Recent reviews by HSDev

I was excited about this game for the first hour, because I thought it had a lot more depth to it. Unfortunately, after your first or second game, the shiny paint starts to chip away and you realize that the gameplay underneath is fairly mundane and can be extremely unbalanced in your favor to a point where you may spend the last 20 rounds of the game skipping rounds because anything you do is pointless.

I realized on my third playthrough that having two hackers and two hitters (people you send out to accomplish tasks) basically breaks the game. The hackers can sit at home and drop Ransomware on every single nation. Meanwhile your hitters are going out and getting info on leaders and scientists. Once you've got most people set up with Ransomware and get some dirt on them, hack them to find out what scientists they have, then set up a meeting. Show them the dirt you have which skyrockets your negotiation, demand they give you a scientist which brings it back down, then offer to remove the ransomware. This worked every single time without fail.

My hitters then would go out and just seduce or convert the other scientists, then bring them back to base. If I ever had too many of one kind I'd demand a scientist I needed and offer them the unwanted scientist. You can give them a heartbroken charlatan you don't need and get a loyal genius at almost no difference in negotiation power. Also, use your hackers to constantly lower the alert of any place you're going. Specialty hackers can do this in next to no time, and you'll be escaping with a brand new scientist with no damage and no alert. No one is the wiser, your country loves you, and you're making insane tech research.

Once I got to the point that I was getting spies sent, you just have one hacker find them, and a hitter stay back to capture them. Use interrogation to drastically lower alert, get more dirt, find out what scientists are there, and then hack to steal tech while you trade them back their agent for more of their scientists. Cripple them in the process and never worry about anything. You're getting so much tech output that the Doomsday clock is permanently affixed at the max amount of "time". When a country drops out, send everyone there to grab all the scientists and go back. You'll be winning before most countries even get to the percentage points.

Unfortunately, this meant my third game, where I just had realized the gameplay loop, had me FAR ahead of everyone. I tried it again and it worked with the same exact result. The last 20 rounds of the game I literally had every scientist that wasn't worthless, dirt on everyone, ransomware on everything, every country was at 100% alliance and 0% alert, and any attempt to be spied on was handled mindlessly with a few clicks. I just kept skipping turns while stuff went up by a few percent.

All that to say the game doesn't really challenge you once you get the above, and it doesn't take much to realize it either. There weren't any points that I felt like I needed to change my strategy. However, there are some RNG points that can make things interesting, there are also serious issues with some things advancing the doomsday clock VERY fast (sometimes 10+ minutes) which is a reason my first game ended, I had -7 and most changes were 2-3 at most, so you never expect a sudden huge change that ends your game.

All in all, a great idea that falls apart once you realize the obvious way to win, and then it just becomes boring and mindless. Would love a sequel that addresses a lot of these issues and expands what you can do!

It saddens me to give this game a negative review, but after putting a good amount of time into it, I felt I had to. I was a fan of the first game and liked how things were set out. While the story was sometimes a bit dragged out, it still kept things entertaining and worth playing. I got through to the end of the story and with a few minor complaints, I still found more positives than negatives.

Unfortunately, the new things this game does doesn't fix the problems with the last, and in many ways causes more problems.

First and absolute foremost, the cutscenes are so long winded. Scenes go on for ungodly long points of time where all you want is for people to get to the point. You can't skip it, lest you miss the 5 seconds of necessary information, but be ready for 5 minutes of pointless back and forth that makes you really consider if skipping the scene is worthwhile. It's bloated, and most times completely unnecessary.

The voice acting is inconsistent too, and the writing creates situations that at time you wonder why characters are written the way they are. Decisions are made that are confusing and pointless. For a story driven game, you spend a lot of time wondering what the story is even doing, and why so much is allowed to even happen. It's overwritten to a point of being aggrivating.

Gameplay, the addition of the tactical side is great. For the most part, I have no complaints here. If anything, I think a way to get more info and make better plans of attack would only add to the fun of it, but as it is, it's great. I wish it wasn't something that happened with random calls that pop up but that is miniscule to me.

However, the police dispatch side still had many issues that came over from the last one. Here's a random mission that requires a cop that's good at talking to people. Awesome, I'll send this person. Oh...and now they quit. They just quit the force. Entirely. After a day of working at a store. Other times you're presented with options that may make no sense. Taze a person? Beat them with a club? Just because they're mad at a child for cutting up a pant leg accidentally? Or the ever present, absolutely pointless ways you can just egg people on. It doesn't add anything, and in the end it causes failures of calls which just ends your game so...why let it be an option? It'd be more interesting if the cops themselves made those calls, and you had to decide how to handle them, only responding with advice when they called things in.

