This Is the Police Reviews
Check out This Is the Police Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 12 reviews on CriticDB, This Is the Police has a score of:
This Is The Police isn’t a game for everyone. Straddling a line between a strategy game and an interactive story, some may think it boring. There are also moments of racially charged tones that while some may find offensive, I think it’s fair to note. For those looking for a police game a buried a bit in the darker side of law enforcement fiction, it’d be easy to suggest at least giving it a shot when it’s on sale.
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This Is The Police is a strategy game based on managing the staff and resources of a police department, as the soon-to-depart police chief Jack Boyd. Players must deal with 911 calls constantly cropping up while keeping various city-wide institutions happy - all with an 180-day time limit. While the game initially intrigues and challenges in equal measure, it ultimately loses steam and devolves into tedious busywork, capped off by a general lack of closure or payoff.
Injustice: Mobs Among Us
Finally, This Is The Police, is an allegorical representation of police in the USA, irrespective of what the developers intended. This comes with the responsibility of handling sensitive issues with deft touches and sense of tact. Instead they’ve gone for a very heavy-handed approach. In the same session of gameplay you can have a officer dousing a stripper cat-fight with ice water, someone calling in sick because it’s their dog’s birthday, to City Hall declaring all black officers must be fired due to racial tension; just WOW!
This Is The Police leans on cliched scenarios and characters, but it represents some of the real struggles a police force has to deal with, like budgets being cut and a city with a lot of social problems. While Weappy states that the events of the game aren’t inspired by recent events, some of things that happen are rather poignant when viewed in that light. At the same time, This Is The Police is a tough game to get to grips with and there are certain annoying limitations. like not being able to reroute police to another call feel like annoying limitations rather than part of the challenge. A sandbox mode will help to keep things fresh when it is released, but even now This Is The Police is a decent simulation title.
Time to clean up this corrupt city.
The news isn’t great. My wages have been slashed to a shadow of what they used to be, as punishment for me telling my officers to respond to a peaceful rally with force. Never mind that the mayor gave me the order, with the threat of further staffing cuts if I didn’t toe the line – the same mayor previously demanded that I fire all of my black officers. Whatever. I could falsify evidence and shift the blame to the mob, but why bother? I only have a few months left on the job, and I need to keep my Mafioso relations strong – they’re selling the coke I found on a bust, after all. This is the Police lets you walk a tightrope as a shady police chief on his way out of office, but it’s far from a thrill. One false step and you find yourself facing a long fall (and lost progress) that keeps you further away from the end of this too-long interactive spreadsheet.
This Is The Police is a challenging portrayal of law enforcement that falters when it comes to meaningful commentary. While it constructs a good form and addresses topical concerns, it fails to say anything definitive. Starting a conversation is worthwhile, but that only carries the game so far before its menial nature drags it down.
An intriguing concept hindered by too much going on. There are plenty of details throughout, but few received the attention they deserved.
It might rub some people up the wrong way in light of the current sensitivity surrounding US law enforcement, but it should be said that, while it might exhibit less tact in dealing with some of those situations that hit closer to home, This Is The Police still gives the player the ultimate choice: they can choose to do what’s morally right or… not.
This is the Police presents situations that aren’t deep enough to invoke social commentary, yet it still takes the opportunity to arbitrarily throw them out in the open. It’s missing key storytelling elements that allow for that kind of messaging, and in the mundane yet slur-sprinkled missions those ideas fall apart. However with its interesting gameplay mechanics, pretty packaging, and plans for a sandbox mode it has a lot of future promise which I hope they deliver on.