The Precinct Review – Crime Never Sleeps, but You Might

The Precinct Review

Many games let you live out the fantasy of being a gangster, breaking the rules to earn money through nefarious means. While The Precinct draws inspiration from classics in the crime genre, it flips the script, putting you in the shoes of law enforcement. Challenging the glamorization of crime that dominates the medium, the game focuses on upholding order rather than disrupting it. Will this fresh twist on a well-worn formula satisfy players hungry for justice, or will walking the beat lack the thrill of breaking it?

You play as rookie cop Nick Cordell, a young officer determined to follow in the footsteps of his late father. Set in a gritty, crime-ridden version of the 1980s, the game spans everything from gang warfare to petty misdemeanors. No matter the scale, Nick is resolute in his mission to clean up the city. He’s partnered with a seasoned detective on the brink of retirement, and together they patrol the streets, investigate gang activity to build a case to bring down the criminal underworld. While the setup shows promise, the narrative leans heavily on tired tropes. The supporting cast comprises archetypal characters lifted straight from B-movie crime dramas, resulting in a story that struggles to engage. Static character portraits paired with voice acting lack the visual dynamism and cinematic flair expected from titles of this ilk, resulting in an uninspiring tale.

Working 9 to 5

As a cop, you’re assigned to patrol specific areas of the city, taking on crimes that range in severity. Your goal is to maintain order, whether that means responding to a radio call or stumbling upon a disturbance during your rounds. Patrols can be done on foot or behind the wheel, and successfully stopping crimes unlocks new areas to police. Staying within the law is key: once an arrest is made, you’re expected to identify the correct charge, conduct ID checks and searches, and book the offender properly. Doing so earns you XP to level up your character, but mistakes—like false charges—result in penalties. While the system is conceptually solid, the arrest process quickly becomes tedious. The detailed steps, meant to simulate procedural accuracy, instead feel repetitive and time-consuming.

The gameplay loop of patrolling the streets quickly gets repetitive. With only a set number of crimes, incidents feel remarkably familiar and can even occur in the same location. Pairing this with the buggy animations and stiff controls results in an experience that leads to frustration. Managing your stamina during chases removes the intensity of the sequence, leading to a dull jog rather than a frantic scurry. The odd implementation of aiming also hinders shootouts. Although you can get behind cover with ease, peeking out to hit an accurate headshot is quite troublesome. While you aim with the right analog, the isometric perspective makes this feel unnatural, which makes gunplay awkward.

Calling All Units

Chasing down criminals in high-speed pursuits should be one of the most exhilarating aspects of being an officer, but that’s not the case in The Precinct. While cruising the streets feels serviceable, the driving mechanics quickly fall apart at high speeds. Collisions are wildly inconsistent: a light tap might send you veering off course, while more forceful impacts can feel oddly weightless. You can call in support or deploy spike strips, which are nice touches that reinforce the idea of working as part of a larger unit. Unfortunately, the excitement fizzles out when it matters most. Apprehending suspects often results in anticlimactic takedowns, sometimes marred by bugs like criminals getting stuck in the environment, robbing the moment of any real payoff.

After wandering the streets, you’ll eventually gain enough evidence to unlock a story-based mission. This structure hinders the pace of the game as you often feel as if you’re just conducting busy work rather than stepping into the boots of a crime fighter. The unlockable missions are more focused on structured sequences that lead to an arrest. While these are quite typical, they’re a breath of fresh air after the tedium of pounding the pavement. Unfortunately, you have to go back to patrols before receiving another mission, which completely disrupts the flow of the game.

Cleaning the Streets

The isometric view and art direction combine the overhead ethos of the original GTAs with the PS360 era visuals. At times, the game looks great with lovely pockets of detail that echo a busy city. While the UI is similar to its inspirations, adding familiarity to the experience, the NPCs completely differ. Civilians are inconsistent with their actions, which makes arrests unpredictable. At times, they will follow every instruction and then others will evade arrest and take off. While this is understandable for certain crimes, I had this occur when handing out a fine for littering. Upon capturing the culprit, they had no illegal possessions and a clean background check, which didn’t fit the situation.

Bugs and glitches can crop up quite often. Although none of these are game-breaking, they break the immersion and hinder the experience. At one point, after chasing down a criminal, he got out of the vehicle and got stuck on the roof, leading to sequence where I had to carefully drive into the car to nudge him off, and other times, I’ve had enemies continuously hop over a barrier and take cover of both sides while in a gunfight. While it is quite comical, it’s not what I wanted from a GTA-influenced game about being a police officer.

The Precinct ultimately fails to make walking the beat feel immersive or rewarding. Routine patrols quickly become repetitive, with minor offences dragging down the game’s pacing. Even the main story missions, while more substantial, are formulaic and add little excitement. Coupled with a lack of cinematic presentation and a plot bogged down by tired tropes, the game squanders its retro cop-drama premise. What could have been a gritty, engaging throwback instead feels flat and uninspired.

***A PlayStation 5 code was provided by the publisher***