The cover of The Shield: The Game
The Shield: The Game is a 2007 video game developed by Point of View, available for Playstation 2 and PC. It was distributed by Aspyr Media. The game went to great lengths to imitate the show's camerawork and tone. The game's story was developed by series writer and producer Scott Rosenbaum and also had creative input from series creator Shawn Ryan. Furthermore, the entire cast returned to voice their characters.
The game's storyline takes place between Season 3 and Season 4, and the premise of the game has Vic temporarily rebuild the Strike Team to prevent a war between the Byz Lats and One-Niners, only to realize that the Armenian Mafia is orchestrating the conflict. The game sets up the One-Niners conflict of Season 4, while having the characters continue to deal with the fallout from the Money Train robbery, which in turn sets up the Kesiakian conflict of Season 6.
Timeline[]
The Shield: The Game takes place after Season 3 and before Season 4. It begins with the final moments of Season 3, when Vic Mackey kills Armenian ganglord Margos Dezerian.
Gameplay[]
The Shield: The Game consists mostly of third-person style shooting. However, it also features interrogation situations where the player can choose from different techniques to break suspects and obtain information in addition to handcuffing them, planting weapons and searching various crime scenes. The player can also engage in firefights, with the option of either killing or shooting firearms out of suspects hands, disarming them.
In the game, the player controls Detective Vic Mackey, who leads the Strike Team in trying to take down the Byz Lats and the One-Niners. During raids, the player can turn in contraband to keep Internal Affairs diverted, or they can also store it to build a retirement fund.
The game consists of 15 levels and 33 playable areas, including the choice of four different alternate endings in the final level of the game.
Characters[]
Playable characters[]
- Detective Vic Mackey
Non-playable characters[]
- Officer Danny Sofer- Appears in cinematics and earlier missions
- Officer Julien Lowe- Appears in earlier missions
- Detective Shane Vendrell- Appears in cinematics and various missions
- Detective Curtis Lemansky- Is unlocked in an optional mission to where he can tag along with the Strike Team
- Detective Ronnie Gardocki- Appears in cinematics and various missions
- Captain David Aceveda- Appears primarily in cinematics and police station walkthrough
- Detective Claudette Wyms- Appears in cinematics and a few missions
- Detective Dutch Wagenbach- Appears in final mission and the various alternate endings
Plot[]
The Shield: The Game sees Vic and the Strike Team trying to deal with their fallout at the end of Season 3. As tensions wind down, officials want the team reassigned. Captain David Aceveda is their only hope of keeping the team alive with a major bust, so they are given the mission of shutting down an impending war between the Byz Lats and the One-Niners. The Strike Team gets the guns off the street, but soon realizes that the conflict has only just begun. It is later revealed that the Armenian Mafia is orchestrating the war by selling guns to both sides. Margos Dezerian had poisoned the heroin they seized from him with ricin. Knowing that if the police link the dead One-Niner's heroin to Margos, it could result in them going to prison for murder, the team decides they must plant the drugs back on the Armenians. In order to keep the money train heist a secret, Vic kills their leader, Hagop, planting the stolen heroin on his body. After all is said and done, Vic attempts to get Shane to agree to go back to the Strike Team, but he is still angry about Lem burning the Money Train cash, so he refuses, setting up the events of Season 4.
Gallery[]
Notes[]
- As Vic Mackey, the player can kill up to 109 various criminals with some deaths being optional and a few different ones leading to the various alternate endings in the game.
- Ronnie and Shane sometimes accompany the player and shoot 2 and 1 thugs respectively during the final levels.
- The stars of the show recorded their own voices for the game and their bodies were scanned to make the characters in the game look extremely similar to the real actors.
- Creator Shawn Ryan was involved in the game's early development by placing down rules he did not want to see certain material like Vic committing crime without reprecussions make it's way into the game.
- The game was developed to where it would not be any different than the show's main themes and material. However, due to less restrictions, there are several instances of F-bombs being exclaimed by criminals in the game as well as more scantily clad women featured on posters and implied nudity in pornographic films being shown in the backgrounds of certain levels.