That isn’t to say the process of checking cars and drivers isn’t interesting, but the lack of tension and the routine nature of the work become routine.

The game stretches out the moments of doing nothing until the player wonders if they’re going to do something drastic just to break up the monotony. When you notice your subordinates wandering around the post and smoking. When you’re on your fifth check of some truck’s cargo and you hope this time there’s a reason for you to look around the car and unpack all some guy’s luggage. It’s the stretches between these missions that make the game what it is. In between, you fight off bandits who raid your checkpoint and take on jobs for the Acaristan Police. You check if everyone’s papers are in order, make sure no one’s smuggling contraband through the checkpoint, and deal with the occasional border raid from the local bandits. The tension and long stretches of running a checkpoint and the paranoid terror of the criminals who run the area work beautifully, making Contraband Police a game that, while rough-edged, is well worth the time and energy.Ĭontraband Police tasks you with running the border checkpoint at Acaristan, a fictional country based on USSR-era Europe.

Tasking you with the relatively low-stakes and high-danger job of running a border post in the country of Acaristan, the game expertly stretches each moment, letting you feel the beautiful but empty days of running the checkpoint intercut with sudden, explosive violence and regular police work. Contraband Police on the other hand nails it perfectly.

It’s something given lip-service in larger games and (in some cases) forced to the point of breaking utterly in much smaller games. It’s the idea that a game should draw you in, make you a part of its world, force you to meet it on its terms. “Immersion” is something games (and gamers) put at a premium.

Games like contraband police