#and their style is insanely good. like it's so cleverly written i could read about them writing about paint drying and it'd be exciting

[widevibratobitch]

favourite fic updating after months??????? haha! fuck you real books im running down the easy shameless instant gratification path laughing manically and foaming at the mouth

[samtheflamingomain]

this is the police 2: 2 this 2 police

I had a love/hate relationship with This is The Police, a strategy game from 2016. It was hard, long, unforgiving, and at points downright infuriating. But it was worth it for the story.

I can't say the same for the sequel, cleverly named "This is The Police 2" instead of "This is Still The Police", or if they wanted to be accurate, "This is Barely The Police".

Because as hard, long and unforgiving as the first game was, it was all that to a point. I can't recall just how many millions of posts I came across during my playthrough that basically said, "It's supposed to be grueling and difficult and punishing," and they were largely right. The point of the game was, at times, to feel defeated. It SHOULD be really hard to run a cop shop while trying not to be the Mafia's bitch. Makes sense.

But there's always a line where you get diminishing returns. A game that must be played nearly perfectly to complete is a hard sell to me. I got through the first game with minimal help, but this one, for some missions I was following step-by-step from a Youtuber and it still took me 50 tries.

That's just the intro. I have a lot to say about this game, mostly bad. So let's get to it. Plot/Story, then gameplay, then miscellaneous thoughts.

In TITP 1, you are Jack Boyd, respected and well-liked Police Chief of Freeburg. By the end of the game, you're a loathed piece of corrupt garbage on the run from the FBI. I criticized the "choices" in the game because both endings, no matter your choice, were ultimately the same. You either end a corrupt cop, or a really corrupt cop.

I start with the first game's story because in TITP 2, the story is so wildly terrible that it hit me like the Harry Potter spinoffs, in that it almost ruined the original for me because it was so bad.

You still play as Jack Boyd, who gets arrested for reasons that I either missed because the subtitles fly by faster than any human can possibly read, or because they sent their writer on a cruise instead of making them come up with a reason.

There's very little reason for anything that happens in this game, which I will demonstrate by telling you what happens next: you, Boyd, someone extremely well-known, whose face has no doubt been on many a new channel in the time since the last game because you're on the run from the FBI, you are put in a drunk tank. When you come to, you are in a cell directly in front of the desk of the Police Chief of Sharpwood.

You manage to convince her that you're Jack Boyd, former Chief of Freeburg, on the run from the law (and why would you be telling her this? Unclear! Fuck you!) and she decides it'd be a swell idea if, y'know, she gave her entire damn job to a criminal who hasn't even made an effort to disguise himself in his flee from the feds. Surely none of the hundreds of cops that work there would recognize him. A former cop. A former Chief. Of. Police. On the run. From the FBI.

I'm not kidding. She lets you out, you go home, and come back the next day and start the game as the First Deputy of Sharpwood. I kind of feel like an insane person because I read nearly a dozen reviews of this game and not a single one addressed how absolutely batshit absurd this opening is. Let alone the rest of the "story"

I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the story because I literally could not suspend my disbelief enough to get past the first goddamn day on the job. To wrap up the shittiness of the plot, I'll just say it was boring, too long, and completely linear. No choices, no multiple endings. Jack Boyd is a shell of his character in the first game, I didn't care about him, and I could barely follow what was happening half the time. Characters just go ON AND ON about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for SEVERAL MINUTES at a time. A 5-minute cutscene could easily have been written as a 30-second cutscene, but hey, the game's 1/3 the length of the first, gotta pad it out somehow.

Onto the gameplay. This time round we have four kinds of gameplay. There's the regular dispatching of officers to crimes like in the first game, investigations like in the first game, turn-based assaults (like XCOM), new to this game, and finally, what I like to call the "HR" gameplay. Let's start there.

There's quite a few elements and mechanics that to me, seem like they'd fall under the jurisdiction of a Human Resource manager rather than the goddamn Chief of Police. This includes remembering things like how Officer Mustard refuses to work with women. Nothing you can do but fire him and be short-staffed! Or, since he has a lot of skills, you just put up with it. Just a whim you have to kowtow to! Spolick won't work with anyone ranked lower than her, and Bradhi won't work with those out of uniform. Those are 3 of about 12 fucking examples, out of 25-30 officers. Sounds like they need a team-building exercise so the Chief of Police doesn't need to have a goddamn Excel spreadsheet open to remember which assholes won't work with whom.

But it doesn't stop there! Not only get to be Chief and Head of HR, you also get to be a chef! On Day 12-ish, the precinct's kitchen staff just leaves, so now you have to plan fucking menus for 5-course meals for your officers. And as if that was tedious enough, all 30 of them have bullshit allergies or whiney shit like "I can't drink coffee because it reminds me of my dead aunt" (Not kidding). The one up-side to this annoying bit of gameplay is just seeing what the meal looks like after literally catering to your officers' every whim. Nothing like a nice bowl of Cajun chili to start, then sushi, a side of enchilladas, orange juice, and for desert, a donut. Or 15 servings of Bananas Foster. Only like $5 more.

The main game, sending officers on calls, seems a lot more complicated than it actually is, which is probably the only positive thing about it. In TITP 1, each officer had 2 stats: their "professionalism" (basically how experienced they are) and, literally, whether or not they're an alcoholic. That's all you need to know or ever will know. Send good cops to the calls? Good results, usually.

In 2 they beefed it up. Now each officer has 7 more stats: intelligence, negotiation (those two should be the fuckin same), shooting, speed, stealth (we do not need all 3 of these) and strength, as well as a stamina bar. Someone learned how to program in RPG stats and got too excited.

