Beat Cop | a Review
originally published on 24/01/2025;
Hello everyone, I am the rough, but with a heart of gold, G.E.M.Simov, a policeman unlike any other - because I have principles. That aside, I've come to tell you about the days of a "Beat Cop".
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Beat Cop is a job simulator game that relies on clicking. It is very similar to “Papers: Please” in a very good way, and I must reiterate that this game is exclusively clicking.
The game board/field/screen is separated into two parts - the equipment part - that being the lower half of the screen - and ‘the beat’ part, which is the street on which the game’s activities take place.
The Player controls the Player Character (PC) by clicking. Clicking on the sidewalk (on the beat part of the screen) will prompt the PC to walk to that location. Double Clicking will make the PC sprint to that spot, though a rapidly depleting bar will show up over their head. If the bar runs out, the PC will stop and try to catch his breath, walking slower for a second afterwards.
Sprinting a lot, and performing other policeman duties, drains Stamina. The lower one’s Stamina, the faster the sprinting bar drains and the slower the PC moves around. Stamina can be recovered by eating Doughnuts (from the Doughnut shop), Hotdogs (from the Hotdog stall) or having a meal (at the diner). There are points in time when the Player can get a doughnut on the house, as well as a breakfast on the house, which essentially act as a free Stamina boost, but they take up a decent bit of time.
Time, ladies, gentlemen and N-bees, is what this game operates on. The game is split into 21 days, with each day starting at 8:00 in the morning and ending at 6:00 in the afternoon. The time is displayed on a watch, on the leftmost side of the equipment part of the screen, and goes up in increments of 5 minutes.
Sometimes one needs more time, other times one would rather have less time. That depends on the tasks for the day.
Prior to each day, a briefing will be held in the 69th (haha) Precinct’s briefing room, informing the Player of their tasks (APBs) for the day. The tasks generally involve writing tickets and, sometimes, something more spicy - like looking out for specific vehicles or arresting certain fellows.
That’s when time kicks in - the PC takes a bit of time to go from one end of the street to the other. In addition to that, not every car can be awarded with a ticket, as some are legally parked, which means that the Player will need to be on the look-out for illegally parked cars… Or would need to perform checks on the cars - be those checks ones for their tires or their lights. A check takes a bit of time, and can turn up with nothing, but it can also yield a broken light or a busted up tire. That’s when a ticket can be written up.
But why would the Player want to write that many tickets? Surely one can get 10 tickets in 10 hours, right? Well, one can do that, but there’s a bonus. If the Player doubles the ticket quota for the day, they get paid double. Yes, indeed - there’s finance to this game. Food, as an example, costs money. There’s also alimony that needs to be paid every few days, and alimony payments are HEAVY loads of cash getting taken off of the Player’s hands.
In addition to that, there are other ways of spending money, but let’s not spoil all of the game.
So, how does one write up a ticket? It’s quite simple. First, the Player clicks on a car, then the Player selects the ‘write ticket’ option (which sometimes does not react to the mouse hovering over it and requires multiple hovers to get it highlighted and, thus, make it clickable - that’s a bit of an issue), after which the ticket book on the equipment part of the screen will pop out and present the Player with the ticket.
The Player should mark off what the problem is, and there can be a multitude of them, and then click the buttons to write the Player Character’s name and his badge number in. Boom, ticket!
There’s also the option to tow a vehicle that’s parked incorrectly. By using the radio (walkie talkie) situated between the watch and the ticket book, the Player can call the tow truck and, after clicking the car eligible for towing (an incorrectly parked vehicle or a vehicle ticketed for parking violations), a tow truck will come over and collect the car.
Cars eligible for towing without a ticket are ones in front of fire hydrants. Makes sense, right?
Well, the game is full of this. There are robbers that decide to do their thing, and the Player needs to catch up to them and cuff them. That involves sprinting after the perp, who will be identifiable by his rapid movement and by the citizens shouting that it’s him, getting close enough to have an icon of handcuffs pop over his head, and making sure its green when the Player clicks the Handcuffs on their equipment bar (situated between the ticket book and the GUN).
