At a glance, Police Shootout seems guilty of trying to do too much. It’s a first-person police response simulator, with mission objectives, negotiation sequences, optional stealth, and a turn-based shooting system – along with such customaries as upgradeable skills, and dialogue options that impact how a mission pans out. Refreshingly, it’s also something quietly confident in its execution, offering a smooth experience with a streamlined UI and little in the way of bloat. This certainly isn’t a game that has gorged itself on doughnuts.
The pace here is swift, right down to the easy-to-follow tutorial that takes around five minutes to complete and does a good job of establishing the basics. Eleven missions are on offer, lasting 15-20 minutes each, being a mixture of robberies, domestic disputes, hostage situations, and suspected drug trafficking. They mostly involve finding whoever raised the call/alarm, talking to witnesses, and engaging in brief turn-based shootouts with armed hostiles if negotiations fail – with choices based on how thorough your investigation was. All the while there’s the necessity to radio in after every key event, which not only raises your proficiency (performance is ranked when missions are complete) but may give extra info on a suspect.
Ten of the missions reuse the same location twice (supermarket, garage, transport depo, industrial complex, and a seedy motel with a diner) while the final mission is more elaborate, set in a unique location. There are some attempts at establishing a narrative, with reoccurring characters, but there isn’t much here in the way of a story. Nor is this a full-on police simulator; even when situations are dire, you’re left to cope on your lonesome. Never are you reprimanded for being trigger happy either. Hostiles can be incapacitated, disarmed or killed during combat, and there are no penalties whatsoever for pulling out a shotgun, even on an intoxicated abusive bystander.
It takes a few missions to learn the game’s sense of logic, mostly in the way that progression is handled. At some point you’ll almost definitely need to gain access to a storeroom or facility, either needing a key or a jaunt around the location to find the correct person to talk to. Often talking to one person will make another appear somewhere, exiting a room or whatever, and it can be tricky finding said person if they made their appearance off-screen. The voice acting is above average, but also needlessly loaded with swear words, and a few character models don’t quite match their personas: a nerdy white male sounding like Samuel Jackson, for instance.
Shootouts are brief, usually over in 2-3 turns, and handily a checkpoint always occurs before, meaning it’s possible to retry without losing progress. Using a small amount of action points, it’s a simple case of getting yourself in cover before aiming and shooting using a wobbly crosshair system. The shotgun takes two action points, while later a stun gun (known as a Fazer, oddly) is added. Yes, even though you’re a rookie you’re given access to firearms before a taser. You’ll undoubtedly take one or two hits per shootout, but a health pack is never far away, usually found in the nearest toilet. The controls meanwhile are intuitive, using a radial wheel to select items (torch, nightstick, handcuffs, etc) and the turn-based combat system utilizes large icons.
Ease of use is the theme here. Police Shootout keeps things simple, and it’s a better experience for it with its brief and snappy missions, streamlined UI, and a basic yet functional combat system. I came into it expecting something needlessly complex, with cackhanded controls and an awkward UI, perhaps even riddled with glitches. The reality is that Police Shootout is reasonably good looking, easy to get into, progression is straightforward, and consequently offers a smooth ride – with frustration only arising from trying to find the correct dialogue option to move a mission forward.
There are a couple of things to address though, both of which prevent this from scoring higher and gaining a full-on recommendation. Firstly, this isn’t a deep or mechanically rich experience. Even the turn-based combat system takes no time at all to master. Secondly, and as loosely mentioned earlier, the 11 missions only take 15-20 minutes each, culminating in a runtime of around 3 hours. It could, potentially, be beaten in a single sitting. Still, for something with a name akin to a PS2 budget game, this isn’t bad at all.
Police Shootout is developed by Games Incubator and Hypnotic Ants. Published on Xbox Series by Ultimate Games. A PS5 version is coming soon.