911 operators are a special kind of people. They’re the people we talk to when we’re the most desperate for help, and they need to be able to take calls with a calm confidence while solving whatever type of problem is thrown at them. It’s a job where lives can be changed forever or even lost depending on what the operator does.
911 Operator puts you in the hot seat yourself, taking calls from numerous people while also taking control of the various fire, police, and ambulance forces of the city. Most of your time will be spent dealing with events as they arise, such as a vehicle caught speeding, someone who was hurt, or a home on fire, but occasionally you’ll also get a 911 call to deal with. You’ll be juggling priorities and sitting there nervously while you hope that the slew of vehicles at your disposal can take care of problems before others get too bad or new ones arise.
Putting out figurative and literal (digital) fires is the bread and butter of 911 Operator. Problems arise that show what type of vehicle you need (police, ambulance, or fire) and you send vehicles over to take care of them. Often a problem requires more than one type of help. For example, if there’s a vehicular accident, you’ll often need to send police to take statements about what happened and an ambulance for medical help. Other times additional vehicles may need to be called in, like a brawl that requires only police turning into a shootout that requests even more police backup and will likely need medical assistance as well. As you get used to the game you’ll be able to guess a bit better at guessing what may need additional assistance and preempting the requests.
While you’re dealing with sending vehicles around the city you’ll get the occasional 911 call. You have to press a button to accept the call, and then everything else slows way down while you talk to whoever called. You’ll listen to them speak and then choose from a selection of replies, and the game teaches you to be the best 911 operator you can be. Tips like getting a location ASAP are great for the game and real life, even for non-911 operators. If a friend or family member calls to tell you they’ve been in an accident or something happened while they’re out of the house, getting their location immediately can be vital! As you talk to them, you’ll have to figure out what kind of help they need, or if they even need help at all. Some situations can be fixed through discussion alone, and one time I had a prank call that resulted in sending a cop their way to collect a hefty fine! Other times you can accidentally ignore a call, such as a wife pretending to call for pizza while her spouse is listening, or can even make things worse by giving terrible advice.
The game is set up by day, and you’re tasked with trying to end the day with a positive reputation. Each task you complete gives you positive reputation points, but not properly resolving situations in time (or not answering a 911 call) gives you a massive penalty to your reputation points. You’re given a list of everything you did that day at the end of each round along with a bunch of other stats.
The game has two separate modes: career and free game. Campaign] gives you control over a specific city, a set of vehicles, and an amount of starting cash. I only managed to complete a couple cities myself before things got too challenging, but the goal was always merely to ensure that your daily reputation is positive for a certain number of days.
Free game was where I had way more fun. You’ll start free game by choosing from a ridiculous number of cities around the world (every dot on the map above is an available city), and you’re able to have multiple cities saved independently of one another. None of the small towns around me were available, but a couple of the bigger ones like Fort Wayne and South Bend, Indiana, that are only an hour or two away were available. We go to South Bend every couple months or so – it’s the nearest city with an actual mall, iHOP, Chipotle, etc. – and it was pretty awesome being able to play there! I played the mode for a while and only failed to have a positive reputation once but wasn’t punished for it that I knew about. Free game is more about building up your city: both modes give you money after each day based on the events you complete, but since free game doesn’t move you from city to city you’re able to invest way more money in it. Money can be used to buy your people better equipment, buy additional vehicles, or hire more people. After a few days I turned South Bend into a money making machine! I added a motorcycle cop and horse cop to my line up, and bought bulletproof vests for all of my police force along with better guns, along with equipping the other forces better.
What’s cool about 911 Operator, aside from building up your forces in free game, is that even the different types of vehicles make a difference. Motorcycles and horses are way cheaper than regular vehicles, but while those cops can give tickets and help with shootouts, they don’t have the ability to transport criminals back to the police station. If you send one of these vehicles to take care of something that requires a ride back, the officer(s) will handle the situation and detain the criminal(s), then wait for you to send another vehicle.
The one thing bringing 911 Operator down, aside from the repetition, is just how random it is. While there were barely any super easy days, some days were especially focused on a particular type all at once. One of my worst campaign failures came about because there were sooooooo many calls for cops all at once that I couldn’t possibly handle them all. While my four or five cop vehicles were getting what felt like 20 calls per minute, the ambulances and fire trucks went almost entirely unused.
For those that enjoy games where you’re consistently dealing with issues and doing your best to keep up with them, you could certainly do worse than 911 Operator. It’s especially cool playing in a city you know, and since days go by fairly quickly you can pick it up and play it during pretty much any kind of break. But without much of a goal in free game aside from building up a huge fleet of vehicles and equipping them up, and with the hit-and-miss difficulty of the campaign, there isn’t a lot to bring players back.
911 Operator is available on Nintendo Switch (reviewed), Xbox One, PS4, Steam (Windows and Mac), iOS, and Android.
A review code was provided for this review.