Welcome To The Jungle
HIGH Solving the serial killer case.
LOW The gunfights.
WTF I feel like cops shouldn’t be driving off so many ramps?
On paper, The Precinct seems like a great idea. Take the formula of a police simulator and throw in an actual narrative. Instead of patrolling the streets as a generic player-created avatar, the main character will have a name, backstory, and goals they want to achieve. It’s a great idea that’s quickly sabotaged by the way the content thoroughly underdelivers on the very aspect that’s supposed to differentiate it from others in the genre.
In The Precinct the player controls Nick Cordell Jr., a rookie cop determined to rise through the ranks of the police department where his father served as Chief — until he was murdered by persons unknown, a crime that Nick will go to any lengths to solve, if by ‘go to any lengths‘ one means ‘write a LOT of parking tickets‘.
In spite of the intense plot hook at the core of the experience, Nick will not spend much of The Precinct‘s playtime investigating his father’s murder, interacting with other characters, or really doing much to make him feel different from the generic cops that populate other police sims. Nick will be able to have a few conversations that involve a choice of responses, but those responses don’t serve any purpose or affect the plot. No, there’s no significant time spent with him as a character, exploring his feelings about the job he does, the people he works with, or the city his father died protecting. Nick is more of an idea of a character than an actual character, and it’s The Precinct‘s greatest failing that it doesn’t explore the narrative in any real way.
With such a weak script and story elements, it’s good that the police action is competently made, for the most part.
Each new day at the precinct, Nick is allowed to choose from a variety of shifts. Does the player want to write parking tickets, catch speeders, or just amble around, keeping an eye on things? Once they’re out on the streets, the player is free to wander around town, looking for trouble – which never takes long to pop up, of course — if the player goes more than a minute without a crime occurring directly in front of them, they’ll receive a ‘callout’ requesting them to respond to a nearby crime within a certain amount of time. Things are never boring on the streets of Averno City.
Responding to crimes has a solid rhythm to it. A crime occurs and the player runs or drives towards the perpetrator, tapping the ‘yell’ button. Either the crook stops and it’s a quick arrest, or they don’t and the player has to chase them down.
These on-foot chases make good use of The Precinct‘s top-down perspective, letting the player keep track of their quarry as they duck down allies or race through busy intersections. It’s genuinely thrilling stuff, and these pursuits are a pleasure to take part in.
Unfortunately, whenever The Precinct tries to get more complex in gameplay, things take a dive. See, Nick has a partner named Kelly, and he’s… not great. Not only does he insist Nick do all of the driving, he’s pretty dire at chasing suspects, which is a fairly major problem, since more than half of the random crimes that are generated involve multiple perps.
When both crooks run, there’s a pretty good chance that one of them will get away, due to Kelly’s ineptitude. What’s even more frustrating is that one of the criminals frequently surrenders while their partner flees — but there’s no way to tell Kelly to arrest the passive criminal so that I would be freed up to chase the fleeing one. I’d say roughly 60% of the time I’d have to accept that half of a criminal duo was going to get away. The other 40% were times I’d search dumpsters until I found the guy hiding in one — which is another thing Kelly is incapable of doing.
While The Precinct‘s on-foot chases are great, car chases are fairly frustrating, as the backup AI is truly terrible at supporting the player.
It’s a good concept — tail a car to charge up a support bar, then spend that bar on things like spike strips, roadblocks, or cruisers to help run the target vehicle down. In practice, none of these abilities are particularly useful. Even when the spike strips and roadblocks are dropped in a good location — which is not guaranteed — the enemy AI never has any trouble avoiding them, either by driving on a sidewalk to go around the obstacle, or simply by pulling a U-turn. I took part in countless car chases during my time with The Precinct, and the one and only time I saw a spike strip work it was because I rammed the fleeing car into it.
Like the partner AI and car chases, The Precinct‘s combat is also a mess.
From time to time on foot, a crook will take a swing at Nick, and he’ll have to subdue them. Theoretically this should involve the nightstick he carries around, but the attack and block commands are messy to the point of being unusable, especially when every physical altercation can be won by button mashing in a ‘subdue’ minigame.
Gunfighting is equally poor in its implementation. When the shooting starts, the player has to find cover and then hit the aim button. Then, a pointer appears onscreen that they have to awkwardly move around with the right thumbstick. Maybe this works better with a mouse and keyboard, but it’s an absolute disaster with a controller, and should have been swapped out for a standard lock-on system. Also, hitting enemies offers no visible feedback, which ends up making these life-or-death shootouts feel more like tapping a button to make a crook’s health bar shrink.
If it sounds like I hated The Precinct, I can say that simply isn’t the case. The foot chases are a delight, the town of Averno is an interesting location to explore, and there’s a couple of side-cases which actually ask the player to participate in finding evidence and solving a crime. These diversions are wonderful and offer a glimpse of the kind of experience that The Precinct seems to want to be — unfortunately, that potential is let down by too many poor mechanics and a plot that doesn’t do it job.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Buy The Precinct – PC – PS – XB
Disclosures: This game is developed by Fallen Tree Games and published by Kwalee It is currently available on PC, XBS/X, and PS5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode. The game was completed. The game contains no multiplayer modes.
Parents: This game was rated T by the ESRB, and it contains Blood, Drug Reference, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence. It’s a police action game, so there’s car chases and shootings a-plenty, but shooting anyone that isn’t actively trying to kill Nick causes an instant checkpoint reload, so what the game lacks in realism it makes up for with kid-friendliness. The drinking and drug use aren’t shown in a particularly positive light, as one would expect. Still, it’s a cop game, so make sure you restrict it to older teens at the youngest.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played almost the entire game without sound and encountered zero difficulties. All information is provided via text, which cannot be resized. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable.
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You gotta be kidding me…dude your review is whack… this game is incredible … ans its the first one from a small studio… just think of how much better its gonna be when they put out the second one