THE PRECINCT Review

Averno City, 1983. Crime is rampant. Robberies, burglaries, car thefts, illegal weapons possession, drug trafficking, smuggling, gang violence, parking with expired parking meters (THE HORROR). The only barrier in the face of this crime wave are the men and women of the ACPD, the Averno City Police Department, who will try to uphold the law and punish all wrongdoers, sometimes with more and sometimes with less success.

One of those officers who aspire to finally make the city safe is Nick Cordell Jr. He was almost destined by fate to find himself in this position, being the son of the former ACPD police chief who was murdered under mysterious circumstances five years ago. So being the youngest officer in the department, he has everything to prove, both to his cynical colleagues and to the memory of his late father. Soon, of course, Nick will learn that things on the grimy, neon-lit streets of Averno City aren't always as they seem, and that this may be true even for the fateful night of his father's murder...

The Precinct is essentially an evolution of Fallen Tree Games' previous title, American Fugitive. In fact, it's almost a complete reversal of that one, as, while there we play as a fugitive trying to escape the law, in The Precinct we play as... the law. Both titles, of course, draw clear inspiration from the early games in the Grand Theft Auto series, the old, orthodox, top-down games. So, especially in terms of combat and driving mechanics, these games are a good reference to understand what The Precinct is all about.

Given the overall atmosphere of Averno City (an alternate depiction of New York, like Liberty City anyway), The Precinct could be described in principle as a “2025 GTA-Clone set in the 80s”. With the telling difference, obviously, that the emphasis is on the police side of things and their law enforcement practices. Thus, the core gameplay consists of protagonist Nick Cordell and his partner patrolling the streets of Averno City, either on foot or in vehicles (police or civilian, if we choose to “expropriate” any of the random vehicles on the road) in an almost entirely sandbox environment, and dealing with incidents of illegality via commands in the respective pop-up submenus, or, where necessary, by force.

The attempt to convincingly portray the functions of a police officer is almost reminiscent of the original Police Quest games. There is a whole reference manual in the game on the correct way to deal with each incident: in what order the steps of approaching each criminal should be taken (reading his ID, body check, breathalyser test, license plate check and trunk search if it's a driver, etc.), when to use force and when not to, which offences result in a simple fine and which ones result in arrest and imprisonment.

Obviously, the creators had to choose where exactly to draw the line between game-y and realistic depiction. So, if we don't strictly follow protocol and, for example, choose to strip-search a potential criminal before asking for his ID (a similar incident could even result in Game Over in Police Quest), or even if we are careless and fail to apprehend a criminal, we won't have any irreversible consequences beyond a small or larger penalty to our score (each successful crime encounter results in XP points, with the total score counting towards our Profile Level at the end of each shift). Similarly, no one seems to really care (not even the Mayor, who's typically on the chief's ass about such things) about our careless driving on the streets of Averno City, the destruction of public property or causing damage to citizens' cars, and if a citizen is injured through the police's fault then, once again, some points are simply deducted from our score.

As a “sandbox police GTA-clone”, The Precinct almost reaches perfection. The creators had a clear vision for the title, and that vision is fully achieved in terms of gameplay. Given the “game-y” limitations at the expense of realism and in favor of overall fun, the immersion in the skin of a cop on the streets is almost complete.Also, there are a number of other GTA-based activities in the open world, such as street racing, stunt jumps and hidden collectibles whose collection requires solving elementary puzzles to further enrich the content and the things anyone can do in Averno City beyond dealing with crime.

If there's one area where the game seems the most lacking, it's in the area of the story, and especially in how short it is. Sure, the plot (while it lasts) is interesting enough and filled with all the wondrous police clichés one expects (mafia, informants, corruption, showdowns with criminals in the rain, “I'm too old for this shit” and “2 days to retirement” etc). But I feel like the game totally left me hanging when it comes to plot's the escalation and conclusion.

Essentially at the plot's core is the collection of evidence for 2 mafia clans and an investigation that involves dealing with a serial killer. So there I was playing (having a lot of fun, admittedly) and I thought I had completed the first chapter of the story, and that a 2nd and 3rd chapter with similar content was imminent (meaning, war with more mafia clans and even more investigations), when suddenly the game informs me that “I have reached the point-of-no-return” and the endgame events are about to start (for the duration of the short endgame sequence it is not possible to do patrols and collect XP), and after a little less than 10 hours of gameplay in total, the end credits rolled.

Another relatively unstable area, more intertwined with the gameplay, is the occasionally problematic AI. Which I would say borders on... police brutality. E.g. during the foot patrols of Nick and his partner, I deliberately ran into a civilian car in a busy street, it obviously doesn't have time to stop and runs over Nick, and then immediately the system flags the collision as a vehicular accident and we are allowed to arrest the civilian (with the accompanying bonus points for the arrest!).

This also touches Nick's own partner, who doesn't work as well as he should to make the player's life easier. For example, in crimes with more than one perpetrator, such as drug deals, many times the perpetrators will start running in different directions to get away. We choose to chase one, and logic dictates that our partner will chase the other. NOPE! The partner either just stands there or runs after us, letting the other criminal escape and inflicting a penalty on our points. The developers claim that there will be a day-one patch coming out that will enhance AI functionality among other things, and a patch was uploaded to Steam a few days ago, but I personally didn't see much difference while playing after that.

As the last kinda "meh" elements of the title I could point out the rather lifeless and odorless protagonist, both in terms of his personality development in the context of the plot and in terms of voice-acting (in contrast to the rest of the cast that is from decent to excellent), and, ultimately, perhaps even the overall gameplay loop itself. Especially after the story and the one single investigation are completed... I have to wonder just how many times will players have the patience to sit through the same “Check ID - Search for Items - Use Breathalyzer - Arrest” sequence while patrolling the streets in sandbox mode.

But despite the above, for 10-15 hours and before I started to get a bit tired (10-15 hours being the length of the main story, plus doing some long sandbox patrols in the world) I had a VERY good time with The Precinct. The gameplay works almost flawlessly as a suitably streamlined throwback to another gaming era. Also contributing to this is the excellent soundtrack, with the synthwave ambient music mentally transporting the player to a fictitious version of the 80s. There may be a feeling that... something is missing at the end, and logically we won't remember the game as an indie monument of manliness similar to e.g. This is the Police, but the first impression that was gained by playing the initial demo of the game at Steam Next Fest last autumn is still 100% valid: the core of the game will surely click with us old-timers who still remember Police Quest and the first GTAs.

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