Zapdramatic... indeed.
I hate the negotiator series for two principal reasons:
1) You screw up, you have to watch the same 30 seconds of intro again. This happens over and over.
2) Everyone's insane. Like in the "Talk your way out of a speeding ticket" one, where the cop shoots you if you don't want to get out of the car. Oooo! Realism! Or in this one, where you shoot the guy IN THE CHEST. Two feet away, I think I'd go for a headshot, wouldn't you? Especially once he starts counting.
Logic or a sense of psychology do you no good. You have to think what the crackhead who designed the game would have been thinking. But that's like trying to think of what a parrot thinks about.