In an industry where more and more unheard of studios are churning out games at the speed of an industrial pastry maker, it is becoming increasingly difficult for an independent studio to make a name for itself. Team17 is becoming increasingly likely to earn a name for itself with another great game, this time in partnership with Modern Dream, on their latest project, LA Cops.
LA Cops is a game which, you guessed it, stars policemen, stereotypically in the 70s. As the title implies, there are cops and not cop, and thus it gives you the choice of two out of six officers to take out on the mission. These missions range from clearing a house from robbers who have broken in, to rescuing a hostage from a band of kidnappers, among others. The game starts with a tutorial level, showing all the basics and necessary skills in the game. For a game with two characters at once, it does its job very well indeed since it requires the second character to actively aid you in a lot of situations. Countless games have made the mistake of completely making a second person irrelevant due to the sufficient abilities of the first, but in LA Cops, micro managing your buddy is the key to success.
The controls are fairly generic, with the WASD keys used to move your character. The cops move in a funny, wonky way, especially when facing forward and moving sideways, presumably how they used to move in the 70s. Nah not really, but their movement is really awkward, even though it is felt as though it is a good thing. More advanced controls include swapping weapons with the spacebar, and the R button, which instead of the usual reload, swaps cop. This is useful especially to change the weapon held by the other character since mostly you will be controlling one character most of the time. The middle mouse button is used to instruct your partner to move to a specific spot, and shooting anyone encountered on the way. This does not guarantee that he will make it, and as proof I recall lots of times when I found my partner in a bloody mess surrounded by three or four goons, who then proceed to make me a bloody mess. The M button will toggle a minimap which shows a small portion of the level, the part where you are in mostly. The F button is also very helpful since it lets you lock on an enemy, to unleash the fury of your handgun or any other weapon. Using the right click when at melee range with an enemy will arrest them, which will net you more points. You can also find medkits lying around, with which to revive your dead partner, if someone holding the kit dies, he drops the kit so the other can pick it up and revive the teammate.
LA Cops actively requires you to use both cops, and this is due to the quite generous numbers of enemies on screen ready to gun you down. Bashing through a door simoultaneously, movie-cop style rarely felt so rewarding even for a simplistic indie game, and gunning down unaware baddies is incredibly satisfying. Stocks of ammo in the game must be taken into consideration. This is because there is no reloading of weapons, starting the level with a pistol having a clip of 15 bullets and that’s it. Thankfully, the majority of bad guys drop a weapon upon dying, which is fully loaded.
The game also features a little story, starting with a tragicomic cutscene where Kowalski, a blue haired cop, finds a letter from his partner, leaving him. Kowalski then takes the coffee pot and throws it against the wall, only to break out into crying. The general feel of the story is an easy going one, which while having a serious note, are accompanied by funny and light hearted gameplay and characters. Talking of characters, in the menu before selecting a mission, the characters can be upgraded through XP earned after completing missions. XP is shared, and thus one can spend the whole XP on one character or split the pot evenly, since the skills are not shared like XP. These XP points can be spent to upgrade four abilities, namely Speed, Health, Damage and Clip Size. New weapons can also be bought with XP, but since there are so many available after killing enemies, it is more convenient ranking up characters first.
Being influenced by the 70s, the game’s soundtrack is what one would expect from a typical cop movie of the time. It is also extremely fitting and quite decent on its own, making for a nice retro-style music escapade for the time being. The game incorporating this style of visuals is also reminiscent of the period it is trying to resemble, and without even myself being part of that generation I can still imagine the game’s scenes being acted out in a movie, and all the while I cannot help myself thinking of the 1970s. A little touch which has stereotype stamped all over it is the donut being eaten while loading, which without the need for an explanation says itself that the subject of the game are cops.
Team17 have done it yet again, even though the credit must also be attributed to Modern Dream as well. Both studios managed to create quite the game here, which will appeal to fans of similar games, take Hotline Miami as a very close resemblance. Its gameplay being uncomplicated yet effective makes for a healthy mix which games are so badly desperate for these days, with the industry at times spawning atrocities which have terrible gameplay coupled with complex algorithms. LA Cops is definitely one game to try, and with the fame Team17 are earning lately, their time to shine is surely coming fast.
You must be logged in to post a comment.