Forget Power Fantasies: Militsioner Makes You Parent A God-Sized Grump
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
Militsioner throws you into a grim city ruled by a giant, emotionally needy cop you must constantly manage and outwit, turning the immersive sim genre into an unexpected, exhausting, and utterly compelling exercise in digital emotional labour, as first brilliantly covered by Rock Paper Shotgun.
Right, so imagine this: you've woken up in a grim, industrial city, accused of some unspecified shenanigans, and the only thing standing between you and an unjust trial is... a mountain-sized, emotionally unstable cop. Oh, and he's basically your new, very demanding digital pet. Sounds like a Tuesday, doesn't it? Well, Tall Boys' Militsioner isn't just a game; it’s an exercise in monumental emotional labour, and honestly, I've been tinkering with this story all morning, and bloody hell, it’s wilder than it first appeared.
This isn't your average, stern, silent law enforcement type, mate. This 'Militsioner' – let's just call him The Cop, because honestly, that’s all you need to know – is a kaiju-sized, vaguely human-shaped cloud of existential dread and constant demands. If you don't gaze up and reassure him every few minutes, he’ll throw a tantrum so epic it makes the weather go sideways. Tunnels flood, low-lying areas become inaccessible. His bad vibes literally rain down on the city, which, fair dinkum, feels smaller than the Cop himself.
You, my friend, are the unfortunate soul caught in his massive, sweaty grasp. Your 'crime'? Unspecified. Your goal? Escape the city in three days before your inevitable, probably unfair, trial. The game’s first menu option is 'Run,' which, frankly, I respect. It sets the tone perfectly. And my first thought upon seeing this colossal grump with his ginger girders of a moustache? Utter, insectile contempt. My mum always said spiders look at us with terror; I reckon they look at us like *this* Cop looks at us: an annoyance to be swatted or, even better, strategically sabotaged.
So, how do you deal with a moody, god-like entity? You bribe him, of course! He’s always after some trivial 'treat' – a bottle of soda, a croissant, maybe even a pet. These gifts vanish from your comically small inventory instantly, which, I reckon, is less about animation budget and more about reinforcing the idea that this isn't a literal copper. This is a *Mind Cop*, a bloated, sun-blotting embodiment of a stagnant, suffocating system. A system that needs constant validation and material comforts, all while looming over you, threatening to crush you.
Sure, you can try an 'existential joke' – picking from a context-sensitive menu as you gawk at his misty silhouette – but I get the sense he’ll sour on those eventually. You’re better off finding him a treat, or even better, finding a way to manipulate him. One player even managed to make him panic by suggesting he’d be blamed for their death. It’s those little moments of digital wizardry – finding the 'tamagotchi-style' emotions you can trigger through experimentation – that make the absurdity feel almost… empowering? For a moment, anyway. I’m told you can even make him fall asleep with a pilfered bottle of champagne. I can only hope his superiors catch him napping.
But it's not all about the Cop. The city itself is a character, a delightfully grubby urban crab-bucket reminiscent of Dishonored’s Dunwall, with its cramped stairwells, forgotten garages, and boarded-up doors. There’s trash everywhere, smashable vending machines, and those lovely purple rags fluttering from aircon units, all Ubisoft-style, hinting at climbing routes to upper windows. While the Cop's awake, he's a right pain, berating you for stealing, fining you for sneaking, even detecting your naughtiness through walls. He’ll pluck you up for a sky-high lecture, like a deity scolding a particularly naughty ant. But even this giant X-ray eyed bureaucracy has its limits, or at least, degrees of laziness. Rooftops? Often fine. Sneaking into a forbidden area *from inside* an allowed building? Apparently, that’s a-okay in his massive, cloudy eyes. It’s a subtle nod to how we often navigate oppressive systems – finding the cracks, exploiting the blind spots.
You’re not alone in this urban maze. Other citizens hum desperately behind their doors, some fearful, some downright malicious. There’s even a truly unsettling entity called 'Friend' – just a beckoning arm, like a budget Pennywise – who tries to trap you with a false train ticket. The game’s core 'play verbs' are surprisingly spartan for an immersive sim. You’ve got your jump, your crouch, your ledge grab, and the ability to pick up and throw stuff. No Blink teleport, no double jump, none of that fancy wizardry. Progress hinges on rat-like cunning and a good dollop of resentment. Fetching things for people, often things held by *unwilling* people, becomes your daily grind. Like the Cop, the townsfolk have their own emotional vulnerabilities you can tease out and exploit. A squalling Ticket Seller at the train station, for instance, claims to be the Cop’s confidante, threatening to report you. But what if you could twist them against each other, eh? What if you could make *them* do the emotional labour?
Here’s where it gets truly wild, and a bit… existentially draining. In a cheeky inversion of almost every RPG ever, *only the Cop gets to level up*. When you inevitably meet your demise (I, for one, died during an over-ambitious housebreaking attempt – totally worth it), you respawn, and then get to pour points into *his* traits. Want smaller fines for petty theft? Lower his recovery time from angry outbursts that seal off buildings? You level *him* up. It’s technically an indirect way of levelling yourself, I suppose, but it felt more like an extension of the chore of managing his moods. Gazing up at him toward the end of my playtest, as he groaned for a coffee, I felt like I was staring into the face of a god. Not a benevolent one, mind you, but the kind I understood from my youthful brush with organised religion: a sanctimonious gargoyle, powerful enough to destroy, yet pathetically in need of constant validation for the minutiae of my life.
Militsioner, then, isn't just a weird game; it's a profoundly clever one. It strips back the power fantasy often inherent in immersive sims and forces you to confront the exhausting, often infuriating, reality of navigating a system embodied by a gargantuan, demanding baby. It's a game that makes you *feel* the weight of the carceral state, not as an abstract concept, but as a literal, needy giant you have to pacify with croissants. It makes you wonder: if you can seduce him (the article hints you can, which is… a choice!), can you actually kill him? Can you escape not just the city, but the very system he represents? That, mate, is the kind of experimental, thought-provoking game that genuinely excites this digital wizard.
Tags: Immersive Sim, Indie Game, Psychological Thriller, Unique Mechanics, Political Allegory
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun