Ugh.

I could just leave the review at that and you would basically get the picture of what we’re dealing with in Aspyr’s new PS2 game, The Shield, but I wouldn’t get paid and you wouldn’t get the satisfaction of knowing that you were saving $29.99 by heeding the following words of wisdom.

Based on the police drama starring Michael Chiklis, The Shield takes you through the equivalent of an episode of the series in which Chiklis’ lead character, Vic Mackey, and his Strike Team (or at least what’s left of it) go along their merry way, shooting and beating up suspects while trying to keep the streets clean and fill their own retirement coffers through illegal means as well. As a television show, it works, and in theory, it should work in a video game if done right. Hey, I loved the old Sierra Police Quest series on PC, and if you add in a little ambiguous moral dilemmas and violence that isn’t done by the book, you’ve got a nice little game.

Then again, I said if it was done right, and this game obviously wasn’t. Cursed with simplistic gameplay, idiotic AI, and the most linear of linear paths to your goals, the game will have you finishing it just to say you got to the end, and for no other reason. The story (again, something that should have worked in theory) is boring and doesn’t make you take any emotional or intellectual interest in what happens next, and even the complex character of Mackey isn’t utilized the way it could have been. In other words, this game contains a series of what ifs and not enough finished or polished ideas.

To get from scene to scene in the game, you will make your way through various seedy locations, where you will either shoot to kill, beat someone into submission, or interrogate them into giving you the answers to your questions. The collision detection and animation in the combat sequences is laughable, and in those certain sequences where you have to push your adversary into a toilet bowl or to a dog cage to torture them for information, you can pretty much beat them to death with no effect until you find the hotspot where you are supposed to lead them. And in most cases, while you are doing this, the suspect’s buddies just stand around and watch this violent dance take place without getting involved.

The shooting parts of the game aren’t horrendous, though switching from third person view to first person on the fly can become tiresome and can occasionally lead to a quick demise, as just a couple of shots will put Vic into the grave. AI is bad here too, and it’s easy to pick off opponents with a minimum of effort.

As for the rest of The Shield’s gameplay elements, the less said the better about awkward chase sequences, horrendous stealth sections, and keeping your ‘heat’ meter down, even though the point of the game is to be a cop doing pretty much anything but going by the book. I think the only minigame I liked was rotating the right analog stick to slap the cuffs on perps.