REPORTING FOR DUTY
Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, a video game created by Aesir Interactive and released by Astragon Entertainment, was initially made available through Steam’s Early Access programme on June 17, 2021. Since then, the game has received a steady stream of major and minor updates that have improved, fixed, and expanded the playable content. There’s a good chance that this game is the ideal kind of Early Access game in this regard. However, it could be argued that Police Simulator: Patrol Officers also commit many of the transgressions that people most frequently accuse all Early Access games of committing. As is usually the case, the truth is centred in the middle.
Although most activities, particularly foot patrol duties, may restrict your range to a specific determined smaller region of the globe, Police Simulator: Patrol Officer’s open world has a reasonably big map. The game’s ‘Open Patrol’ mode, which works like most other games’ ‘Free Roam’ mode, doesn’t let you freely walk around the open world and help out whenever and wherever you want until you’ve already spent at least six or eight hours unlocking your first fourteen stars in the progression system. Although it could take some time to unlock, ‘Open Patrol’ is without a doubt the greatest method to experience everything that Police Simulator: Patrol Officer has to offer.
DISORDER AND CONFUSION EVERYWHERE
As an officer, your responsibilities can go far beyond the work at hand. While the majority of my primary tasks appeared to involve scanning licence plates and pursuing speeding motorists, I frequently found myself devoting the majority of my time to secondary tasks like giving pedestrians directions to their destinations, pursuing wallet thieves, tracking down fugitive suspects, settling car accident disputes, etc. Deceptively slow-paced action for the first few hours of play encourages the player to gradually become comfortable with the fundamentals of the game’s mechanics before finally expanding the map with new zones and new main and side objectives kinds.
Keep an eye out for folks openly carrying booze and trash to gain some pretty simple XP. According to Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, a large portion of the NPC inhabitants live under Hawkeye Pierce’s motto of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happy hour.” To avoid failing their primary mission because they were too absorbed toiling away at secondary objectives, players will need to keep a tight eye on the passing time.
CRIME DOESN’T PAY, EXCEPT WHEN IT DOES
Players must pay close attention to two parallel monetary systems, Conduct Points and District XP, to have a successful shift. The player has 100 Conduct Points at the start of their shift. If the player breaks any of the laws that the cops are required to uphold, this number will decrease. This includes opening fire on innocent bystanders, which will result in the cop being dismissed immediately and in a game-over condition, frisking an NPC without a valid reason, calling for a tow truck, and, most importantly, calling for a tow truck. If your goal is to become a postal cop, you’ll probably be disappointed with the outcome.
Comparatively speaking, District XP is much easier. Gaining XP is the reward for successfully completing any mission, and the quantity of XP awarded frequently precisely reflects the difficulty of the endeavour. You will receive little experience points for performing routine, simple chores like issuing tickets to litterbugs, but much more for apprehending a wanted criminal or arbitrating a car accident dispute. Which would you prefer: concentrating on many small, tedious chores, or fewer, more fruitful ones? You have an option, and you will receive the proper compensation.
Police Simulator: Patrol Officers still have serious performance problems nine months after its first early access debut. Even though I tested it on a laptop powered by Nvidia 3070 RTX as well as a desktop powered by Nvidia 2070 RTX, there were numerous instances of framerate decreases. This is easily seen when the player is going to reach an area with a high concentration of NPCs, or when they are entering or leaving a structure like one of the many available police stations.
SOUNDING OFF ON THE AUDIO DESIGN
There is really no other way to put this but to state that the audio design is outrageously uneven. I don’t want to sound like the Grinch, scowling at the noise coming from Whoville, but often when I’d be running around the city and the player came into an area with multiple sound sources, the game would occasionally decide to blast one noise obnoxiously loud in an apparent attempt to drown out the others. This could be anything from the sounds of a building site to the rumbling of a large truck or even an NPC you’re conversing with. Their audio volume would mysteriously increase by a factor of several times over what it would normally be. If you are using headphones, give up all hope. This is probably the result of some programming error and can be readily fixed. Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is an enjoyable but largely unremarkable simulation game that benefits from a steady progression system and extensive game mechanics. On the other hand, it suffers from a lack of optimization, an occasionally intolerably poor lighting system, and several other bugs that have an impact on both the gameplay and the world design.
