...so sets the scene for Police Stories
, a top down shooter developed by the Russian studio Mighty Morgan and published by HypeTrain Digital. It was funded on Kickstarter on July 2nd, 2017, and released on September 19th, 2019 for PC through Steam and for Nintendo Switch, with the versions for PS4 and Xbox One expected in the near future.
You control one of a two man team, responding to multiple crime scenes with armed perpetrators. Much like the SWAT series, however, you are expected to arrest suspects as a default course of action; multiple less-than-lethal items are at your disposal to take down more stubborn perps and civilians, and lethal force is only allowed as a last resort. Not that you'll want to get into an actual gunfight, because you can take a few bullets before dying, and in the close quarters distance the crooks' aim is about as good as yours. Combined with how the levels are re-randomized each time you die, the game makes for a terse, Nintendo Hard, experience...
Not to be confused with Jackie Chan's classic Police Story.
This game provides examples of:
- A.K.A.-47: Played straight as of the 1.3.0 update. Several new weapons were introduced to the game, all of which have fictionalized names. The R226, NP5, Moss 500, MA41, AAR 15 and Stelvio M4 are based on the P226, MP5, Mossberg 500, M4A1, AR-15, and Benelli M4 respectively.
- Prior to this update, the HK MP5 was the only firearm in the game (excluding the nameless pistol that came equipped with the ballistic shield) and was known by its actual name.
- Armor Is Useless: One of the later equipment unlocks is Heavy Armor, which increases your survivability. Unfortunately, everyone in the game is either using automatic weapons or shotguns, which means that Heavy Armor will let you survive two additional shots at best (and one from shotguns). And those shots will unfortunately be coming immediately after the one that just tagged you.
- Artificial Stupidity: Your AI partner is pretty useless in combat. He doesn't react to enemy movement, and pretty much the only time he'll down any suspect is if they happen to walk in front of wherever his gun in pointing at the time. He's mainly just there as a pack mule to carry grenades and breaching kits, plus he's good for quickly picking up evidence and handcuffing suspects.
- Bloodless Carnage: Averted. A puddle of blood soon forms around the body of anyone shot to death. Stepping into it leaves bloodied footprints as well.
- Bottomless Magazines: Subverted, as both you and your enemies have to reload. There's even an achievement for killing a suspect while he's reloading.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Bullets in this game travel so slowly that it's possible for an enemy to shoot you before the bullet you fire first actually hits him. Fortunately, you get an achievement for this situation the first time it happens.
- Downer Ending: Da Chief gets arrested for masterminding the events throughout the game, though both John and Rick know that he’s only a pawn of his FBI bosses who actually orchestrated the whole thing. In fact, they’re the only ones who end up knowing, because the FBI threatened them and their families if they ever talked. In any case, the Chief gets released after two years for “good behavior”. John Rimes, having become disillusioned with how powerless the police are, doesn’t show up to work the next day, and is never seen again. The only consolation is that 15 years after the fact, the true story is relayed by a now-old Rick Jones to a journalist, having “made peace with death, and hoping to bring the true story of what happened to light. Pretty damn depressing for a
Cliché Storm story. - Dynamic Entry: A possible, and oftentimes recommended manner to enter and clear a room, either via breaching charge or flash-bang.
- Everyone Lives: Possible, but unlike SWAT 4, where you can take a beanbag shotgun and a pepper-ball gun, in Police Stories you get a taser with 4 cartridges and a couple of grenades tops, (and if you’re playing coop, you get an actually useful teammate too, but he’s also limited to using the above gear,) making achieving this significantly harder and at times counterproductive. To get an A+, you will have to take everyone in alive though.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: During gameplay, John and Rick have armored vests and carry MP5 submachine guns. During cutscenes, they frequently are only wearing blue t-shirts and carrying handguns.
