Rebel Cops - tactical spin-off of This is the Police

[LESS T_T]

http://weappy-studio.com/games/rebel-cops/




https://af.gog.com/game/rebel_cops?as=1649904300

Spoiler

AKA This Is NOT the Police!

They took tactical combat from This is the Police 2 and expanded, added sandbox exploration. And as the title implies, you play rogue policemen, vigilante.

Rebel Cops is a spin-off game from This Is the Police, which exclusively features the series' turn-based tactical operations. Lead a rag-tag squad of cops in rebellion against their town's new criminal power, and see how long you can hold out when you're constantly short on supplies, and a single shot can cost a cop his life.

You’re not exactly the police, but you're the only ones on the side of justice
Viktor Zuev, a sadistic crime boss new on the scene, has quickly taken the town of Ripton by the throat. The community's leaders and even the local police have surrendered to his will. A master of intimidation and blackmail, Zuev has seized every major business in town, all of which he now controls as his own private fiefdom. But an outlaw band of renegade cops refuse to bow. With little hope of success, they fight on -- for justice, and the soul of their town.

Gunfights are thrilling, but stealth is key
You're fighting a guerilla war, out-manned and out-gunned. Use concealment and cover, approach the enemy quietly, and take them down before they can raise the alarm. You have at your disposal an arsenal of non-lethal weapons and equipment, as well as special tactical perks, which you can unlock as you upgrade your rebels. True, sometimes violence seems inevitable, but when the time comes, don't hesitate: neither you nor the criminals have health bars. When someone is shot, they'll bleed out quickly, and getting a bullet in the head means instant death.

Explore, scavenge, and watch your back
Rebel Cops features not only compact operations where you need to fight for every inch of ground, but also large open locations to explore -- the sandbox levels. Search each room, crack open safes and vaults, try to get into inaccessible areas -- and grab everything that looks useful. Stay together and proceed with caution, or accept the risks, fan out, and try to explore every corner.

Take the high road, or the low road
Zuev's mercilessness is the key to his power. Can you defeat him without playing by his rules? Will you answer the needs of the desperate townspeople, even if it means putting the whole operation at risk? Will you spare civilian guards who are only doing their jobs? Some say that in war, you have to do whatever it takes to survive, but remember: reputation is more valuable than money. Bad blood on the street can easily put your good name in the mud. Merchants will refuse to do business with you, and even some of your own people might turn their backs on you.

 

[Zombra]

Wow. Was this kept secret until now? I just heard about it too.

I loved This is the Police 1 & 2. The tactical layer didn't even exist in the first game ... it was "just okay" in 2, something to break up the management gameplay, CYOA crimefighting, and cutscenes, which it did well enough. Not sure whether it will be good enough to sustain a whole game as the central focus. This studio is certainly innovative so I'm sure they've added fresh mechanics and more complexity.

In any case, for only $10 I have to support this and check it out. And releasing in just a couple weeks? Awesome.

 

[Mark Richard]

This series has worn many hats. The tactics portion will need to be significantly expanded from This is the Police 2 in order to be strong enough to stand on its own. I guess the developer must feel they're onto something here.

There's one question which has occupied my mind since the game's announcement, and will no doubt disturb my sleep later tonight - If the cops are outlaws camped out in a log cabin in the woods... where do they keep the prisoners?

 

[Jacob]

Gunfights are thrilling, but stealth is key
You're fighting a guerilla war, out-manned and out-gunned. Use concealment and cover, approach the enemy quietly, and take them down before they can raise the alarm. You have at your disposal an arsenal of non-lethal weapons and equipment, as well as special tactical perks, which you can unlock as you upgrade your rebels. True, sometimes violence seems inevitable, but when the time comes, don't hesitate: neither you nor the criminals have health bars. When someone is shot, they'll bleed out quickly, and getting a bullet in the head means instant death.

 

[toro]

Finally something interesting.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Were tactical parts of This is the Police 2 any good?

 

[Zombra]

Were tactical parts of This is the Police 2 any good?

