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Blake_Downs's This is the Police (PC)
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| [August 30, 2018 11:51:35 PM]
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My third session went for around 2.5 hours. At this point I entered fully in the Sand and Varga gang war. The game continues to create challenges by keeping up on crimes while keeping the various other agents (mafia, City Hall, officers) in the game happy. Unfortunately for protagonist Jack Boyd, I must have failed to keep someone happy, because Jack was assassinated a few days into the war. I don’t believe on that day that I didn’t do any mafia missions, but I assume making Sand angry is what ended in Jack’s death. I replayed the day to try and see if things would end differently and fortunately Jack did survive on my second attempt. I don’t believe I did any more to help Sand on my repeat, but the gang war did lean in his favor at the days end, so I must have done something better. Attempting to keep corruption to a minimum, I have avoided some of the options presented by the mafia. I still haven’t used them to kill of any of my officers, as I have had valid in-game reasons to legally fire those that were not performing optimally. It has been tempting to kill the poorly performing son of a businessman who bought me more officer slots, but even if killing him off might be better for my performance in the game I would rather not play that way. This isn’t to say I have been playing entirely cleanly, as I have sold a few of the weapons and drugs recovered in crimes to gain some extra money. At this point I have given in to the fact that the game is going to present fewer and fewer options for keeping a clean conscience. I’d be interested to know how far someone can actually make it in the game playing completely by the book, not allowing any shenanigans with the mafia or city hall to interfere. As a final note, I like the amount of character given to Jack in the story. While he begins the game apprehensive of the fully corrupt options available later on, Jack is not given an extremely defined outlook on what he is willing to do in order to make the money he needs and keep himself alive. In this way it helps make the player feel more in charge of the decisions made in the game, while still tying them into Jack’s fate. In the story, he’s the one facing the moral dilemmas, but the player is really the one left to choose.
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| [August 29, 2018 04:48:36 PM]
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My second play session lasted about 50 minutes. Continuing on in the game, I had far more requests from Sand (the mafia boss) to ignore calls. I found that I was willing to let these crimes go when it seemed going against Sand’s wishes could end up getting Jack in more trouble. In order to rationalize my decisions to let the mob win and potentially let some civilians die, I would make sure that all of my remaining officers were working to ensure every other case was completed fully and without casualties. At this point, the game has certainly become a balancing act as I attempt to keep crime off the streets while still not angering the head of organized crime. Even though I am playing a character in the game, the way the gameplay is structured definitely pushes the ethical dilemmas onto the player. Jack is not made to be a perfect hero in his role as police chief, and the decisions his character would make are all within the realm of decisions a player is able to make. In this session I came to another major decision, as I had to choose which mafia boss to side with, Varga or Sand. I initially leaned toward Varga, as I saw Sand as the stronger organization that would need dealt with first. However, after some contemplation, I decided to go with Sand, as I believe it will be easier to have Varga lose in the coming gang war, and if I can’t backstab Sand later on it seems that he may be the more controlled evil of the two. This decision was not easy, as I had to make a choice between the lesser of two evils, and it’s very possible I have chosen the greater of the two. It seems that the dilemmas faced in this game are largely choosing between two negative paths, as no matter what a player does I don’t believe the game will always present a morally right option.
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| [August 26, 2018 04:22:14 AM]
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I went into This is the Police having never heard of the game. So far, 2 hours in and I am pleasantly surprised. The gameplay is closest to Papers Please relating to games I have previously played, but is still an experience fairly unique amongst games I have played. In terms of the games story, it has kept me very interested and I am ready to keep playing when I get the chance. Immediately the opening cutscene shows that the morals of the players will be brought into question, or at least the morals of the character they are controlling, Jack Boyd. The game forces the player to make decisions quickly, ranging in difficulty from choosing a number of officers to send to a crime scene to other groups pressuring the player to make difficult decisions. The first of these I encountered was the mayor’s office ordering me to fire all black officers. Not only would I have had to fire several officers, all of them were among the highest performing in my unit. I chose to face the wrath of the mayor and not fire anyone, and still have yet to do so. My toughest decision came when deciding whether or not to take Kendrick’s place as the Mafia’s inside man. I took a short break during this time to get some food and think on what my decision might mean in the game, and what kind of character I intended for Jack to be. I decided to help Kendrick and the game immediately made me feel like I had chosen the wrong thing, with Jack immediately thinking he was acting irrationally by allowing himself to work for the Mafia. From my perspective, I feel like no matter what I did I would end up forced to work for the Mafia, so I decided to attempt and keep Kendrick alive. It seems like the remainder of the game will be quite interesting, with more decisions on what cases to pursue and who to keep happy.
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Blake_Downs's This is the Police (PC)
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Current Status: Played occasionally
GameLog started on: Sunday 26 August, 2018
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