Introduction

Ever wanted to work in a call centre? I doubt it. Ever wanted to work in a call centre where you can save lives and where your work has a real impact? That sounds more plausible, and 911 operator does just that, on paper anyways. 911 Operator places you in the beating heart of law enforcement, where you must make quick decisions and send fellow officers into certain danger. Whether its getting a cat down from a tree, evacuating a burning warehouse, or stopping a robbery in progress, no task is too dangerous for our boys in hi-viz. Choose any city in the world to oversee, and keep the thin blue line intact.

Gameplay

That all sounds pretty exciting right? It is, for about 30 minutes. You answer calls and can give the caller advice, press them for information about the situation, or just tell them to sod off. Once you have the appropiate information, it's up to you send an appropiate response. Sending a SWAT team to help a cat stuck up a tree may be considered overkill by naysayers, and it can affect your reputation, making you less popular, which will make you lose the game. (I think?) Essentially, you click one icon, right click another icon, and wait. That's it. That's the game. I played for barely an hour and was already hearing the same calls, so even the unique gimmick of handling calls is stretched thin after a short while.

It does have one feature which is really cool, despite my low opinion of this game, credit where credit is due. You can select any city in the world and oversee it. However thats about as far as it goes. The types of crimes are all the same, regardless of where you go. Overseeing Buckinghamshire feels like overseeing Sierra-Leone with the amount of gun violence and robberies, and it really takes you out the game. Furthermore, every city, regardless of difficulty or location, seems to be an active war zone where mob rule has prevailed. It's just so unrealistic it's what stopped me from continuing any further. If this game is anything to go by, the thin blue line is as thin as a toothpick. I get that it's a video game and some liberties must be taken, but they've taken all the liberties and the gameplay, if you can even call it that, is just tedious at best.

Thinking I was being too harsh, I looked up some gameplay videos to see if I was just playing the game wrong, or missed something, but no. There was basically no gameplay difference from me playing for an hour, to some guy playing for several hours. As said before, the whole game is just sending an icon over to another icon and waiting. They took a really interesting concept like this and somehow made it boring.

Elephant in the room

Before even getting to the games menu, you are presented with an advertisement! A paid game, on Steam, with an ad. Granted, it's for their other games but that is still unacceptable and that reason alone is why I do not recommend this game. The game plays like a mobile game and the ads only amplify that fact. To further twist the knife, the ad is there every time you launch the game and frankly I didn't care enough about this game to bother looking for a way to disable it. Barely any of the Steam reviews mention this, which just goes to show how low gamers standards have gotten over the years.

The good

Despite my low opinion of this game, there is one thing that is consistently good about it. The voice acting during calls is amazing. Sometimes, callers are absouletly terrified and it never feels fake or overacted. The one thing I will remember about this game for a long time is a callout involving a stalker. Basically a woman calls 911 because a crazy ex is outside her house, stalking her and threatening to enter the property. The womans voice actors performance was outstanding and you can genuienly hear the fear in her voice - it is indistinguishable from a real 911 call, it's that good. Unfortunately I'll never hear the rest of the games voice acting as the gameplay was simply too boring for me, but again, credit where credit is due.

Conclusion...already?

There is such little subject matter to talk about, I can't for the life of me find a way to draw this review out any longer. The only reason this game is even being mentioned here is because of the advertisement, which is just despicable. Yes, the game is cheap (only because I got on sale) but that can never, ever justify an ad in a paid product. It's baby-tier gameplay and shockingly low amount of replayability makes this game rather lackluster. The only people I could recommend this game to would be to Steam deck users, as I could see this being an okay mobile game, if it was free or without the ad. But if you're looking for a fun, replayable game, this ain't it. The reviews on Steam are case in point. Most of the positive reviews have less then 2 hours playtime - make of that as you will.