Hi.
This is my first game in this genre. I enjoy the concept. I have played through the single player campaign twice. Most free plays are in the 30-40 minute range until some of the frustrations get the better of me.
The best thing about the game, in my opinion, is the fire department. The model of fire spreading is decent, the deployment looks cool, the game invites sensible strategies.
The ambulance is the second best. It feels a bit strange to treat absolutely everybody for a long time by an MD before transport, but you sort of get used to it.
The police is not so good. They do not respond and do not initiate. It generally feels that you are just playing into exploits of the game engine rather than roleplaying the police.
My suggestions.
* Cycling through units (today:tab key) should be bi-directional and by category. I would suggest also separating between people and vehicles. Ie. One key for cycling through fire vehicles, one key for cycling through fire personell outside of vehicles, one key for police vehicles etc etc. The selected unit should be indicated on minimap.
* Explicit/better use of auto targeting. I'm still unclear on when fire units and medical personell are looking for stuff to do and wether or not I disable this by issuing orders. I don't have the newest of computers, so it could be a performance issue. What I would like to do is to deploy the fire personell, position them to contain the fire, give them an initial task and then let them auto target. Instead they often just stand around, equipped with fire hose and many available hydrants. Sometimes they just stand and water some random object even after all fire has been put out. I would like to press a button that sets them in auto-target mode or the mode should always be enabled. My point is that that they shouldn't be idling even when there are available tasks.
* Queueing orders. Very often I leave the medical doctor behind when the air ambulance lifts off because I'm busy elsewhere. I am getting better at responding upon task completion of the medical treatment, but it still happens that a doctor is left behind. This is also annoying with the heavy duty tow truck. It does not auto target and it has a really long animation for its tasks.
* Pack up and return to base. For larger fires, I deploy many fire fighters. Micromanaging them back into individual vehicles is cumbersome. The command should be easy to implement. People should find available vehicles and vehicles should head back to base when they are full. Doctors and dog handlers are also often forgotten during hectic times because of their long animations.
* Ambulances should handle more on their own. If an ambulance is to always be preceded by a separate doctor treatment, they would have room for them in the ambulance. Paramedics in Europe have started having less stuff in the ambulance for sophisticated treatment because statistics show that getting to the hospital fast is what makes a difference.
Police should be reworked.
* Respond to environment/Auto target. When I get a hooligan incident and I deploy a van right on them, they should just bring them in. At least after I have clicked the handcuffs. After selecting them all on handcuffs, I can single select one of them and put him on pepper spray. He should automatically respond to fights between cop and suspect.
* If you have armed suspect, do it right. If you have a person running around shooting people, police will be armed when they pull up. End of story. They will not run towards a gun man with a pepper spray. The current implementation is one of those where I would like the developer of the game to demonstrate how they envisioned this mission to unfold. As it stands, it makes little sense to me.
* Not all suspects should resist. Even gunmen should sometimes be compliant on gun point.
* Do something about fleeing. It looks silly to have a policeman run after a suspect at the exact same speed crossing half the map. IRL, police will usually catch a person unless he hides, but even when that is not the case a police car should be able to drive up and deploy a policeman with fresh legs that will catch a fatigued suspect.
* Patrol routes. The city map should have patrol routes that police vehicles could follow. Police are usually first responders precisely because they have a city presence. As it is now, the police car arrives about at the same time as the heavy rescue vehicles and tow trucks and divert traffic merely for show.
* Progressive first aid. There is obviously some effort being put into the medical thing. I would like police/fire fighters to have rudimentary first aid skills, paramedics to have better first aid skills and doctors to have expert skills. I don't like the scenes where multiple civilians are bleeding from shot wounds while a doctor apparently is taking his good time checking the tonsils of another patient and 10 rescue professionals just idling around. That is just wrong.
