{"id":7449,"date":"2025-05-15T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/?p=7449"},"modified":"2025-05-15T18:23:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T18:23:18","slug":"the-precinct-review-hill-streets-blues-meets-gta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/15\/the-precinct-review-hill-streets-blues-meets-gta\/","title":{"rendered":"The Precinct review \u2013 Hill Streets Blues meets GTA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n\t\t\"The\t<\/div>
The Precinct – you are the sound of the police (Kwalee)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An interesting new indie title is a homage to both old school, top-down GTA<\/a> games and 80s cop shows like Kojak and Cagney & Lacey.<\/p>\n

Nostalgia is very much to the fore in The Precinct. Not just for video games<\/a> but for TV. While its appearance, with an isometric style camera mounted high in its virtual sky, brings to mind memories of early, top-down Grand Theft Auto games, its content is a clear and unabashed homage to much-loved cop shows and films of the 1970s and 80s<\/a> – from Kojak and The French Connection to Hill Street Blues, and Cagney & Lacey.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an unusual setting for a game, made more interesting because it tries to turn the GTA blueprint on its head, by playing as a police officer instead of a criminal. To be precise, you play as rookie Nick Cordell Jr., fresh out of the Police Academy and eager to make his mark on the mean streets of Averno City (a thinly disguised New York<\/a>, without the skyscrapers but with lots of neon and forbiddingly rundown dark alleys).<\/p>\n

This is basically a police procedural in video game form – and if you think about it, there have been precious few of those over the years (weirdly, RoboCop: Rogue City<\/a> is about as close as it\u2019s come recently). So, if you\u2019ve ever had a secret hankering to pound a beat, you should find plenty to interest you here. It splits its gameplay into working day chunks, so you can be sent out with a brief to do everything from issuing parking tickets to keeping a lid on rowdiness in the nightclub district on a Friday night.<\/p>\n

While Cordell\u2019s days on Averno City\u2019s streets might start off as mundane, they rarely finish that way. There are two very active gangs (The Jawheads, centred on a punk band, and Crimson Serpent, which is based in Chinatown) and as you perform your duties, you frequently encounter their members performing crimes, which yields evidence enabling you to work up the food chain from captains to underbosses to bosses.<\/p>\n

There are also other activities to pursue, such as very GTA style illegal street races (the story being that Cordell has been placed undercover to gather evidence about who\u2019s running them) and murders that the homicide cops get you to perform the grunt work for. Whenever you amass enough evidence to arrest a key gang member, you\u2019re given the honour of leading the charge in what inevitably becomes a big shoot-out.<\/p>\n

The Precinct also has a role-playing element, in that as you level up you acquire upgrade tokens which improve Cordell\u2019s key stats (including stamina – in true 80s cop show style, there\u2019s an awful lot of running after criminals, weaponry (acquiring the automatic rifle is a game changer) and general privileges, such as the clearance to commandeer random cars and pilot the police chopper.<\/p>\n

Despite all this, The Precinct\u2019s upgrade tree is commendably compact, in keeping with the game\u2019s general size: the main story takes about six hours to work through and then there\u2019s probably another six hours\u2019 worth of general sandbox style police work to pursue after that.<\/p>\n

\n
\n