Police Stories

Genre: Top-Down 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Police Stories is a Top-Down 2-Stick Shooter released in 2019 on PC and Nintendo Switch, then ported in 2020 to PlayStation 4, then in 2021 ported to Xbox One. This game follows a pair of police officers through multiple missions where they raid strongholds of armed criminals trying to arrest or take out the lawbreakers while securing hostages and without breaking police codes of conduct.

Now, here’s where I need to talk about how realism doesn’t always make for better gameplay, and in fact, quite the opposite. In real life, police officers have a great power in our society to take actions that normal people can’t. But ideally, this power also comes with a greater responsibility, and this includes not using lethal force unless it’s justified. Drawing a firearm on a suspect should be a last resort, only when the police officer is justifiably worried that their life may be in danger and they have no better option to diffuse the situation. But… when we’re playing a videogame, shooting guns is fun, and we want to have fun, right?

Well, Police Stories doesn’t want you to. Every person you encounter (and it won’t be clear whether they’re a criminal or a hostage) is someone you must first command to get down so you can secure them with handcuffs. Some will comply, some will stand in place and do nothing, others will run away, and some will pull their own weapon on you. For those who don’t comply, you can use a little force (but not a lot!) to get them to do as you tell them, or you can fire a warning shot close to them to frighten them into compliance. However, you’re only allowed to fire at those who are actively holding a weapon in their own hands.

Fail to follow these rules, and you’ll have points deducted at the end of each stage, which could lead to a failing grade and a need to restart the stage if you did poorly enough. This means, in order to complete each stage, you need to not only rescue the hostages, collect pertinent evidence, and either arrest or take out all the criminals, you must also do so “by the books”.

If this is meant to be realistic, it may be telling as to why we have so many gun-happy loose cannon cops in real life, because having to do everything by the book sucks. After every door you open, there’s a chance at least one person is behind it, and you must start by commanding them to get down, giving them a punch to force them to comply if they don’t (or fire a shot close to them without hitting them), and only once they pull a weapon actually shoot them… and they may well be faster on the draw than you are.

This adherence to some semblance of reality isn’t this game’s only problem. Your movement speed is also abysmally slow, enemies tend to have particularly good aim while your own aim seems lacking compared to other 2-Stick Shooters, often shots can kill you in one hit, and good luck trying to take on enemies when one surrenders and the other doesn’t, since you’ll have a tough time taking one out without hitting the other. Also, your ammo count is limited when entering an area, and you can’t use weapons dropped by enemies when you run out (because those are evidence).

You can mitigate some of these problems by directing your partner with commands or making use of expendable items, but your partner’s AI isn’t always the best, and he’s just as much of a target for enemies as you are.

To give you an idea how frustrating this can all be, on the game’s first mission, I managed to do fairly well… or so I thought… and ended up completing it with a D grade, which meant I couldn’t progress to the next mission. This led to me spending an hour replaying this first mission over and over and over again, feeling I needed to reset every time I accidentally shot an enemy that wasn’t holding a weapon yet, or when I accidentally double-tapped the melee attack button, killing instead of stunning an enemy, or often when I fumbled through all the different things I needed to do with each enemy while they stood there and shot me to death with one hit.

Finally, after an hour, I got what I felt was a near-perfect run. I safely rescued all hostages, arrested all enemies who complied with my “get down” order and properly waited until enemies held guns before firing on them, and collected all evidence. The only flaw in this run was that one enemy managed to clip me in the arm, but that’s it. I was even fast and efficient about everything! And… the game gave me a B grade. If this was a real police force and I got that sorta’ feedback, I would quit the next day.

The presentation, at least, is okay. It features simple 2D visuals that do a decent enough job conveying everything that’s going on, backed by a synthesized soundtrack that does a good job underlining the intensity of the action. This is also joined by occasional siren sounds and your voiced character’s shouts as you progress through the game’s levels.

Despite all my complaints, I do respect what Police Stories is trying to do by interspersing its action with gameplay that makes players respond appropriately to different situations. However, the mechanics of all of this, combined with gameplay issues like the slow movement speed, all combine to make for a game that seems overly-challenging and not especially fun. Gamers who are looking for more realistic elements in their cop game might find this worth a look, but it’s definitely not a game I would recommend to everyone.

tl;dr – Police Stories is a 2-Stick Shooter where players must follow procedure as they take on criminals and rescue hostages in raids. It’s a unique concept, but it means adding frustration and tedium to the genre, as well as a pretty high difficulty level. This may be worth a look for some players, but I suspect that this won’t be a game that most players will enjoy.

Grade: C+

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