The tactical gameplay segment was sparse on features and not balanced real well. Still, it was "any good". Some neat character perks (such as an interrogate command that temporarily showed you where other enemies were on the map, or a "Surrender!" shout that might neutralize a scared enemy at range) made things more interesting than a standard "go into cover, shoot, repeat" scenario. I didn't exactly look forward to the tactical layer but it was a solid change of pace from the rest of the game.

The important thing to know here is that the series history is filled with new ideas, not all of them gold but all interesting. I have no doubt that Rebel Cops will build on what has come before.

 

[LESS T_T]

Released:





GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/rebel_cops?as=1649904300

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Mark Richard]

Took me well over an hour to finish the first proper mission. Rookies are likely to get frustrated here, so don't even bother showing up to the party without the experience acquired from a This is the Police 2 playthrough. Rebel Cops basically hands you three rounds of ammo and a stick of chewing gum, then points in the direction of the bad guys. Buy all the non-lethal weapons in the shop right away because arrests translate into XPs, and some missions like this one have civilian combatants that affect reputation, which affects shop prices.

There's a limited save system (three saves per mission, more by taking on side tasks, and it can be turned off) which doesn't really bother me because the hardest bit is the early scouting phase. No point committing to a save before you know where everything is. Especially in that first mission where an objective has to be completed in a set number of turns. If the job isn't doable on the current save, you'll have to reload to an earlier one and be left with a dud just sitting there in the save/load menu, mocking you with its uselessness.

I peeked at the the next main mission, a massive sprawling open country with 5 side quests. It's going to take hours!

If these sound like complaints, they're not. Not yet. Just know what you're in for. Despite being a standalone game, Rebel Cops feels like an expansion with an old school early 90s mentality. Stuff like Wing Commander: The Secret Missions assumed a high skill level from the get-go.

 

[thesecret1]

Played for a couple hours, and I gotta say, prepare yourself for a long haul. The missions take a LONG time, especially with limited save slots. Don't expect to be greeted with much of a story, you don't get more than the bare basics before being sent out to kick some ass. For refference, I'm playing on veteran (or however the hard difficulty is called), and these are my impressions so far:
-RNG really is random, you can and will fail 80% odds and it likely will force you to reload since even one mistake will cause the alarm to trigger, which leads to...
-combat. Don't do it. Seriously, don't. You are outnumbered like 20:1 and you are liable to get hit about as often as you hit the enemies, unless you start doing some serious kiting. And even then, you are limited by ammo so as to make massive gunfights practically impossible. The optimal way to play is using stealth (and avoiding RNG rolls as much as possible)
-Stealth. Enemies have rather impressive tunnel vision and won't see you sneaking ten feet to their right... but stand directly in their line of sight and they'll detect you from much farther away. Normally, the tunnel vision would make it a piece of cake, but there's just shitloads of them. I was not exagerrating by the 20:1, the crime boss seems to have a goddamn army of goons to defend his interests. These are usually set up in a way that only allows an opening for you once in a while, when their patrol routes leave one of them open, thus making every mission take even longer, as careful and slow seems to be the intended approach for this game
-There's lots of valuables to steal confiscate from the criminals, thus creating natural side objectives and extending play time even further. You can sell those for money after the mission, but seeing as you don't have to, I have a suspicion we'll see some This is the Police shit later, with requests for certain goods or price changes and similar. Can't say for sure yet.
-Characters. Seems like stats and perks are a fairly straightforward thing here, but I haven't had enough experience with it to say for certain yet. Appears simpler than in This is the Police 2, but not by much. As for equipment, you start with jack shit and need to buy everything while low on money. Equipment is absolutely crucial for everything so it's pretty important.

 

[Mark Richard]

I peeked at the the next main mission, a massive sprawling open country with 5 side quests. It's going to take hours!

182 turns. Spent all day on this son of a whore and only collected half the loot. Silver flasks, fine cigars, expensive booze - I'm starting to think the second main mission was originally designed to be nearer the endgame and inadvertently got switched around. The map is big. You won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. It covers beaches, fields, and woodland. This is the point where most people are going to bounce off the game. The developer probably doesn't expect players to clear the map completely because the portion of loot I walked away with was enough to buy out the store (particularly after choosing to take a reputation hit and keep all the profits). It's a case of seeing how far those limited saves take you. In one mission I've gone from Clancy Wiggum to Robocop.

