate from one store to sell to the other at 2-4 times the price. Money no longer being an option and two activities you can pay for to help with stamina or to raise loyalty essentially make stamina meters, loyalty, and to an extent even call ins have no real effect on you. One of the shops will even sell you police equipment which you are unlikely to need as you can already buy more by doing well in main activities, this and the lack of a need for money makes all side missions where town resents and organizations request you to do terrible things pointless. Sitting on $200,000 with everyone loving me after a couple weeks kind of hurts the narrative of desperately trying to acquire money and power. You can refuse to perform the more questionable actions that people want out of you, but you can never take the good option and arrest the person making the request, and the linear narrative of the game gives you no reason to believe your character would have the morals to deny many requests. Though, rolling in money and trust from all my other good work did allow me to take the moral high ground of ignoring any calls to bring in sex workers or recreational marijuana users.
There is a brief point where the station's cook leaves and you need to spend a combination of station and your own money to feed the on duty officers, some of them will make requests, some that contradict other officers, and not getting someone the french fries they wanted that day might cause them to lose their loyalty to you. This strange distraction is likely over a few days later as you are given the option to pay for catering for the rest of the game. Most of the tactical missions happen on each day but two force you to plan for four days, assign officers to roles, and gather information, this would all be great except that it forces skill and equipment choices on characters and adds in an extremely odd system where the chosen six characters are unable to come to work until the assault happens but they are unable to be used at work but they can be taken off the team and just added back to it if you want to use them in a normal day but taking them off gives them no equipment for the day. Even this really doesn't matter as you will likely have more than enough officers to just not assign anyone until right before the mission happens, it's just a very what the hell were they thinking kind of system.
It ended up being a lot more interesting that I thought it would be, with some good ideas, some common ideas that were better realized than most games, and some bad ideas that for the most part came together in a way where none of them caused many real issues with the overall experience.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1249818269659234304