What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Grand Theft Auto? For most, it just means chaos. Who doesn’t like some freedom? Roaming around, not caring about the laws, while creating havoc. But have you ever felt what would happen if this entire chain were reversed? Well, that is exactly what I felt as soon as I started playing The Precinct.
Developed by Fallen Tree Games, the game is described as an open-world action police game. After playing the game for more than a few days, I have gathered some thoughts. So stick around till the end to know more! Before starting, I’d like to thank Kwalee Games, the publisher, for providing a review copy of the game.
Story
Without going into much detail and spoiling the story, let me first give a summary. The game is set in the 80s, in a fictional world of Averno City. You get to play as Nick Cordell Jr, an officer fresh out of the academy. We’re given more details about the character during the opening sequence, when it is revealed that Nick’s father was also a cop. He was considered a legend in the city, however, unfortunately, he was murdered while on duty.
More details about the other in-game characters are revealed, too. We’re introduced to our partner, Kelly, who cannot wait to retire, but he’s a fun addition. Other characters like the Chief and other officers are introduced too, but they aren’t as important, since we don’t interact with them much. The main plot of the game revolves around keeping the city’s crime down while trying to find out more about the city’s mystery murderer. Nick also seems to be curious about finding exactly what went down with his father, and why he was murdered.
In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed with the game’s story. While the plot doesn’t sound half bad, however, my main issue with the story is the pacing. The game is not paced well enough to make the story enjoyable. At times, it’s hard to keep track of the story, as it doesn’t have much grip. The story should have had more focus, as it felt very underwhelming.
Gameplay
Moving straight to the fun part, the gameplay! Inspired by the old-school GTA games, the usage of the top-down camera in the game makes it stand out from the rest. In a world where 3d action games have taken over, the top-down camera feels like a breath of fresh air. I’m someone who has thoroughly enjoyed playing GTA: Chinatown Wars back in the day, so this was a treat for me.
The gameplay mechanics have been integrated well. The three major things you’d find yourself doing in the game involve street patrols, shootouts, and chases! Instead of completely giving you access to the open world, the game is broken down into shifts. You can choose a new shift as you start a new day. Let me break down every mechanic and give my thoughts!
Street Patrols
One of the major parts of this game involves patrolling the streets to keep the city safe. The developers have put a lot of effort into this mechanic, given the regular crimes that keep happening, you’ll find yourself busy most of the time. You can either spot criminals by yourself, or at most times, your radio would buzz off to tell you about a crime taking place. Along with handling bigger crimes, the game also has the option to finish up small tasks, like writing a ticket for a parking violation. Even something as small as writing a parking ticket has been made very realistic. Take a look at all the options you get:
Catching criminals is fun, as the on-foot chases can get intensive. But when you finally do catch the criminals, here’s where things get interesting. There’s a selection wheel with a bunch of options to learn more about the criminal. Suppose, if you have caught a person littering in the street, by digging deeper and checking them, there is a chance you’d find even more dirt on them. By finding more flaws, you’d then be able to add more charges. The game does add realism here, as if you were to make a false arrest, you will be penalised!
While this feature is fun at the start, I found myself getting bored with doing the same thing over and over again. Given the number of criminals you end up catching during each one of your shifts, this feature does get annoying after a point. Thankfully, you can ask your in-game partner, Kelly, to do the arrests for you, which is a helpful addition.
Shootouts
In addition to patrolling the streets, shootouts are common in this game. Murders, assaults and gang fights are a regular occurrence, so you would see yourself shooting down enemies quite a lot. It took some time to get used to shooting down enemies, because the mechanic is a bit awkward. However, once I got the hang of it, gang shootouts turned out to be fun.
There is a wide variety of weapons players can choose from. Every weapon can be equipped by accessing your police car. There are a few non-lethal items like a stun gun and a baton, too. However, I found myself manually tackling the criminals, rather than using those items. I would have liked the addition of throwable items, like grenades, as they would have made gang fights and indoor fights more fun.
