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Video games seem to always glamorize criminals. Games like Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption…all these glorify the bad guys while demonizing the good. Cops are shown to be corrupt, or inhumane, while the bad guys are the ones with heart. When I reviewed Beat Cop years ago, it was a breath of fresh air. One I wanted more of. It’s taken years, but that’s finally an itch that was scratched with The Precinct.
I’m actually quite surprised that it’s taken this long to show the point of view from the other side of the law. Even though the police force has had games showing their point of view (This is the Police and its sequel are some great examples), we’ve barely had any titles focused on beat cops.
That’s essentially what The Precinct is.
The problem is, does it do it well?
What is The Precinct?
The Precinct is a 3D isometric (well, 3/4 quarters top down view anyways) open world action title. It is developed by Fallen Tree Games Ltd, with publishing done by Kwalee. The game is available for the PC, Playstation and Xbox consoles.
Our review copy was provided by Kwalee! Thanks so much!
The Precinct puts you in the shoes of rookie cop Nick Cordell Jr. Fresh out of the academy, it’s his first day on the job. As Cordell, you’ll patrol the streets of Averno on foot, in a squad car and even in a police copter. All of them have the same objectives for Cordell; stopping crime and arresting crooks (or putting them in body bags).
Averno is your typical 1980s metropolitan city.
Its streets are grimy and rundown, with neon signs lighting up the night sky. Crime is rampant, the police force is overworked and stretched thin. Most cops are on the take and the morgue is filling up with those that don’t. It’s a homage to all the films of the era. Lethal Weapon, RoboCop, Cobra, Red Heat…if any of those films ring a bell, you’ll be right at home in the seedy neighborhoods of Averno.
The majority of the time, you’ll be playing down and dirty in the trenches. Cordell’s a beat cop, which means he’s doing the grunt work. You’ll walk around the various districts of the city, talking to random strangers and stopping emergent crimes like muggings, burglaries or drug deals.
What The Precinct really excels at is showing the routine of a beat cop.
You’ll go around ticketing cars for parking violations, execute searches on pedestrians, run license plates hoping to get lucky, tail cars to see if they’re speeding. It’s deliciously mundane, yet all the more engaging because I’ve never done them before.
Arresting people is fun! I really love that you can actually cuff them, throw them in your squad car and then deliver them to the desk sergeant at the station for booking and processing. Alternatively, you can also call in another squad car to come and pick up the perp, though this nets you less XP.
The game falls apart when you need to arrest more than one criminal at a time though.
Your partner AI can be pretty dumb when there’s more than one target. Ok, dumb is being generous.
Instead of chasing the other perp while you go after one, the AI will most likely follow you and ignore the other criminal. Most times, this means they’ll escape, which gets you penalized in the debriefing. There is literally no way you can chase down two criminals (or more) running in different directions, yet you’re expected to if you don’t want to get a bad rating.
How is that fair?
Also, why isn’t there a paddy wagon?
You know, those big police vans where you can stuff in more than 2 criminals at once? I like to book my collars personally, but with only two open seats in the game’s vehicles, it’s a waste of time to keep going back and forth between the station and where I’m patrolling.
Of course, there are exciting bits too. You’ll also take part in car chases, engage in shootouts during robberies (or any time really)…even go undercover to take down an illegal street racing syndicate. You can even provide aerial support in the police helicopter if you’re patrolling in the air!
The gameplay loop has you patrolling for evidence on the city’s gangs.
The best part here is the flexibility. You can either get a preplanned one or plan a patrol yourself. You can define how long your shift is, the objective, the location and even whether it’s on foot, via a patrol car or flying around in the police helicopter!
Get enough evidence and you can execute a mission to takedown one of the gangs’ leaders. While they do break up the monotony of patrol, these missions are unfortunately much too short.
On top of that, they don’t net you any XP or benefit (other than story progression). It almost feels like they’re an afterthought. Like the developers put in all their effort to the patrolling aspects, and then just tacked on the story missions at the very last minute.
As part of the police force, Cordell also has the ability to call in backup. On foot, he always has his partner to watch his back. During car chases, Cordell can all in multiple forms of support. Helicopter overwatch, backup in the form of other police cars…even order in a roadblock or a spike trap. It’s chaos all around whenever a chase gets going because nearly everything on the road is destructible.
You name it. Lampposts, road dividers, traffic cones, fences, gates…you can (and will) crash through them as you chase criminals. The city looks like a damn warzone after every shift I do.
It’s really cool, though there are issues.
The main issue being the car chases are really frustrating.
