With the delay of GTA VI until next year and MindsEye not releasing until next month, many are going through withdraws and are wanting something fill their craving for similar title. If you’re open to playing as an honorable member of the police department then you might be interested in a newly released action-adventure tile called The Precinct.
You will be playing Nick Cordell Jr., a rookie cop who joins Averno City police department four years after his father was killed on the force. Your mission to do your daily police duties while also trying to figure out who might have killed your father.
Gameplay is by far the best thing about this game. Each day you will pick what kind of police duty you want to do on that day. Each assignment can very on requirements to unlock the next thing and how long your shift can be. This ranges from driving around a district, patrolling on foot, and controlling a helicopter. In the later part of the game after some criteria is met, you have the ability to customize and create your own shifts including the district, vehicle, and time. While it can see repetitive, the random APBs and uncertainty of suspects creates a variety. You can just go up to a random person walking down the street who looks innocent, but while checking their ID could be wanted for second degree murder and try and make a break for it.
The game does come with some drawbacks. One of the first things I noticed was in the voice acting at the very beginning of the game. While I don’t want to say that the voice actors are bad, you can clearly tell they were not around each other when recording. You’ll have moments where three characters are laughing and instead of combining them all together, they will have them laughing individually and have you press the continue button to hear the next person also laughing.
Another problem have is that the game is pretty short for a $30 title. As an example, I’m going to use my playthrough. In my playtime I managed to complete 38 days which resulted in 21 achievements including reaching max rank, 100 arrests, 50 parking tickets, and competing the main story. All of this equaled out to 11 hours of playtime.
Overall, the game itself is pretty fun, but short story alongside the $30 price could be a turnoff for some players. If you are a fan of police titles, or just want something that can temporarily satisfy your GTA sweet tooth, you’ll find some enjoyment playing this game. While I don’t know how much outside of this fandom would enjoy it as a console player, I would highly recommend it if you are an owner of the Steam Deck. Just make sure you do go into it with overblown hype.
