LA Cops
Review
Starsky and Hutch meets Syndicate
by William Thompson
reviewed on PC
Ammunition
Once a perpetrator has been shot or arrested, their weapon can be seized and used by the police. With a handful of weapon types, LA Cops is no Borderlands, but it does mean that ammo is fairly easy to find. Unfortunately, your two cops are only limited to the one clip each, so there are times when you can run out of ammo if you don’t keep an eye on how many bullets remain. It pays to keep an eye on the health bar of each of your characters too, as they can only be increased by finding and consuming...wait for it... donuts. Hilarious.
Controlling your duo is really simple. The usual WASD controls the movement, which can feel awkward at time in the isometric settings. As mentioned though, the isometric view can be rotated to suit at the touch of a button (Q and E, by default). Aiming and directing your partner is all controlled by the mouse, which works extremely well. There is also an automatic target function that enables your character to lock onto the closest crim, although on the hardest difficulty setting, this feature is removed. Unfortunately, there were times when the aiming didn’t seem to be working properly unless the auto-targeting was used. On one particular level, I had the aiming reticule aimed right at a henchman only for the shot to miss altogether. Of course, the sound alerted nearby felons and both characters health bars were then severely depleted.
A RPG like feature kicks in after completing each mission when you are awarded a score based on your performance. Depending on the quality of the performance, XP is gained. The XP points can then be used to improve character’s abilities or purchase other weaponry to begin missions with. There are five weapons to choose from and each have their merits. The shotgun, for instance only has eight cartridges, but they are great at short range.
Police Sirens
The background track is super cool; it has a somewhat Rage Against the Machine sound to it. Although it probably doesn’t fit in with the 70’s retro design, the menu screen music does perfectly. So too does the voice acting, with shouts of “Cover me”, “Officer down” and “I’m going in”, lettering the levels. Although the dialogue does get repetitive fairly early on, it never grates. The other sound effects are pretty standard, but do a great job of keeping the atmosphere alive. As does the great visual style. The flared pants, the oversized sunglasses and the 70’s moustaches are in abundance in a retro cartoon style, not dissimilar to the classic, Another World. The settings themselves have a distinctly early 90’s feel with basic rooms filled with limited backgrounds, but it could have something to do with the isometric design.
Retro
LA Cops is a heap of fun. And although the missions are all somewhat similar, they are a joy to complete. The eight main storyline missions (and five side missions) have some replayability due to the three difficulty levels. Enemies simply do more damage on the harder levels and the targeting function is turned off in the Nightmare mode. The controls work well apart from the aiming issue that happened on a couple of occasions. But the visual design is wonderful and combined with the voice acting and background music, gives LA Cops a wonderful retro feel. In all, for less than 12 bucks, this one is a steal.
7.3
fun score
Pros
Cool audio and visual style
Cons
Occasional issues with aiming, repetitive dialogue
