- 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 17/Jun 04:03

The Precinct – Review

It isn’t easy to keep the streets clean in a crime-hardened town. The Precinct is essentially a cop simulator, though developer Fallen Tree Games describes it as a neon-noir action sandbox police game. We can see where they’re coming from. If we had to describe this game, we might say it feels like playing Grand Theft Auto, except that you’re playing on the opposite side of the law. The amount of damage you can do to the city simply by driving around is about the same. Story The Precinct is set in the fictional Averno City, in the 80s. Gangs are on the rise, and the cops are outnumbered by the criminals, making it not the safest place to live. Nick Cordell is a young rookie who is just entering the police force, filling the shoes of his late father, who used to be an officer himself but was tragically killed in the line of duty. Cordell has an optimistic mindset, wanting to make Averno City a better place. Even if that means rolling up entire gangs by himself, or with his almost retired cop partner Kelly in the passenger seat. While the plot is extremely cliché and reminds us of every cop show we’ve ever seen, it’s engaging enough to keep us going, and the game doesn’t hound you about finishing the story. If you prefer to cruise around solving crimes rather than tackle any of the quests, you can. Graphics This game does have a nice look to it, we won’t deny that. The isometric point of view and simple graphics lend themselves well to the open-world setting. The city has plenty of recognizable areas, and we also liked the character art for the dialogue sections. However, we cannot beat around the bush. The Precinct is extremely rough around the edges, feeling almost more like an unfinished Early Access project at times, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the graphical bugs. Animations are often broken, with characters sometimes glitching into or on top of other items or people. If you tackle a criminal you’ve been chasing, your character just kind of ragdolls into them and both of you go flying across the scene, until the capture animation finally plays. One time, putting a corpse in a body bag made them flop around and kick the cop in the face, actually doing damage. It’s all a little ridiculous, but also doesn’t reflect greatly on the devs. Sound We will praise the soundtrack and the sound design, however. We greatly enjoy the music in this game since it fits the 80s crime noir vibe perfectly. All the characters are voiced, and the voice acting was unexpectedly good for an indie title such as this one. The sound effects were solid too, and we enjoyed that we could switch out which siren to use for the police car. Overall, no complaints here. Gameplay The Precinct is an action sandbox game similar to other open-world titles in the genre. Playing as Nick Cordell, you start every day off by picking a type of shift. These shifts range from writing out parking tickets to patrolling the streets to keep them safe, as every day brings new criminals to apprehend. Do a good job and you’re rewarded with EXP, which you can use to unlock new skills. Leveling up also provides you with more gear and a higher rank, which in turn leads to more shift types. Before you know it, you’ll be flying your helicopter across Averno City to chase cars down. Whichever shift you pick, you’re not strictly bound to only doing that job the entire time. The shift type decides which part of the city you go to, but once there, you can kind of do what you want. If you get a call or spot a crime in action, you can choose to accept this as your new objective. Some criminals will surrender immediately, while others will need to be chased down, either on foot or by car. You have a stun gun and a pistol too, though the pistol should only be whipped out if the criminal shoots first. Once apprehended, you can search through the criminal’s pockets and ID them, and then decide if you’d like to fine or arrest them, depending on what they’ve done wrong. If you need some extra help, you can radio for backup. Side quests are sprinkled around the city. The main story revolves around finding evidence about gang activities and then rolling up those gangs. But there are side quests like solving a mysterious murder and going undercover in a group of street racers. None of these things has any kind of urgency to them, and you can engage with them whenever you want. In fact, while the game does dock some exp for ‘bad conduct’, overall, there are almost no consequences for running around and doing crazy stuff like hitting pedestrians with your car, crashing into stuff, shooting civilians, and otherwise causing mayhem. And trust us, it’s easier said than done. The Precinct is sadly riddled with bugs and doesn’t exactly feel like a finished product. The NPCs are particularly bad. The backup you call in will literally crash their cars into everything, sometimes until the car explodes. If a crime has two perpetrators, your partner will often stand by uselessly and let a criminal run away while you’re chasing the other one. And quite often, the game just doesn’t seem to work the way it’s intended, completely breaking the tone. Conclusion The Precinct is hard to rate because the game is undoubtedly fun, but part of the reason it’s so fun is that it’s very silly and broken. We laughed our ass off while playing it. If you’re looking for a realistic sandbox game that mimics what it’s like to be a cop, however, or you want something with a super interesting story, this game will not deliver that experience.