 

[thesecret1]

So I went and cleared the second mission up to the very end (running out of save files about halfway through) and right there, when I was about to capture the boss... I learned that trying to smack him with a baton will cause him to hold your cop at a gunpoint and then kill him. Then raise alarm to send his hordes at you. Okay. So I take another cop and shoot him from afar, sprinting to him before he bleeds out. He'll die next turn, so I rush there and patch up his wounds... only for him to get up and kill another cop. Apparently, even though they're one turn from death, you are supposed to just pick them up and they'll magically survive. Great. Will retry the mission tommorow.

 

[Mark Richard]

I was mistaken earlier when I said the limited saves can be turned off. Relaxed mode simply provides more saves. Those who know me might recall an occasional defence for stuff like limited saving and time limits in gaming. It always draws a lot of bellyaching whenever the player is not offered every convenience, and I've never held to the belief that limited saving is always bad without exception. Here though, the limited save system doesn't exactly ingratiate itself when paired with a wildly fluctuating difficulty curve. You never know if the next map is going to toss you an easy pitch, or straight up drill you in the forehead. This game front-loads some real ball busters. Putting a close timer in mission 1? An extensive map that could be the finale to the game in mission 2?! I'm finding mission 3 and 4 almost relaxing by comparison.

(running out of save files about halfway through)

Since unused saves are a limited resource and carry over, it might be worth starting from the beginning to clear the previous missions with as little saving as possible to build up a reserve for this mammoth of a map. 3 saves are granted per mission, and an extra 1 for each side job taken. That means between mission 1 and 1.5 (an 'optional' mission) there's up to 8 saves up for grabs. The second main mission with its huge number of side jobs brings the potential up to 15.

 

[thesecret1]

Finished mission 2 (half of it without a single save. Reminds me of fucking Touhou), man what a slog. Boot up mission 3 and... it seems million times easier. Basically just a shootout. Wonder why this was put after something as massive as mission 2.

Really, the key is to just avoid rolls. Always attack with a baton if possible. If not possible, use taser or holding them at gunpoint from a range that guarantees 100% success. Allowing the RNG to have any role at all is just asking for fucking up and needing a reload

 

[Mark Richard]

Fini. The verdict isn't good. This is the Police 2 (hereby known as TitP2) had variety, blending the roles of police dispatcher, staff manager, and combat strategist. Rebel Cops is simply the tactical combat, minus everything else. Missions follow up one after the other with no break in the action. Its an exhausting slog. There's little voicework outside of combat barks, minimal artwork, and no cutscenes (except for one at the end that perfectly illustrates how an avid follower of the series could've skipped this game and lost nothing). Even the music fails to impress, retrofitted as it is for looping continuous play.

So if there's a focus on combat to the exclusion of everything else, it must be significantly expanded upon, right? Not really. There's a few new mechanics built to take advantage of larger areas like the localised alert system which heightens the alert status of a smaller group of enemies rather than everyone on the map, but the perks and equipment are ripped straight from TitP2 with mild alterations. The lack of meaningful team development hurts the most. Cops lack specific roles and obtain all perks at maximum level, becoming functionally identical.

One thing I will credit is the level design. Despite its inexplicable placement in regards to pacing, that second mission is a beautifully crafted bit of country. Maps allow for multiple routes, and one of the biggest can be finished by a single cop skillfully bypassing all the security checkpoints if you know what you're doing. It's also fun to channel your inner Garrett by stripping these places bare, carrying off glass tableware and television sets. Possession is 9/10s of the law.

Rebel Cops is half the cost of TitP2, yet even at such a low price I struggle to come up with a reason to justify a purchase. It's an unremarkable game which is unlikely to win over a This is the Police fan or a lover of turn-based tactics.

 

[Zombra]

Fini.

Thanks for the roundup. As a huge TITP fan, I wanted to support these guys, but put off purchasing due to time constraints. Then when the first posts came back describing the game's sloggy nature, I was still hopeful but turned off. Looks like I might as well let this drift on by.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]