On the brink of chaos: gritty police game puts you in charge

REVIEW
Game: This is the Police
Developer: Weappy
Genre: Resource management & point and click adventure
Platform: PC
Verdict: A gripping story of corruption and power on top of an enjoyable, if somewhat repetitive, management sim.

By WILLIAM ARNOTT

This is the Police by Weappy is a gritty game of corruption, crime and resource management.

You play as Jack Boyd, a 60-year-old police chief being forced to retire after a scandal shakes the Freeburg Police department to its core. Jack’s goal is then clear: earn $500,000 in 180 days while managing the day-to-day operations of the police.

The main gameplay involves responding to various 911 calls that appear on a map of the city. You oversee two police officer shifts and must assign them to distress calls.

Each emergency call is on a timer and only cops at the police station can respond, which can turn everything into a stressful, adrenaline-pumping, juggling act.

To make matters even worse, some calls are false alarms, which tie up officers on wild goose chases preventing them from attending actual crimes, reflecting real-life issues.

Between days, comic book-style cut scenes help to flesh out Jack as a character. You find out he was surrounded by enemies and desperately trying to fix his crumbling family life before the corrupt city officials kicked him out.

He’s a lovably gruff anti-hero who isn't easily fooled and isn’t afraid of speaking his mind. The complexity of Jack’s character does not prevent players from sympathising with him, but his back story is gritty enough that he fits in well with the overall style of the game.

Jack has police and detectives at his disposal to investigate crimes and arrest perpetrators. Every day they work on a case, you will be rewarded with a number of frames that depict how the events might have taken place.

By arranging them in the right order, you can find and arrest the culprit. This is where the minimalistic art style can become a pain, as it isn’t always clear what is happening in each frame.

Officers have a professionalism rating that helps determine how they perform on missions. Some cops also have secrets, which you will quickly learn after they arrive on the job drunk, or try to get out of work by saying they need to go to their father’s funeral for the sixth time.

As chief of police, you must also deal with admin and politics. City Hall will often ask for a few officers to help in mundane matters, taking officers away from more serious tasks, but earning brownie points from the people who manage your budget.

If the mayor is happy with you, you can request to increase the size of your roster or ask for a raise.

You have to deal with corruption. When the mafia comes calling on Jack, does he help them out, or face a bullet?

The mayor will have you doing his dirty work, too. Calls from City Hall will have you reshuffling your roster on a whim.

The decisions are difficult: do you fire all old cops to appease the mayor, even though they’re your best officers? Do you illegally fire male officers to reach gender quotas put in place to help your scumbag boss appeal to feminists?

Whatever the case, the game makes you question your morality, critique social trends and disregard political correctness in an artful and meaningful way.

Jack Boyd’s story of intrigue is accompanied by a fittingly noir soundtrack, with plenty of smooth jazz to set the mood.

This is the Police is a stressful, but ultimately enjoyable endeavour of trying and keep our flawed hero Jack afloat in a city on the brink of chaos.