- Gameplay Grading: At the end of each level you get a rank based on how well you did. To get an A+, not only do you have to take everyone in alive, and have neither John nor Rick take damage, but you’ll also have to be extremely quick, to the point where you’ll be forced to ditch standard room clearing doctrine in favor of sprinting everywhere like a madman. It's possible to get an A+ without a time bonus, but it depends on the availability of randomly placed drugs throughout the level. You still have to completely avoid injury and arrest everyone alive, but if you get enough drugs (and you're on a bomb level) you can get the A+. Barely.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Some enemies in the later levels wear full body armor, making them rather tough to beat in an open shootout. Magnum bullets can be really handy when dealing with them. Also, their heavy armor doesn't have any effect on melee attacks or tasers, which will still force them to surrender with one hit.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: Bombs in the game are clearly marked, and they flash red the first time you spot them so you can clearly see where they are.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: On bomb levels, you'll need to interrogate the criminals on site for the bomb code, either by smacking them with your gun's stock, or by pepper spraying them. Some criminals will instantly give up the code, some will take a few smacks to start talking, and a few will refuse to talk at all, and attempting to interrogate those people will result in you killing them. Everybody seems to instantly talk with pepper spray, though.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The ballistic shield can protect you from enemy gunfire, but it will only block a limited number of hits before it is destroyed.
- Magical Defibrillator: The “defibrillator” item can bring any person back to life, albeit only once, despite the fact that the only possible injuries you can suffer from in-game are bullets and shrapnel. So if you accidentally kill someone with unauthorized force, you can bring them back to life after the level ends to mitigate your score penalty.
- The '90s: The events of the game take place in 1998, and the weapons available are realistic for the time period.
- One Bullet Clips: Subverted, as the game actually gives you a limited amount of magazines and keeps track of how many rounds are in each one. An advantage of taking a shotgun is you don't have to worry about keeping track of your mags, since you can always fill up your tube after you fire.
- Pacifist Run: Completing a level without killing anyone will get you an achievement.
- Phone-Trace Race: Parodied, when John and Rick come across a ringing phone at the Stone & Roberts warehouse:Rick: I’ll get it.John: Wait, wait! We should try to trace the call!Rick: Great idea, Johnny! Now let me just go get the tracing equipment... Oh, right. I don’t have it with me, since we’re...you know, NOT in a TV show.
- Of course, they still get enough info from the criminals on the other end blabbing a bit too much to find where the call came from anyway. And the lack of being in a tv show doesn't prevent John and Rick from somehow carrying enough handcuffs to detain over a dozen civilians and suspects in each level.
- Race Against the Clock: Bomb levels have a time limit to find and disarm the bomb.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Getting hit with one bullet may kill you. Getting hit with two will. The same is true for the suspects you're fighting. Fast reactions and quick decision making are a must.
- Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
- Each level has a minimum point counter, and points are gained in each level by following proper police procedure. So if you treat the game like a generic first person shooter and just shoot all the perpetrators, you will never unlock enough points to play the next levels.
- Following on from that: failing to announce that you're the police and demanding that a suspect get on the ground will allow you to sneak up on them. But if they hear you and move to attack, and you kill them, you still get penalized for unauthorized use of force, because you didn't announce that you're the police.
- Opening a door will make everyone in the room turn to face it, which could result in you getting shot. Standing in the doorway while opening it will get you shot.
- A Tap on the Head isn't as non lethal as some games make it out to be. If you butt-stroke an enemy too many times, they'll die.
- While the game clearly labels the civilians and the criminals, it also features "fake civilians", i.e. either civilians who are conceal carrying a pistol or criminals who are disguised as civilians. And if you're not paying attention, a "fake civilian" with malicious intent will kill you as fast as an armed criminal will.
- Getting punched in the face will make a suspect or civilian give up immediately. Same as being hit with a taser round. It's really hard to resist when you're riding the lightning or bleeding profusely from your broken nose. Ironically, this makes it very efficient to just melee hit everyone on sight, including civilians. Melee hitting a civilian won't cause the player to suffer any penalty, while hitting a fake civilian will cause immediate surrender and remove the risk of them drawing a pistol instead.
- Rushing into a hostage situation without adequate preparation will result in a dead hostage. You must stun the hostage taker immediately, or the hostage will be killed as soon as you try to do something. Magnum bullets can be very useful for resolving these situations, since you can shoot enemies through closed doors with them, and if their gun is already pointing at the hostage, there will be no use of force penalty.
- If you take your eyes off a surrendered suspect before you have taken their weapon or handcuffed them, they will pick their weapon up and get back in the fight.
- Each level has a minimum point counter, and points are gained in each level by following proper police procedure. So if you treat the game like a generic first person shooter and just shoot all the perpetrators, you will never unlock enough points to play the next levels.
- Wire Dilemma: If you can't find the code for a bomb, you can try to disarm it by cutting one of three wires on it. However, the right wire is random, so there's no way to be sure which is the right one.
