Contraband Police gives players meaningful choices, both big and small, that make the player feel like they have an impact on the world they find themselves in. Fun and interesting adventures are frequent and well paced, and the game offers a polished core gameplay loop with an action spin that greatly expands on what Papers Please started.
To put it simply, Contraband Police is an FPS version of Papers, Please. As a ‘’border patrol sim’’, it offers a great experience and adds some interesting fresh elements to the genre, but is let down by its low replay value.
Contraband Police looks like a simple document checking game at the outset. But if you dedicate some time to play it, you will find a decent story and varied gameplay. A good balance of activities prevents the game from feeling boring too quickly, and the story is surprisingly deep. You actually feel like you are a border patrol officer with large responsibilities, managing more than just your welfare. While the game gets harder as time goes on, there’s always something to do that keeps you on your toes.
Great combination of simulation and action elements. Lackluster visuals spoil the experience a little, but it's still worth giving this game a chance, because exploring its various gameplay mechanics is a lot of fun.
Crazy Rocks developers, under the auspices of a Polish distributor PlayWay, offer a successful probe into the life of a customs officer in a totalitarian state. It's not bad, and in particular, you can only rarely find such content in games.
Contraband Police is an enjoyable experience, but it has some annoying bits to deal with and there are definitely better alternatives with similar premises and gameplay.
Ultimately, Crazy Rocks makes a valiant attempt at evolving the formula but doesn’t quite stick the landing. If you want another game in the same vein as Papers, Please but with a little extra spice and an additional dimension then this is the absolutely game for you.
+ Extremely good amount of content for the price point.
+ Intuitive controls and easy to learn mechanics.
- Story doesn't carry much depth.
- Bugs and glitches can be frustrating.
- Lots of unrealized potential, many aspects of the game feel unfinished.
this game not bad . playable open world . the story allow player to choose Communist or not .the contents partly is fiction , need more realistic . somehow I really wonder if a fortress can't stop the vehicle rush over , it is weird I can use the police car to block the road for whole day . no one escape .
Disappointment, please!
- Let’s make "Papers, please", but with cars. -
This or something similar must have gone through the brilliant minds who tried to emulate what the successful indie hit did back in 2013.
The creators of Contraband Police were so inspired by their ideal that they forgot to make it look like they have their own ideas.
Eastern european setting – check. 80s time line – check. Communist oppressive regime – check.
Basically everything was ripped off shamelessly, including the symbol of the ficticious country we are serving. Arstozka or Arcaristan. Even the name sounds the same.
Now, what do we do?
We do the same old. Checking cars, cargo and people. We make sure everything is in order, while the game keeps distracting us from actually trying to do that. While the original put us into the daily grind at our desk and establishes a sense of familiarity and repetitveness, contraband police seems to want to force us into an action packed open world experience with an exciting story, car chases, gun fights and all sorts of badly programmed nonsense.
The driving is awful, the gun fights as well. I stopped caring about the story quickly, cause its just another opressor / resistance sheme and it’s not done well enough to keep my attention.
The constant distraction wouldn’t be such a problem if it was actually fun. But it’s not. And I felt bombarded with phone calls, „opportunities“, attacks on the border station, driving prisoners to the labor camp through ambushes, having to maintain ammunition, vehicles and tools that break after a couple of days and all sorts of other things, while having to take care of daily border business, which is also constantly changing.
I just want your papers, please.. I felt quickly irritated and annoyed, cause I just wanted to rely on the established rules I learned in Arstozka. But Arcaristan is more like GTA with some occasional paperwork.
4/10 stamps
You can immediately see that the game is too indie, there are a lot of bugs, the plot is straightforward and boring, the game is too long, the control of the cars is terrible, it bothers you to check documents already for 10 days and it’s not as interesting to check as in the original. If you want to get acquainted with this genre of the game, then it's better to play papers please! This game is already worth playing only for strong fans of the genre or you are interested in the concept itself, but I can say right away that most likely you will quickly abandon this game.
SummaryYou are a border police inspector in a communist country of the early 1980s. Every second driver is a smuggler and the vehicles are stuffed with hidden contraband. Documents, vehicles, cargo.. everything is a subject to detailed control...