Speaking of characters doing things on their own, be ready for an endless wave of the worst cops constantly working against you. The characters borderline on an unlikable version of the guys from Super Troopers. I had two guys become loyal early, and then had to let the rest go and replace them later because they were constantly at risk of drunk driving, or just not wanting to do their job, or leaving mid day. If loyalty is a key thing, give me some sort of indication, or a way to correct those issues. Otherwise, a nearly loyal cop that has high stats may end up getting fired because you have no way to tell.

I wanted to love this game, and I'm sad it didn't live up to the first one. If the cutscenes weren't so long-winded and pointless, I'd probably be able to get past a lot of the other problems. I'll still pick up This is the Police 3 if they do it, but I hope they correct a lot of these issues.

Not truly at 131 hours, sometimes just left it on and forgot about it, but I'm about 400 days done in-game and I think I'm done. I gave this game a fair chance and wanted to ensure I didn't judge it off the first few hours, when most sim games require you to get past the initial dregs to really get into the meat of the product. I also was able to access the alpha, which I found odd to see the game was still in alpha stages within a month of release. That's...not a good sign. At all.

The game itself is a mess. If you come in expecting Stardew Valley levels of management, be prepared to be disappointed on just about every level. It may be unfair to compare it to Stardew but Stardew isn't just a good example of farming management, but also for management games in general. In that, there are numerous issues that plague this game and make it difficult to fully enjoy. The game is nothing short of frustrating at numerous points, even in ways that the game is DESIGNED to be frustrating. Want to access a town (that appears to be cut content and not just a "joke" by the devs)? Killed upon entry. Finish a list of tasks to get your church upgraded? Surprise, now you have to pay a fee just to re-open it and can't get Faith, a very necessary resource for research, until you pay it. Want to sell items? Good luck finding who buys what, and in many cases, NO ONE will buy specific items. There are items in game that take a lot of time, energy, and resources to make...and they literally don't do anything. Can't use them, can't sell them. There's a ghost that appears and destroys all your graves if the grave happens to have even a SINGLE RED SKULL. Didn't know that prior? Well tough ♥♥♥♥, get to work repairing. Walk all the way around the swamp to see the repair bridge sign? Hope you brought exactly what you need to build it, otherwise you'll be running all the way back around, just to go back and get items, then come back and try it again. Hope you like inventory management because you'll be doing it. A lot. Also, good luck with research points, you'll end up making more rope and books than you ever need, wasting entire days of in-game time just to open up a single piece of technology.

The challenge of a game should be the natural challenges it poses, not obstacles thrown lazily in the way of progression. It's not a game that feels rewarding. Unlock a new item? Great, did you also then unlock this expensive tech to give you the ability to build it? Ok, go get points for that. Great! Now it needs these resources to build said item. Hope you unlocked THAT tech. Go grind some more, unlock the tech so you can get resources to build the needed tool to make the item you first unlocked...and then find it needs MORE tech unlocked just to gain access to make that initial item.

Even when you do something you need to, there's a chance you may fail. Spend a good amount of money to get a lot of silver-level grape seeds? Awesome, plant them and wait a while. Harvest, then plant what you can, buy more seeds, keep going. Rinse and repeat for 3-4 weeks in game because they only sell grape seeds once a week, and only 8 at a time of silver level, which you need for quests. Finally get 30 grapes, unlock all the tech to make wine, drop it in the barrel and...50/50 chance you'll get bronze wine, which can't be used for any quest. So now you either abuse saving and reloading, or you're forced to redo all that work just to get what you need and try for a coin-flip worth of success again.

I wanted to love this game since I tried it at PAX South. It's a great idea, the premise is fun, and it really could be a great game. Sadly, it feels extremely rushed, with bugs and cut content, no proper quest log, extremely frustrating and unnecessary hurdles shoved in your way, unbalanced gameplay, and so much more going against it. It's possible this game could be great if it gains a modding community, but otherwise in it's current state, it's a mess. Nothing truly feels rewarding, and in simulation/management games like this, it needs to be all about that rewarding feeling.

On the positive, the graphics are great.