Sometimes in this job, my decisions are easy. I see a game called COP BASTARD has released a demo, of course I download and play that demo. Simple.
The question, then, is whether there’s anything to it beyond a very good name. The answer: sort of?
Set in ’90s Japan, but seemingly taking most of its cues from Hong Kong action movies, COP BASTARD casts you as… well, a cop who’s kind of a bastard, having decided to just murder his way through an entire building full of criminals.
That makes for some agreeably retro shooter action—not quite boomer shooter, but certainly in an older realm of fast-paced, uncomplicated blasting. You enter a room, you shoot whoever’s in it, you hoover up ammo, and then you sprint into the next room.
Gunplay feels satisfying enough, with four punchy guns—handgun, shotgun, Uzi, and Dirty Harry-style revolver—but there’s not a lot of depth, and it’s hard to see where some might be introduced as the game goes on. There’s no tactical puzzle to the fights, or set of abilities to master, just pure duck hunting with Yakuza targets.
COP BASTARD’s strength is less in its action, and more in its uniquely strange atmosphere.
Visually it finds a really great look somewhere between fuzzy analogue video and low-poly FPS, and weirdly the two combine to create moments of striking realism. That is, until you notice the Max Payne-esque frozen grimaces on the bad guys’ faces. Muzzle flashes are huge and over-exposed, and dust kicks up as you fire—you really feel like you’re lighting up a room when you hold down the trigger. All together, it’s a look not quite like anything else I’ve played.
Beyond that, the game is just bursting with idiosyncrasies, and it’s not always easy to tell what’s deliberately off-kilter and what’s just rough around the edges.
Enemy barks are either deliberately or accidentally performed with exactly the cadence of a cheesy old movie dub. The only one of the guns that zooms in when you right click is, inexplicably, the revolver. The main objective of the demo level is just “Find way out from building”.
When you finish it, a chart shows exactly how many bullets hit you and where, allowing me to discover my cop had been shot 25 times in the head and 64 times in the right forearm during his rampage. He’s fine, he ate some bandages on the way.
My favourite is the rage meter which builds as you fight. Hitting the key to activate it, you might expect to go into bullet time, or perhaps enjoy a brief period of invincibility. Nope. Instead, you recover a weirdly tiny amount of health, and then your character just spits at whoever’s in front of him, to no effect.
Depending on how far the meter was filled, your cop may also say “his signature phrase”, though apparently he has a lot of those, like “Motherfucker”, “Another idiot thinking he’s better than me”, or “This place ain’t for losers like you”. He really is a bit of a bastard. Sorry, BASTARD.
It’s certainly a vibe, though I will say, it’s not a very culturally sensitive one. I’ve no idea of the nationality or background of solo developer Targim, but COP BASTARD certainly doesn’t read as authentically Japanese.
Between the very American guns, dodgy accents, and ongoing confusion about whether it’s actually pastiching Japanese or Hong Kong cinema (further tangled by two bad guys having a lengthy conversation about Hard Boiled), it doesn’t exactly feel well-researched. Let’s just say I wouldn’t put money on the Japanese text that occasionally flashes up being accurate.
That aside, there’s definitely something alluring about COP BASTARD’s brand of deep-fried retro weirdness. I do fear that in a full-length game, its shtick will quickly wear out its welcome, but I can’t say I’m not still very curious to see it. Certainly it sustains itself well enough for a 20 minute demo, and you can try it for yourself for free right now.
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