Now, I've read in most reviews that people don't like how "random" the calls seem to be. Now, unlike the last game, every single call requires action that you will dictate to the officers at the scene. You get 3 options on how to proceed. Say a robbery - shoot the perp, run after them, or taze them. Well, it's not random what happens. If you pick "run after them", and pick an officer with high speed skill to do this, success. The skills translate directly with these actions. I don't think I ever lost a single call because of something "random".

The same cannot be said of the tactical missions. To be kind... it functions. Barely. There's too many perks, many don't do much of anything, or are used once and never again. Also, adding in equipment was a mistake. Last thing you need is a surprise tactical mission at the end of the day and the only officer you can send that has a tazer is fuckin Persy with his 15 prof score and zero skills. Too many variables spoiled the pot that could've been a decent part of the soup of gameplay. Sorry, that analogy got away from me.

A lot of people will shit on how 90% of these missions need to be done with complete stealth, but aside from the one really, really hard one near the end, total stealth isn't too hard to do.

In TITP 1, I used a walkthrough for every single "investigation" where you have to put the images in order to recreate a crime, because the art style was too minimal to even tell what was happening in each frame. They heard that and put a label on each frame saying what it's depicting, so that's an upgrade. Overall, though, I'd say it's the only one done well.

Finally, stray thoughts. I mentioned how shitty the plot was, but also, so are the characters. Spoilers for the ending now, but let's be real, 90% of players won't bother playing through. Lilly is just a fucking doormat with no character development. Lana goes insane in 0 seconds flat and somehow keeps Boyd prisoner in his house while still letting him go to work? So then Boyd shoots her after a few days of that. Then what the hell, also strap a bomb to Lilly's snowmobile and kill her. Why? Very unclear! Fuck you!

Then, in the final scene, despite having literally shot someone in his house, Boyd's chillin in his chair while his courrier brings him groceries. It mirrors the opening scene in which a courrier brings him shittier groceries. What a development.

Jack did questionable things in TITP 1. And I played a "clean" game - I was as uncorrupt as the game allowed you to be. But in this game, he's just a pathetic drunk who goes through absolutely nothing, no character development, and STILL gives a shitty ending. Because, in the last game, the ending was shitty because it was kinda sad. Boyd wasn't a bad person. But in 2, he is. He's a dick for no reason and ends up on top, all enemies defeated, he's Chief of Police despite still being a wanted man. (Again, have I mentioned how stupid that is? He's not fucking Clark Kent.)

That's about all I got. 2/10, do not recommend. Even the highlights are hard to recall. Play the first game, though. That one, especially compared to this hot garbge, is worth the struggle.

Stay Greater, Flamingos.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Matrix (1999)

Cinema from the 2000's DID have an identity. Want to know what it is? Take a look at The Matrix. It might have come in a year early but when this is one of the films that defined the decade.

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a computer programmer who moonlights as “Neo”, a hacker. When he encounters the legendary Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) online, his entire world is turned upside down. Joining a small band of rebels and told by their leader Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) that he is “the one”, Neo might be the only one who can save humanity from the shackles of “The Matrix”.

I can’t figure out which came first, our obsession with computer hackers, black trench coats, sunglasses, rebellion against “the man”, dual-pistol-wielding chicks in tight leather outfits, anime-style karate moves, devastating revelations about our human perception, or The Matrix. Our hero is an adult with a boring job and a boring life. He's just like everyone else, except he thinks in a different way than the rest (hey, that sounds like you, or ME!), he believes that there’s something greater out there and has a penchant towards rebellion. Thrust into a bold adventure, with guns, leather, martial arts and an ultimate evil, he finds that the fate of the world rests on his shoulders. It's a hacker's fairy tale. Not convinced? Check out the end of the movie, doesn’t it remind you of a certain maiden who pricked her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel, or whose lips are red as roses, and skin is white as snow? I really don’t I'm looking too much into an already pretty philosophical film; there’s a reason this movie was influential.

Watching this film again, it holds up remarkably well. The concepts and ideas introduced are still fascinating to discuss. I love how stylish the action scenes are. All of the extreme kung fu with people jumping all over the place and throwing impossibly fast kicks at their opponents, it's great. "But why not just use guns?" They have that covered too. The Matrix cleverly juggles hand-to-hand combat and shootouts throughout the big climax. I’ve always thought that firearms were one of the worst things to happen to action movies. Once in a while, you can do something cool with them, but when a kid can pick up an AK-47 and wipe out a room of adults, regardless of their years of training, what’s the point? This movie handles this so intelligently I wish more writers could take a similar approach... except there’s no way they could. The setup of this film, and the way it plays out with all the perceptions of reality and all, it couldn't be duplicated. I should note that there are some special effects that look a little dated (a 2000's trademark, IMO), but it’s nothing awful. You’re not going to care, not when there are so many practical stunts that look as good as they do.

This movie is an example of excellent casting. Keanu Reeves is often criticized for being kind of flat, but here, he's absolutely perfect. I’ve read that he wasn’t the first choice. Looking at some of the other guys who were considered, I don’t think this movie would have worked with anyone else. He’s perfect as a computer programmer who moonlights as a hacker and finds himself in this insane situation. The other highlight for me has to be Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith. I’m always looking for movies with memorable characters and some great one-liners. This man has both in spades. Gloria Foster plays a character named "The Oracle" and the way her character is written is absolutely brilliant. I usually don’t like movies with prophecies/oracles, but those ideas are expertly handled here and the performance is memorable too.

It had been so long since I’d seen The Matrix that I wasn’t even convinced I’d ever seen the entire film in one sitting. There are admittedly some rough spots here and there, particularly in the love plot, but it has stood the test of time. There's a reason it was so influential. (On Blu-ray, February 7, 2015)