Criminal cars are incredibly fast compared to your vehicles. No matter what car you’re up against, they all accelerate like rockets. While the enemy AI isn’t infallible, the crazy acceleration for the AI cars means its hard to keep up with them without insane effort.
You’ll routinely lose track of your quarry only to randomly encounter them as they weirdly double back towards you. Forget about using classic takedown tactics like T-boning or ramming. You’ll be lucky if you can even touch the rear end of the car you’re chasing most of the time.
It’s all because of the stupidly fast acceleration for the AI cars and the insanely slow acceleration for all police vehicles. It’s completely rigged in the AI’s favor. Just try chasing them through traffic. They’ll weave and bob in and out between cars and then jet away before you can even come close.
Calling in support is also a mixed bag.
Roadblocks and spike traps rarely work because the AI seems to be able to sense them as soon as you call them in and change route. That is if they show up at all. I’ve triggered so many traps and roadblocks, yet never see them materialize during the chase.
Calling in other cars is also problematic at times, because the friendly AI would just as soon ram you as help. If you’re in the way, they have zero issue with slamming into you or ramming you off course. I’ve failed chases before because my patrol car was hammered by backup I called.
It can feel like you’re in a free for all, instead of a coordinated effort to chase down criminals.
Unfortunately, that’s not all that’s problematic.
The other big issue for me is that the shooting feels incredibly awkward and unwieldy.
Moving the crosshairs feels weird, due to the game’s viewpoint. You don’t really feel engaged, and as a result, the gunplay feels floaty and detached. Like you’re watching the action through a drone cam or something. Headshots feel like you got lucky instead of skill, and even supposedly accurate weapons (like the rifle) miss their mark more often than not.
There’s also an overwhelming lean towards lethal weapons, which is surprising considering that you’re part of a police force, not an army. Non-lethal options like smoke grenades, flashbangs and even beanbag rounds are conspicuously absent.
Other than tasers, there is no ranged non-lethal weapon you can use to takedown criminals. I’ve constantly found myself charging headlong to dive tackle enemies because that’s the only way to take them in alive that’s reliable. For a game that’s about the police, the game sure wants you to kill instead of apprehend.
The final issue with the game is its optimization.
This isn’t a game that should be taxing our current gaming rig.
MSI has awesome upgraded our rig with the MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24G and it is now even more of a beast than it was! Yet, this beast is struggling to hit 60FPS on 4K on max settings in this game. There’s no ray tracing or anything that might tax the GPU or CPU, yet the framerate is still crap.
That’s just not right!
To add salt to the wound, the game only has FSR support. No Intel XeSS or NVIDIA DLSS. Why?!
The game’s also rather buggy. I’ve had perps I’m frisking disappear on me, I’ve had somebody I tackled vanish into thin air…hell, one time a civilian I was talking to just went poof! Like somebody went back in time and killed his parents or something! Just gone!
I’ve also had backup appear in buildings (especially when I’m playing as air support). I’d see the blue blip (indicating an on foot officer), but the blip would be smack dab in the middle of a building. I’ve also had roadblocks and spike traps activations that never materialized.
There’s also the crazy ragdolls. Tackle somebody and it’s like you broke everybody in their body. It’s hilarious to look at, but it’s really, really bad!
Performance on the ROG Ally X was surprisingly decent however, though it comes with a lot of caveats. Settings have to be toned down to achieve a stable framerate, and you might want to drop to 720p if you want the best performance. Those sacrifices however are necessary to make the game playable.
Are they worth it though? Perhaps. The game works well as a handheld title but it’s a barely a shadow of its full potential…visually at least.
The Bottom Line.
The unique gameplay premise of The Precinct means that there’s a lot here that will feel new and fresh to gamers. No game has ever tried to be as true to being a beat cop as this. For that alone, the game truly deserves a play.
Finally, a game does justice to the unsung heroes of the police force and all the menial labor that they have to put up with.
Unfortunately, The Precinct has its issues.
It’s buggy, the AI vehicles are insanely fast and there are issues with gameplay.
Those issues, however, do not detract from the overall experience too much. This is a unique (but flawed) experience that is really worth a play. I really hope that Fallen Tree Games Ltd gets to iron out the kinks with future patches because I definitely see myself returning to the game now and then just to do a patrol in the game.
Hell, I hope this game gets a sequel because there’s so much potential here that I want to see realized! That’s the biggest praise I can give!
TLDR:
Unique gameplay experience but flawed in some aspects.
The Good:
- Unique gameplay.
- Destructible environment.
- Customizable patrol settings.
- Going up in ranks is fun.
The Bad:
- No DLSS or XeSS.
- Not optimized.
- AI vehicles are too fast.
- Buggy.
- Story missions too short.
- Gunplay is lacking.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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