This Is the Police (PC) Review

Jack Boyd does not wake up to the best day of his life. A press conference to discuss his imminent forced retirement, in the wake of a police corruption scandal involving his very own deputy. From there, it's all downhill. With only 180 days to secure half a million dollars to retire on, Jack might have to make some shady deals to scrape together the required funds, all while performing the duties of his office.

As police chief, Jack is responsible for the dispatch of officers, detectives, and S.W.A.T. units to incoming calls for help. Each call gives him a general idea of the manpower needed, and it's up to him to decide which (and how many) officers to send to each call. The outline for each emergency call gives a general idea of the force required, but it's not always a sure indicator, so it's important to read the mood each call presents before sending the whole squad in force.

Balancing the understaffed police force can be challenging; between increasing crime, racial hostilities, and interference from the mayor's office, there may be times when there simply aren't enough officers for every call. It's pretty key to take every call possible, so balancing officers between call times, sending out appropriate patrols, and the like, are all important to keeping an orderly town. There is a lot of waiting between calls, waiting for units to get back, and waiting for new cases to pop up, but there's usually something to keep the force occupied.

Each individual officer has a reliability score to help Jack manage who to send to what call. Officers with more experience in the field are more dependable, and those who complete successful cases gain some accountability with their successes. It's important to manage the more junior officers with the experienced veterans, giving both parties a chance at experience and a chance to further themselves. Officers aren't without their own lives and problems. Some might have drinking problems, or other vices that interfere with their ability to do their job. Managing the staff, through requests for days off, and careful monitoring of their individual personalities and requests, is key to maintaining a productive force. That would all be hard enough, but unfortunately, the trouble doesn't end there.

The day to day management of the police force would take a toll on anyone, but Jack Boyd isn't anyone. Between the demands of a corrupt police department, and the struggles of his personal life, Jack doesn't have a lot of room for error. There's a lot of ways to run the force, some more corrupt than others, and it's really up to one person to decide how far Jack goes - and it isn't him.

Choices in the game can steer the entire story down entirely different paths. Help an old friend in danger of the mafia, and risk the safety of friends and family, or let him fall in the name of justice? Keep going by the books when money's tight and there's no easy solutions, or give in to corruption for the sake of personal security? The choices offered aren't exactly subtle, but they do a good job of painting the harsh realities of a job in one of the most demanding fields available.

The narrative ends up coming across as a little heavy-handed, however. Choices tend to be pretty black and white; join the mafia or don't, take the money or don't - that sort of thing. Some of the questions asked by officers out in the field take it a step further, but not usually enough to be truly impactful. The dialogue also tends to drone on, and the pacing just comes across as stressful half the time.

Voice actor Jon St. John, best known for his role as Duke Nukem in said series, delivers a very respectable performance as Boyd, which is good, as his is the predominant voice for the majority of the story. While his delivery usually works, the writing doesn't always hit the mark, often failing to grasp the mood of the intense situations currently occurring. It creates a weird disconnect between the dialogue and the actual actions happening on-screen, and it really takes away from some of the more compelling scenes.

The biggest pitfalls This Is the Police experiences are rooted in some strange pacing issues. Managing the police squad either feels too fast or too slow, either being bombarded by requests from civilians, the mayor's office, and the mafia, or being stuck with little to do, waiting for patrol cars to return just to send them back out, or detectives to compile new evidence. Everything functions just as it should, but it often fails to be truly engaging.