So I’ve gotten a chance to play Police Simulator and I have to say it’s an interesting take on what being a Police officer involves or at least what it should involve across the world.
Now before everyone starts raging at me about trying to put a positive spin on being a police officer. The first thing I did was an accuracy test based on incidents that happen across the United States that’s right, I shot a civilian and the game makes me restart the day over again. Incidentally, Police Simulator doesn’t give paychecks or lets the Police officers get paid time off during investigations. So considering that the game forced me to restart the day, let’s call that “paid time off” for excessive force.
Now with that out of the way, the game is fairly straightforward as a simulation game at the beginning you’re working as a beat cop patrolling the streets and keeping the streets clean, in a very literal sense.
As a Police Officer, you hand out tickets and issue verbal warnings to people caught breaking the law and early game. That normally involves parking fines, littering, and jaywalking if a person’s license plate isn’t up to date you write a ticket, if a person litters you can either write them a ticket or issue a verbal warning, I tend to do both but depending on the NPC’s reaction if they own up to it.
During player and non-player character (NPC) interactions players are given prompts that notify the player about the state of the person such as “they’re avoiding eye contact.”, “they have pieces of green material on their clothes”, “and their eyes look glazed over” and so forth these prompts allow the players to detain and question them and if there is enough probably cause you can search them.
Players can either then arrest the NPC, Detain them for questioning or let them go with again verbal warnings, and or a ticket. Now, this is what I suspect being a Police Officer should be like outside of playing Police Simulator but this is a game review so let’s not get into that rant.
As you progress through Police Simulator you are given access to districts and the more patrol your area the more you unlock for your character to use. Items such as the speeding camera, a basic camera, etc, and other items all become unlockable as you progress your character. Once you’ve unlocked all districts on your character you’re even given access to a squad car making patrolling areas much easier. But I feel this leaves you detached from the areas and the people you’re meant to protect as you travel around in a car.
Police Simulator does portray a lot of what being a Police Officer should be like to the point where it could be considered a fantasy depending on where you live in the world. In America, I lived up north for a bit and they did have beat cops walking around patrolling the streets and handing out fines for parking meters. But living down in the southern part of the United States it becomes more hide behind billboards and beating down the black person because they look suspicious.
Now I’m not saying that Police Simulator doesn’t capture these finer points. Because you are the Police Officer in Police Simulator and the game will call you out on Police Brutality which is something not many cops would do or be willing to do in real life. As the saying goes, if there is one bad cop among a hundred good cops, and no one arrests the bad cop then what you have is a hundred bad cops.
Police Simulator does go out of its way at times to try to show you what being a Police Officer should entail and what Police should focus on such as minor laws, pedestrian safety, and helping people feel safer in their surroundings. Again I just want to reiterate is all dependent on your local Police and where you live in the world.
One thing I do want to mention about Police Simulator is its controls the game feels at times a bit convoluted but we can probably chalk that up to the game being in Early Access as you progress through the game and unlock more items. You’re given access to it on your tool tab which has your gun, taser, speed gun, etc. Accessing this menu takes a bit of time to bring up, and it would be nice for time to slow down to access your tools. But I can understand why this wouldn’t be an option as in real life Police can’t slow down time during split-second decision-making.
From a gaming perspective, it just feels like something that would make the game more enjoyable but since it’s a simulation game it feels like it would take away from the reality aspect of the game.
My conclusion for Police Simulator is it’s a pretty solid game considering it’s an Early Access title and it’s pretty fun. Police Simulator takes the core aspects of what the Police should be, and applies them to a game for a person’s enjoyment. And if you want to choose to be a racist little sh*t, then that’s up to you because the game gives you that option and it’s your decision to do that.
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