Oh dear, I mentioned the gun. Yes, there are moments when the Player will have to take the direct-est form of action. When the gun glows in a blue outline, that’s when shooting can be done. Whip out the gun (by clicking it) and then observe as a rapidly moving horizontal indicator hovers over the target (who can be shot). Click when the indicator is over the perp and BANG! There’s a corpse.
There’s a surprisingly great amount of things to do in this game. Chatting with the shopkeepers, interacting with the Mafia AND the Gang, hitting it off with the drug dealers and the hobos, or ringing doorbells until someone responds - there really is a lot to do, and it’s all somewhat organic.
It really does convey the frantic feeling of a street in Brooklyn, I suppose. There’s something to do at all time, and sometimes it’s almost impossible to do. Then the Player gets used to the controls and learns how to recognize tells - improperly parked cars, as an example, have a tell. Normally, one would check the meter next to the car - by doing the interaction, clicking the car and selecting the option - but the game’s Presentation is so good that one can just look at the sprite of the meter and see that it’s red. That’s the tell, and that saves the Player time.
There’s a tell for broken lights, too, but it is a bit more difficult to spot. Broken lights flicker and give off sparks, so that saves the Player around 5, maybe 10 minutes of the day PER car, because the check ascertains whether each light is operational or not and it takes a bit.
It’s a fun game. It’s really enjoyable, but, well… I want to do everything. I want to get 100 with every one of the factions (the Police, the Mafia, the Crew(the Gang), and the People). But the way things are devised makes it either excruciatingly hard, and requiring of knowledge lacked by the first-time, or even second-time Player, thus urging promoting replaying the game…
But this game is not exactly like “Papers, Please”. It does not have the replay value of the aforementioned title. It is, frankly, always the same. The Player does the exact same maneuvers, over and over, the exact same thing, over and over. It is fun for the first play-through, and manageable in the second, but beyond that it grows annoying, rather than amusing or entertaining.
The novelty of learning these concepts and enjoying the wondrous behind-the-scenes glance at police work, even if idealized, wears off. Another annoying thing is that the last day/level, the 21st one, is the most intense… And features 4 endings, so it needs to be replayed 4 times, which is a tad too much.
I also feel the need to mention that the game has bugs. I encountered at least two during my Play-through, one of which was very problematic. I do not know if it would be appropriate to call it game breaking, but it resulted in loss of control of the PC and required a restart to resolve, which is a big issue.
With those things considered, ladies, gentlemen and N-bees, I'll have to say that it could have been better. 2/3
Presentation
Right off the bat, Beat Cop sets off to be a ‘buddy cop’ movie game about one of those good guy cops that deals with all the issues of the world. It’s presented in crisp pixel-art, with a very varied set of colors that makes almost everything stand out in a most appropriate manner, as well as look quite neat.
There’s the fact that everything is based on pixels - even the menus and journals and that kind of stuff - but the bigger a thing is, the more detailed it is, thus gaining a far more wondrous appearance, for detailed pixel-art is always a sight for sore eyes.
The game implores the Player to just have fun and not take life too seriously, which definitely applies to the game itself. Funnily enough, one of the first things the Player sees as they get to playing the game is a newspaper which states: “Workers of the world unite! The only thing you have to lose is your chains!” and, frankly, I find that quite interesting.
Regardless, this game does that a lot - there are phenomenal looking objects in the foreground, there are sublime looking things in the background, the mouse cursor changes to indicate to the Player what is going on - if they’re in a conversation, for example, the mouse cursor looks like a stopwatch, and they can’t use it for much. There’s a mighty fine blue outline to every interactable object, once the mouse cursor hovers over it, providing a very clear indication to what can and what can’t be interacted with.
That’s good presentation!
Not only that, but all the information the Player might need is available to them. Tasks for the day, the time, reputation, identification - it’s all there. That’s really cool, and it feels as though there’s a great deal of depth JUST from looking at the game, even if the Player has no idea what’s going on.
