Have you ever wanted to play a game like Grand Theft Auto but as a police officer? If the answer is YES
then The Precinct is the game for you!
The game revolves around a young police officer, fresh out of the academy, Nick Cordella. Nick is the son of a police officer who was killed in action. To prove himself, Nick must complete many tasks, and those are a lot of different jobs. In The Precinct, you have missions such as foot patrol, car patrol, and helicopter patrol. At a certain point, when you accumulate a certain number of XP points, the player is given the option to create their own shift, which can last from 6 to 24 hours.
We will assume that players will choose 24-hour shifts because they want, like us, to play the shift for as long as possible. In those mentioned 24 hours, there is everything from vandalism and graffiti writing to drug dealing, smaller and larger robberies, and even car thefts. The player is also given the option to call for support from other colleagues, so other police officers can be called to the scene, police in vehicles, in "paddy wagons," as well as roadblocks or spike strips to stop the suspect.
Personally, the most interesting was the helicopter patrol, which gives the greatest feeling of relaxation. The controls are very intuitive and easy to manage. However, as is usually the case in early access games, during the helicopter patrol, we encountered a "bug" that forced us to restart the day. The helicopter got stuck on a nearby building, the game froze, but the pause and other menus and UI worked perfectly as if nothing had happened.
Besides the patrols of all the mentioned types, The Precinct offers much more than that. In the game, we have time trials, races against other NPC players, all for sweet XP points. It’s a pleasure when you manage to finish in first place. The controls are good, the driving model is not perfect but not bad either. The destruction physics are excessive, allowing us to chase suspects through concrete blocks that separate two lanes without any problems and without any consequences for the car.
The AI of the suspects and their driving is truly randomized, making it sometimes hard to predict where and how they will turn. Suspects drive through parks, over bridges, and when you order a roadblock or spike strips, they will turn before the trap to avoid it.
One of the essential mechanics to mention is the issuance of fines and offenses. Yes, there are fines for illegal parking, obstructing a fire hydrant, parking too close to a pedestrian crossing, and similar. We are not talking about that type of fine; when you arrest a villain, you have the option to choose which offenses they committed. These include possession of weapons/drugs/forged items, evading arrest, assault, murder, traffic accident, fleeing the scene of an accident, and much more.
The game The Precinct will appeal to many, both younger and older players. It has a multitude of mechanics and an interesting story where you, as a new police officer just out of the academy, take on the additional burden of finding evidence in collaboration with two detectives to reduce crime on the streets of Averno. The game is available on Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S/X consoles, and the price is 29.99 euros.
A copy of the game for review purposes was provided by the publisher Kwalee
