Police Simulator: Patrol Officers puts you in the boots of a bobby on the beat, except you’re not a bobby because this takes place in the fictional US city of Brighton, which is also the name of a real city in the south of England. Very lively place, actually. Very friendly people.
You start the game by picking which officer you’ll rise through the ranks of Brighton PD and then… it’s time to write some parking tickets. Lots and lots of parking tickets. I had dreams of hitting the mean streets and making a name for myself with the city’s criminal underbelly, but instead, I spent my shifts being a bit of a spoilsport, and as it takes a while to get a patrol car, I had to Forrest Gump it, and by that I mean if I was going somewhere, I was running.
This Review is n Partnership with Pure Play TV, the Official YouTube Partner of The Games Cabin
Police Simulator: Patrol Officers Review (EA) | Pure Play TV
What kind of officer will you be?
Police Sim lets you stop and search anybody, though it’s not advised unless there’s reasonable suspicion – try telling that to the real cops – and you can pull people up for petty crimes, like littering and jaywalking. These boring non-criminals took up much of the first few hours of play.
The game’s progression is locked behind earning points to level up your cop. The more you do the more points you’ll earn and you’ll level up quicker. Levelling up opens the world up a little further by unlocking new city areas for you to work in, as well as new crimes to tackle, and even take on emergency call outs.
Don’t get too excited, mind you. There are no big shootouts, or at least I didn’t get into one. I pulled my taser on a few people, shocked one of them, and even shot an unarmed civilian dead with my real gun just to see what would happen. You lose, that’s what happens. Well, you get kicked back to the start of the workday and lose whatever points you’d gained that day. So not too dissimilar to actual police brutality.
If I had to describe the game in one word, it would be “mundane.” And it is, but there’s no harm in that. Simulator games are often mundane. Take my favourite sim of all time, American Truck Simulator – that’s as mundane as they come. Police Simulator, at the moment, is perhaps a touch too mundane, and by locking one of the funnest features of the game so far – driving the patrol car – behind a few hours of levelling up, the repetition does get old.
After the 50th citation for jaywalking, I was ready to shoot the next person who dared to not use the proper crossing. After 100 parking tickets for people not paying the meter maid or parking like a dickhead, I was ready to take out my gun and shoot their tyres out. I did try, actually, on my own patrol car, and that feature is not yet there.
Some Bugs in Police Simulator
The game is obviously a little buggy, too, but not so bad you notice. Well, OK, sometimes it’s very noticeable. Like the time I answered the call out to a traffic accident and one of the vehicles was… well… just look. How do I even describe that?
There’s also the weird fact that everybody is the exact same height – it’s even on their identity cards, and I’ve seen just about every character model the game has at this point; the character pool is small and could definitely do with some expanding. But I’m sure that will come, as will everything else I found myself wishing for as I patrolled the streets, admittedly, not in the most police-y way.
I was definitely more Nic Cage in Bad Lieutenant than Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, especially once I was behind the wheel of my police cruiser. I tore those streets up, and I smashed just about everything in the process. By the end, my car was a wreck and it was back to Forrest Gumping my way around town.
Pros
- A fairly robust depiction of an ordinary police officer’s working day (minus the paperwork)
- The simple but functional interactions with the public show great potential.
Cons
- It takes a long time to unlock some of the more interesting features, like the patrol car and the call outs that come with it.
- Be prepared to do a lot of grunt work – parking tickets, jaywalking and littering citations.
Conclusion – nice but needs some more work
I had a good giggle playing Police Simulator, but it is definitely a work in progress, so know that before throwing your gun, badge, and refund request at Steam. It has some good bones, it just needs a bit of meat and muscle on it.