Police Shootout Xbox Series X Review 5/10 "A Quirky Blend of Genres Sandbagged by Technical Issues." 🚨🚔 @GamesIncubator #IndieGame #GameDev

A turn-based FPS game with investigative qualities was very much of appeal to me when I was offered to cover Police Shootout, and whilst it is an intriguing blend of genres that comes frustratingly close to being an idiosyncratic gem, there are just a few too many rough edges to ignore.

The game begins with your character moving from the big city to a small American town, transferred in a bid to find out what happened to his brother. Your commanding officer is a rather brusque gentleman who hints at knowing your ulterior motives for being in his neck of the woods, but initially seems to be warning you off your private quest of familial revenge.

The tutorial set some alarm bells ringing, I could handle the mannequin-esque NPC’s and the ropey voice acting – it can be almost charming in games such as this - and the frame rate is a silky smooth 60fps which is usually my main point of concern with visuals and animations, so I was very happy in that respect. The control scheme just seemed a little poorly thought-out, as you aim at cover or an enemy and pull the right trigger to either move to that spot or take a shot, whilst the ‘A’ button ends your turn, but with so many other buttons on the controller fascia unallocated, it seemed a strange setup, and I’d often find myself in the midst of a firefight, aiming at a barrel or wall...and pressing the button to end my turn, leaving me exposed and getting shot at, which wasn’t fun.

The main missions find you arriving at various establishments – sometimes returning to them at a later time – and scoping out what the issue is, before radioing in the scenarios and then subduing the suspects as safely as possible. There are ways you can – if you are sneaky and silent – handcuff and take down suspects without bloodshed, but let’s all pull our skirts up and not forget the game’s title...and lock and load.

The gunfights are pretty bland affairs, with it boiling down to popping out from cover, shooting..and hiding again...all whilst the enemy – who are cursed with poor AI – pose no real challenge. The actual policing - simple though it is - is really fun, and you do actual get the feel of being an officer newly arrived on the scene, albeit in extremely broad strokes, this is augmented by end of level scenes wherein you can talk down the gang leader by utilising information that you’ve acquired throughout your brief investigation.

The game also feels extremely asset-y, with one motel in particular being very familiar to me from another budget game, and whilst this is fine for the most part what can’t be forgiven are the game-breaking bugs such as characters that you need to interact with getting stuck in the environment, awkward hit detection in the gunplay – especially when it comes to headshots – and missions hard-locking themselves into crashing because a vital person of interest is locked on the spot. Up against this, other minor niggles such the lines of text not matching the spoken dialogue is a mere bagatelle.

SUMMARY
There’s definitely something here, and the blend of investigative policing and turn-based combat is a great combo, but it’s done so loosely here that the technical issues get unavoidably in the way of having fun and getting the bad guys off the streets and into body bags (or handcuffs, I suppose, if you’re into that sort of thing.)

5/10

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