it also totally misses the mark in some aspects. in actual gameplay, you have the ability to work for the police and literally help them fight people around the city. there’s literally a whole copaganda mission glorifying some sexy detective. corps are evil, and capitalism has gone too far, but the police are your friends and you should help them shoot people on the street!
I wanted to like that section so bad too, because i’m a sucker for noir and bladerunner shit, but the glorification of the cops in this game was so gross, and immediately breaks immersion when the protag is continually shit talking them when they aren’t on screen.
the game even has some in-game cartoons that mock the police force in the game, animations put out by the NCPD that depict the police officers as buff cool dogs and civilians as stupid little dogs and do show the NCPD to be authoritarian and overly violent. so they put effort into making the NCPD seem that way, but in actual gameplay they are nothing but heroes just trying to protect the city from cyberpsychos and gangs, with the police fixer telling V to simply incapacitate cyberpsychos as if ACTUAL police wouldn’t be eager to slaughter someone (like capitalist police truly are like). this incongruence totally destroyed the message and immersion for me and made the actual game seem more pro-police.
the police fixer
She’s a former journalist turned fixer, not a cop. There’s even a mission where she sends you to help another journalist she knows/used to work with, who tears into her as an amoral sellout who gave up investigative journalism to go be a mercenary agent.
oh my god those are infuriating too, because for a long time i thought maybe there was a way to actually incapacitate them but i’m pretty fucking sure there isn’t. half the time, their health drops to 0 and wil roll on the floor, clearly alive but in pain, but the in game text that gets sent is still “sorry, had to waste 'em, lmao”
