Those of us old enough to remember the original Grand Theft Auto games will no doubt have fond memories of low-res pixelated top-down chaos as you tore through the blocky streets of Liberty City, Vice City, San Andreas (the original GTA), London (the London 1969 and London 1961 expansions for the original game) and Anywhere, USA ( the unimaginatively-named location of GTA 2), with wild abandon and scant regard for traffic laws. Or laws of any kind, really.
The cars handled like they were on ice and the fixed top-down camera made it infuriatingly easy to get yourself completely back to front during a chaotic police pursuit, but little else at the time compared to the massive sense of freedom and blatant fun as you blitzed around, barely in control and occasionally reducing a procession of Hare Krishna into red paste on the footpath with a well-timed (or completely accidental, it was often hard to tell) drift. Gouranga!
A lesser-known fact about those early games is that DMA Design originally intended the player to be on the legal side of proceedings, playing as a cop, but quickly switched focus when the true potential for chaos became apparent. So, it was really only a matter of time before someone took that original idea and ran with it.
Which is exactly what Fallen Tree Games have done with their wonderfully 80s-inspired retro throwback open world game The Precinct. Well, not quite exactly, as the perspective has shifted to a more fluid isometric view, and the graphics are actually excellent, but the spirit is definitely there. Just in a more law-abiding manner.
That is because in The Precinct you play as young rookie cop (and son of a murdered police chief whose death remains unsolved – yes, the story is a massive cliche) who must patrol the streets of Averno City with your older, jaded partner who is counting down the days until his retirement (see what I mean?).
This basically consists of different shifts patrolling the streets with a specific task (writing parking tickets, busting speeders, spotting crimes from a police helicopter) while also dealing with random procedurally generated crimes, such as littering, vandalism, muggings, burglaries, drug deals and even gang shootouts.
This is punctuated by preset missions that trigger once you gather enough evidence against one of the three gangs in the story, which you stumble across during patrols or pick up after successfully preventing a crime.
So far, so predictable, right? Yes, the story is almost ridiculously cliched, the voice acting is wooden and utterly unconvincing (there are no cut scenes, just voiceovers on still shots of whichever character that is talking), and the routine quickly becomes repetitive, but it is the superb car handling physics that will keep you coming back.
The meat of the car-based fun in The Precinct, however, comes when your routine patrol descends into utter chaos thanks to a random crime that results in a full-blown car chase.
Given this is a car website, it makes sense that the car physics are what we are most interested in, and it is also very much The Precinct’s strength.
As much as the paper-thin story and rain-drenched neon graphics place you firmly in the vibe of an 80’s made-for-TV cop movie, the car handling is likewise positioned, with a real meaty weight to the various American cars you can throw around throughout the course of the game, excessive body roll, howling tyres and all.
All of the cars are instantly recognisable as American vehicles from the era (and earlier), with 1980s Chevrolet Caprices (the first patrol car available to you) and Ford Crown Victorias (the superb Country Squire wagon!) mixing it with mid-sixties classics like first-gen Ford Mustang fastbacks and Jeep Wagoneers.
Impressively, each vehicle has distinct handling characteristics too, with the big SUVs like the Wagoneer being slow, heavy and very fond of a catastrophic understeer, while the wagons are excessively tail-happy and the muscle cars are quick to light up their rear wheels but also feel far more precise and agile.
Sadly, there is no free roam mode in The Precinct, so heading out on a GTA-inspired orgy of power slides and pedestrian-squashing chaos will result in penalties to your play through, but progress is saved at the end of every patrol, so if you really need to cut loose you won’t entirely ruin your game.
Yes, the story is awful, the patrols repetitive, and the open world city is quite small, but the car chases are just so much fun!
One of the early – and best – upgrades you can make to your character is the “commandeer” perk that allows you to take over (or break into) any vehicle in the game. This then automatically becomes your patrol vehicle (complete with little red bubble flashing light stuck on the driver’s side roof just like Dirty Harry!) and, more importantly, lets you drive every type of vehicle the game has to offer.
This is, however, quite restricted, so don’t expect Grand Theft Auto 5-style variety here, but the dozen or so vehicle types on offer are incredibly varied, and each is fun in a different way.
The meat of the car-based fun in The Precinct, however, comes when your routine patrol descends into utter chaos thanks to a random crime that results in a full-blown car chase.
These can quickly become essentially the last 20 minutes of The Blues Brothers, with your car’s wonderfully weighty handling combining with other road users dithery indecision and your fellow officers' over-the-top enthusiasm resulting in utterly fantastic chaos, complete with patrol cars flying through the air and multiple pileups. All that is missing is I Can’t Turn You Loose by Otis Redding playing over the top of it all.
With excessive body roll and a very American cop show propensity for howling oversteer, the car handling during car chases is both thrilling and satisfying, but also fraught with potential disaster, as any small mistake will drop you well off the pace and risk losing your suspect.
It all makes for a wonderfully involving recreation of the best 1980s cop shows and Hollywood movies had to offer, with over-the-top action and extensive use of excessive force.
Adding to the frenetic atmosphere of sheer chaos is the fact that, aside from buildings, almost everything in the environment is fully destructible, so fences and rubbish bins crumple under your wildly sliding patrol car, while lamp posts and median barriers will drastically slow you down but won’t stop you completely. 
But you can’t go too wild with it, however, as car damage is also a thing here. Your car gradually takes damage in a relatively realistic way, and your car will slow as it accrues, eventually catching fire and even exploding if you do enough damage.
It all makes for a wonderfully involving recreation of the best 1980s cop shows and Hollywood movies had to offer, with over-the-top action and extensive use of excessive force.
Yes, the story is awful, the patrols repetitive (but then, they would be in real life too, I guess), and the open world city is quite small, but the car chases are just so much fun – and effortlessly evoke the spirit of the original Grand Theft Auto games, as well as the first two Driver games - that none of that really matters.
It’s not a game that you will sink hours at a time into, but if you are in the mood for a quick injection of thrilling 80s car-chase action, it is definitely something you will keep coming back to.
