REVIEW: HIGHWAY POLICE SIMULATOR 3

Our avatar is a newly-baked policeman, who returns to work after a period of illness. It’s up to us to catch a bunch of ruthless car thieves raging on the German Autobahn . Together with our partner, we patrol the highway, in search of criminals.

35 years ago, Sierra released the first Police Quest game and I completely broke it on my Atari 1040STe . Sure, the graphics were extremely angular and ugly but the story and all the information felt very authentic. It really felt like being a real cop. So when Autobahn Police Simulator 3 appeared in the review pile, I thought “maybe this could be a modern version of a competent police simulator”? Wow, wow, wow what a mistake I had…

As soon as I have installed the game and go into settings , I start to suspect trouble. I always invert the controls to look up and down when I play on the console and the choice is there – clearly – but you can not choose it. No matter how I try, the cursor skips this. Scary, but OK. The next step is to choose the look of my avatar. I usually choose someone who is similar to me, so I choose a male Caucasian. There are no more choices to make but it’s just what you have for skin color and gender. Now the game begins and I can hardly believe it’s true…

The graphics are under all criticism, the game looks to be at least 15-20 years old – and then I still ran a version for Xbox Series S! The camera jumps everywhere, the animations are laughable. My avatar moves like he’s done. When we meet our partner, he looks exactly the same as my character, except that the hair is a little different color. Then it seems as if the game creators have tried to work with the characters to have realistic skin, but it all results in everyone looking luminous, with bright red semi-transparent faces.

The voice actors do what they can with stylish, silly lines and when they try to react to different events, I have to pick up the pillow of shame and shout straight out. I have seen children’s theater with more realistic characters. Then I do not understand at all why everyone speaks British English? It feels very strange when the game obviously takes place in Germany. Found nowhere where I could choose language, but it may be another feature that simply does not work.

After fighting with the lousy game mechanics, I finally manage to get out to my police car. For whatever it is, it is on the highway that the game takes place. Car driving is just like in all other games, laid out in exactly the same way and thus nothing special. Now it’s time to catch up with the bad guys on the roads and it’s both super easy and thus boring. You have different choices that you can choose from when you try to stop the car – block, arrest or stop for example. The only problem is that none of them work as they should, but the whole thing feels very random.

Due to the lousy graphics, awkward controls and features that do not even work, the Autobahn Police Simulator 3 becomes almost completely unplayable.

In summary, Autobahn Police Simulator 3 may be one of the worst games I have ever played. The craziest thing about it all is that this is the third part in a game series and this version should imagine it is the most advanced to date. How seventeen were then the first and second ?! I really can not recommend this game, as it is a bottom button of gigantic proportions.