Geek Review: This Is The Police 2

In theory, This Is The Police 2 should have worked great. Continuing the story of Freeburg’s disgraced police chief, Jack Boyd, who’s on the run after his dalliance with the Mafia was exposed, the tale of a good guy turned bad, along with the choices he makes, gives the game some freedom to explore the trope.

Alas, Boyd’s retirement to Sharpwood and taking on a consultant role to the Sheriff of this small town is chocked full of clunky dialogue and drawn out sequences. Rather than draw you in deeper, conversations veer too far from their intentions and leave you more confused than ever.

Despite the excellent voice acting, it seems the This Is The Police 2 is trying to tell too many stories for an adventure/management sim. Diving into what appeared to be institutional sexism at first with Sheriff Reed, the focus then turns sharply onto Boyd and his web of lies.

Rather than a poignant commentary on contemporary subjects, the game fails at juggling the two subject matters adequately for a coherent, narrative experience.

It is a shame, especially as the overarching story takes up the bulk of time when playing This Is The Police 2. Between long and often tedious cutscenes, you perform Boyd’s duties on the town map. Dispatching the police to the various calls that come in, dealing with the inevitable resource crunch, and making choices to deal with the different situations that arise.

The sequel gets jazzed up with the addition of tactical missions. Think SWAT teams in action and you get the idea. The previously more serene pace is suddenly more urgent, with your officers participating in an isometric turn-based battle, much like XCOM.

Presented with such large-scale threats, it is surprising to see how much the game actually points you towards a non-lethal conclusion by capturing your foes instead of eliminating them. It certainly saves you the trouble of losing officers in combat, but otherwise, it has little bearing on your progress if every tactical assault ended up in a bloodbath.

This juxtaposition of a small town experiencing minor crimes and the fairly often bomb threats and hostage situations weekly cuts a jarring contrast. However, they can be quite an enjoyable distraction to the otherwise routine gameplay loop, and a great antidote to the lacklustre dialogue.

The element of corruption also returns deeper into the story, stretching your resources further as you send officers to moonlight for cash. Add another system of buying and selling goods to make a profit, and This Is The Police 2 swiftly loses its identity amongst the different systems at play.

There is little doubt that Boyd’s position is impossibly hard, and the game reflects that accordingly. It almost feels like losing is an inescapable reality due to the interconnected nature of the mechanics.

If you are low on cops and do not respond to crimes, you lose out on currency (ringpulls) that could be used to hire new officers, it becomes a vicious cycle. Trying to hustle up enough cash to pay your blackmailer while trying to keep the town’s crime rate down is a Sisyphean task, to say the least.

As a sequel, This Is The Police 2 feels like it is trying to do too much to justify a sequel. While the first game had some great writing, the dialogue here cannot be saved by some excellent voice acting, and only serves to prolong what is already a very taxing experience. Gameplay has been spiced up with the new operations, but just like real police work, it is frankly overly challenging and just not that fun to begin with.