Chases
Given the nature of the city, criminals are not that easy to catch. They are prone to entering vehicles, and as a result, you end up chasing most of them. This makes the chase sequences in this game enjoyable. The game gives you the option of many different cars, along with that, it also includes a helicopter. While the car chases do feel a bit stretched at times, given the complexity you end up going through for a simple chase. The helicopter sequences, on the other hand, have been handled very well. It has been treated as a tool for assistance, so the helicopter is mainly used to assist your fellow officers in catching criminals.
Both the helicopter and the cars in the game control well. The chases get better with time, as you keep upgrading your character. During a chase, there is also an option to call in backup, and in my experience, I found myself using it quite a lot. After you upgrade your character to a certain point, you will be able to use any of the vehicles present in the game. This involves quite a few rare vehicles, and using them does feel nice.
Missions
Though the story was underwhelming, I found the missions to be quite enjoyable. The first few missions were mediocre, but as the game progressed, the missions got better. To progress, you are required to take down two gangs, causing some trouble in the city. Taking them down requires collecting pieces of evidence against them. In between that, the story keeps on progressing. The actual ending, however, will only appear after you have successfully taken down both gangs.
Side Missions
There’s not a whole lot of side content in this game. But I did find myself enjoying the Street Races and Time Trials that the game has to offer. Before the game’s release, the street races were quite impossible because of the unforgiving AI. But the Day 1 patch did make those races much more playable.
If you’re a completionist, then be ready to grind. While the time trials and side races are easy. What’s not fun is finding all the artefacts scattered throughout the map. The game doesn’t give out much detail about these items either, so it will take a lot of time to find all the individual artefacts. Along with that, there are also around 30 jump ramps, similar to stunts in the GTA games. Given how good the driving was, I spent a lot of time completing them, too.
World
The game is set in the fictional world of Averno City, and I have to say, I was impressed! Towards the start, we’re given information on the city. The first thought that popped into my head was, how close it feels to GTA’s Liberty City! That’s mostly because of the dark setting of the game. The number of crimes committed and the NPC behaviour remind me of GTA 4. The world itself is immersive! I often got lost in the open world while I was completing my shift. It’s hard to get bored in this world, given that crimes are committed regularly.
Visuals and Performance
Speaking of the visuals and performance, I played the game from start to finish on my Steam Deck. While the game hasn’t been verified yet, the developers have confirmed that it will work from Day 1. The Steam Deck preset was already applied as soon as the game was booted. The Deck present uses a mix of low to medium settings at the Steam Deck’s native 800p resolution. AMD’s FSR3 is automatically turned on as well, however, it isn’t very noticeable on the smaller screen.
As for the performance, the game mostly runs at 30fps, but it drops during heavy sequences. I’d recommend locking the game at 30fps via the Deck’s Quick Access menu for a better experience. I do hope that, with patches, the developers can smooth out the experience. Other than that, I had no issues playing, as the in-game texts were clear. In all honesty, playing a top-down game on a handheld did remind me of playing GTA: Chinatown Wars on the PSP.
If you’re playing the game on a bigger screen, though, you should be mostly fine on the performance end. Most Modern Laptops and PCs should have no issues running the game with good performance. The developers have released the minimum and recommended specifications on the Steam page. You can check them out below.
Aside from that, the game is also available on the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. However, we wouldn’t be able to give out information about those versions since we haven’t tested them ourselves. The console release, though, comes with a Limited Edition physical release, which looks great. It comes with a Steelbook, the digital soundtrack and the in-game map.
Also Read: Is This Popular GTA Vice City Clone For Android Any Good?
Verdict
After much deliberation, I was finally able to conclude my review and work on the final verdict. The Precinct is a strong entry, and as someone who loves top-down games, this was a delight to play. But keeping aside my love for the genre, in fairness, the game does have some issues. As previously pointed out, the story isn’t the best, but given the gameplay it offers, along with the world it features, I don’t find much reason to complain. For the price of 30$, the amount of content the game offers will easily keep you busy for 15 to 20 hours.
At the end, I would like to give the game a strong 7.5 out of 10. Thank you for reading the review from the start to the finish. I hope it helped you in deciding with your purchase.
