Police Week: Beat Cop

Beat Cop’s setting might be cosy – one short street in a fictional US city – but there’s nothing pipe and slippers about its storyline, dialogue, and choices. How did you start the day? Me, before breakfast I stuffed dope-filled suppositories up the arse of a junkie priest in a piss-perfumed alleyway.

Inspired by classic Eighties cop shows like Hill Street Blues, £10 Beat Cop somehow manages to be mature and juvenile, cliched and real, bleak and life-affirming all at the same time. The main character, Jack Kelly, a disgraced detective forced back into uniform by a scandal with murky political dimensions, navigates a world awash with drugs, violence, corruption, racism, and sexism, but vivacious in a way few game worlds are.

Simply pounding your side-scrolling beat, taking in the sights and sounds is a pleasure. Beautifully observed and animated details abound. Period fashions, rhythms, automobiles, and attitudes flow past in a never-ending stream. Periodically, flocks of pigeons take flight, spattering the sidewalk with their guano. Stray cats roam, sirens wail, boomboxes boom, breakdancers gyrate and robot, while above, here and there at open apartment windows, locals look on indifferently.

The surroundings are so lovingly crafted, I kinda wish there was more time to drink them in during an average shift. Usually you’re so busy ticketing vehicles, chasing up leads, apprehending perps, and dealing with the game’s rival criminal factions – the Mafia and the Crew – there’s barely time to grab a stamina-boosting donut or hotdog, let alone stand and steep for a spell.

Once on the street, most actions are executed with mouse-clicks. Click on a door to enter a store or apartment block. Click on a vehicle to check its tires, search its trunk, or slap a ticket on its windshield. Click in the vicinity/direction of a thief or graffiti artist to chase them down. In the first three hours of the story I think I used my mouse-aimed revolver just once.

Each day not only are there unique police department targets to meet (Issue X parking tickets… deal with incident Y… find suspicious vehicle Z…), you must be careful not to make yourself too unpopular with the local hoods and civvies. Generally, there’s also an opportunity to quietly investigate the events that led to your demotion.

Failing to meet PD goals leads to docked pay, and light pay packets can – assuming you never bend rules or take bungs – eventually trigger an early bath. Somewhat improbably, Officer Kelly gets sacked if he fails to meet his alimony payments.

I love the way Beat Cop is constantly testing my probity. Want these donuts on the house? Willing to forget that parking infraction? Prepared to turn a blind eye to yonder hooker or pusher? It’s very easy to start out with noble intentions, then wind up straying from the straight and narrow as alimony day nears, or the thinly veiled death threats start appearing. Several times yesterday, I found myself scanning my surroundings for potential FBI men before doing something dubious yet ‘necessary’.

Besides thought-provoking decision-making and evocative environments, this absorbing one-off also has quality banter in its armoury. Listening to your fellow officers wisecrack, gripe, and sledge in the briefing room prior to a shift is totally optional, but the exchanges are so reminiscent of the cop shows of my youth, I’m loath to skip them.

Beat Cop also has a genuinely intriguing story twined like an escaped python through its grubby shrubbery. Where are the senator’s diamonds and were the slugs that slew ***** meant for someone else? I genuinely want answers. Chapeau, Pixel Crow!