The Precinct – Review

Over the years, we’ve had cop games that draw inspiration from GTA in one aspect or another. Games like Sleeping Dogs and the Driver series come to mind. However, these two games capture the more chaotic and often morally ambiguous nature of GTA. The Precinct doesn’t have any of that. Instead, we get a “by-the-book” cop experience complete a laundry list of rules topped with frequent car chases and the occasional shoot out. Oddly enough, the best part of the game is actually walking the beat. Something I never thought would be fun. But here we are.

The Precinct is an isometric police sim/action game in the same vein as the GTA games of old but experienced through the eyes of someone wearing the badge. Set in the fictional Averno City, players take control of Nick Cordell Jr., an up-and-coming rookie fresh from the academy. But our officer has little time to get himself situated in his position. Crime runs rampant in the city, and you’ll have your hands full before you know it.

First things first, I just want to say that the gameplay loop is pretty solid. You start most days choosing what type of shift you want to do. At first, you don’t have much to choose from other than walking the beat or checking parking meters. Eventually, you can customize your shift to better suit your preferences. Though it doesn’t really matter what kind of activity you end choosing. You’ll be called in to respond to all sorts of situations, not just the one you signed up for.

The ultimate goal here is to gather enough evidence to bring down the two rival gangs wreaking havoc in the city. There are three levels to the gang’s leadership structure, from the enforcers to the bosses. Making certain arrests during a shift adds to your growing pile of evidence you can use to pursue the next guy up the chain. But here’s the rub, evidence gathering is somewhat randomized. You won’t always get the evidence you want but you’re going to have to roll with the punches with this one. You can choose to take part in drug bust patrols to boost your chances of encountering gang activity. But there’s always the chance you’ll come up empty for that day.

This system may suck for some players, but I don’t have anything against the way it’s been implemented. Also, if you don’t run into any gang evidence by the third day, the game will take pity on you and literally gift wrap you baddies on your next patrol.

So, how do you determine which laws are broken and which infractions apply? The short answer is – you don’t. From what I can see all actions look pre-determined as soon as the crime happens. Once you have the suspect(s) in custody, you have to read them their Miranda rights and their crimes. This is especially important as making the right calls gets you the most experience points while mistakes reduces your gains by a small amount.

You can reference everything from your handbook and see all the crimes in one long list. But if you’ve watched any police dramas or cop chase shows, you’ll know exactly what to call. Well, most of the time. And this is where the system becomes annoying. Because the crimes appear pre-determined, sometimes you can’t add in new crimes based on what you see. There are times when I clearly saw a perp hitting a pedestrian. But for some reason, it’s not considered a hit-a-run according to the game. But in other instances, the game marks an incident as hit-a-run, and hit-and-run is the only thing at applies, nothing else. See my confusion.

I guess I should be happy that the rules work the way that they are. At least I don’t have to file a firearm incident report after every encounter. That would be annoying and I don’t want Internal Affairs breathing down my neck. (Though that would make for a good side story.)

What surprised me the most about the game is how well the vehicle controls are for the game. Your starter squad car is manueverable and is a slightly faster option compared to later vehicles, but it doesn’t have the weight to consistently bully other vehicle. In contrast, the others can make drivers surrender faster but they handle like stack of bricks.

Generally, the cars feel good to drive around in. They aren’t RC cars getting tossed all over the place, much to my delight. The same can also be said about the helicopter tours. While they don’t have as much sway as you would expect from, let’s say, a GTA game, the helis are stable enough to get the job done. I just wish the support cars being summoned weren’t controlled by RC drivers. While I don’t particularly like the implementation of the helicopter tours, it’s the kind of activity that offers to break the monotony of going around city blocks for days on end.

And speaking of breaking the monotony, you are not just confined to just patrols and helicopter tours. You also get to do other things like going undercover and taking part in illegal street races. This is where I think the Micro Machines comparison is most fitting. You and a 5 or so other racers driving in a circuit race looks like a damn Tamiya race. I like where they were going with this one, but there’s got to be a better way to start a race than doing potentially in the middle of a shift. I don’t know what quick change magic tricks were taught in the academy, but Nick is a master of it.

Around halfway around the story, you’ll unlock a side quest involving stolen museum pieces. My mind immediately went to Riddler trophies, and I was way closer than I expected. Apparently, some “puzzle master” hid the pieces in crates scattered around the city. If you manage to find out, you’ll have to solve an environmental puzzle to acquire the keycode to open the crate. Look, if I wanted to do this stuff, I’d have fired up the Arkham Batman series.

Finally, there’s a side story involving a serial killer of criminals. Every once so often, you’ll get a call from the detective in change and he’ll invite you to the latest crime scene. You go to the scene, examine the victim, and collect nearby evidence. This is probably the most involved part of the game. I wish there were more quests like this in the future. Even if they are introduced as DLC.

One of the biggest issues I ran early on in the game was the lack of ammo for the starting pistol. It was definitely a challenge to make almost every shot count, especially when the perpetrators had infinite ammo and AI aim. It eventually becomes a non-issue after leveling up and unlocking the right perks and a wider selection of weapons. But for some reason, I never shook the need to maintain trigger discipline. Thankfully, the gunplay was fun enough that you feel rewarded for precision and accuracy. (It also helped that a patch fixed a couple of aim issues the game had on launch.)

One aspect of the game that will most likely not be “fixed” is the game’s presentation. I’m sorry but every part of it screams low effort, bargain bin trash from the PS2 era. If it weren’t for the stellar gameplay, I would have given this game a 5 or 6, at best. If it’s any consolation, the character images at least had some thought put into them. If the game actually had decent writing, this could have elevated the game a little more.

In terms of setting, Averno City really felt like you were in New Jersey in the 1980s. The feeling is enhanced once that saxophone hits and start feeling god damn nostalgic for early seasons of Law and Order. Or even better, the first season of Blue Bloods.

In terms of performance, the game runs well for the most part, even on my mid-range PC. It’s to be expected as the game shouldn’t be graphically demanding but at the same time, the city looks great. It would certainly does look right for a Liberty City in the 80s. The only thing noticeably concerning is the game’s long initial load time from the main menu. I suspect it’s got something to do with loading the entire city in but I can’t say for sure. In any case, once you’re in the game proper, load times significantly lessen.

The Precinct appears to lay the groundwork for a new standard of police sim. It hits that sweet spot where preforming repeat actions feels rewarding without them feeling tedious. The story and characters are nothing to write home about. In fact, it’s so cheesy that even thinking about the character references makes me feel old. Regardless, this is probably one of the best games to fly under most peoples’ radars solely because of the lack luster presentation. Look past that, and you have a game that people who love cop shows will appreciate. If you’re into that kind of stuff, I recommend you pick up this title.

The Precinct Review

8 Great

The Precinct appears to lay the groundwork for a new standard of police sim. It hits that sweet spot where preforming repeat actions feels rewarding without them feeling tedious.

The Good

1. Phenomenal gameplay
2. Surprisingly engaging
3. Interesting systems at play
4. Nostalgic feel

The Bad

1. The occasional janky physics
2. Most gang moment only do shoot-outs
3. Largely uninteresting story
4. Generic/forgettable characters