Review: Rough Justice: ’84

It’s 1984 and we feel like we’re in the middle of the Miami Police Department, where Seneca City has a corrupt police force and crime thrives. Each step we take could be our last as Hank and I try to build a private secret agency.

• Developer: Gamma Minus
• Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
• Release Date: August 30, 2023

Detective Jim Baylor was imprisoned by mistake, but once he’s released, Hank will recruit him and we’ll take over. He persuades us to consult his private secret agency and throws us into the very depths, where we need to select a lot of cases containing a bunch of smaller cases and finish at a set time. Luckily, we can hire agents to help sort things out. Each agent has their own stats and we will need to balance them to work better with our team, and the cases an agency works on are cases that the police don’t have the resources to deal with.

The loading of the boxes is determined by a die roll, and we will need to roll more than four 3’s. The 24/7 cases are slightly different; they create one of the mini-games, some more difficult than others, and it can be anything from lock picking to memory games. It keeps us on our toes.

We liked how simple the graphics are in this game. We have cut scenes with cartoon based illustrations where it’s like a slideshow with scene cuts and the transitions between them were brilliant.

The entire game is 80s inspired, from the mini-map in a pretty purple neon color to images of the agents all dressed up to impress in the 80s. The user interface was also very clean, with small menu windows that looked like they were supposed to be in the timezone while still looking modernized.

The controls in this game are very simple and we spend 99% of the time clicking options that are easy enough to remember, but you can also use W, A, S and D to move around the Seneca City map. We did not find anywhere where there was a delay, so the control was well optimized.

Hank’s husky voice was a fitting start to the cutscene, and we were pleasantly surprised that the voice acting was amazing. The only thing we noticed was that the agents repeated what they said many times, which ended up being a little annoying, but it was still great to know that they were talking and had this little form of dialogue.

The background music matched the game as well, with the same 80s-themed background music you’d expect from something like Miami Vice or Vice City, and it really helped solidify as the game unfolded.

If you like a game where you have to make the right decisions or risk losing, or a game where spending too much money can lead to the closure of a special agency, this game is made especially for you. The game has limitless possibilities to complete it and this is one game that got us hooked and we will keep playing trying to be the best of the best.

PROS

• Amazing Voice Acting
• Amazing background music
• Awesome gameplay

CONS

• Agents voice acting gets slightly repetitive