I feel the urge to keep saying ‘not only that’, because this game keeps on giving. Through interactions in the game, the Player gets information pertaining to how the game works, and it’s quite seamless, because the User Interface (UI) is almost diegetic.
Then, the way the day’s happenings are reflected at the end of a day is also really cool. The Player Character, the Main Character, Kelly, is essentially keeping a journal or, at least, taking notes, which notes get shown to the player. Also, he eats ramen, which is a bonus. The vibe is just so immaculate, I’ve got no words…
There’s a scene in which the one and only Kelly is cooking up some stuff with the Chinese brothers who run the dry wash, and that scene… Oh man, that scene is MAGNIFICENTLY presented. It had me screaming in laughter. Really, REALLY well presented. That’s the theme with most jokes - they actually tend to land. Some are just amusing, but others are real hits, and I really love that.
Beat Cop is crass and grimy, just like one would expect Brooklyn to be, and it’s absolutely stupendous. It leans heavily into stereotypes and representations that were popular in the media back in the 80s, since it is attempting to represent just that - the 80s cop ‘look’ shown to us in the movies.
The sound effects that the game offers pale in comparison to the visuals, and the same applies for the music that accompanies things… However, it is hard to match the look that Beat Cop manages to get. The fact of the matter is as follows: music and SFX are satisfactory. 3/3
Story
You’re a detective demoted/turned cop. Not just any cop, but a street (beat) cop. You are Jack Kelly, and you've got issues. Issues such as - stolen diamonds that you're being touted as having (you don't), a dead dude whose murder you've been framed for (you did it, but it was self defense and on the job), and also one other thing that you do or do not know about. The diamonds, some say, are the least of your worries, whatever that means.
So you're a beat cop now. The first day is, probably, one of the most eventful days one could have, and is a really good way of exploring 'the beat', as Kelly is given the task of meeting some people on the Beat - shopkeepers, mostly - but he can (and should) go and meet everyone on the Beat.
By doing so, the Player is introduced to a slew of interesting, and very varied, characters, going all the way from a pervert holding a porno store, through a suspiciously German druggist, past a flamboyantly gay boutique owner, right by an Italian pizzeria (no affiliation with the Mafia, trust us), to a totally legal pawn shop operated by what can only be described as a 'brother'.
The richness of character that is exhibited by most of these shopkeepers is very refreshing, especially after a vast blast of story-less games (yours truly has been busy). There's the paranoid Jewish fellow, there's the Russian guy selling liquor, there's the very striking tech shopkeeper, there's the friendly lady who runs the diner, and then the no-less friendly other lady who runs the doughnut store…
I've almost listed them all off, though my listing feels lackluster. Somehow, they had outstanding amounts of character. They were almost entirely fleshed out, perhaps as a result of the appearances of their stores, as well as what they sold, and their manners of expression, but even if they have few lines, they seem very plausible.
Naturally, there's a lot of stereotypes. This game heavily leans into that, most likely as a means of better encompassing the feel of the aforementioned 80s cop movies. Tango and Cash, that kind of stuff. Naturally, the 80s were a different time, when things were… Well, not all too great or too bad, but very lacking in tact, when related to people.
So I'd urge you to excuse the derogatory terms that get thrown around casually. It is what it is, I'll say, and then the way everything is so sharply portrayed, so obviously exaggerated and disproportional, it's evident that it is a caricature, a joke, even, a means of poking fun at what once was, even if it is also an homage.
So Kelly, being the tough dog that he is, already has a lot on his plate - do beat cop stuff, find the diamonds, clear his name - when things start going EVEN MORE haywire. The policeman giving him a tour - Fat Mike - gets gunned down in the street, right next to Kelly! Not only that, but more and more weird stuff keeps happening, more and more mysteries pop up.
Fortunately, these mysteries are mostly connected and lead into the main plot's resolution. In short - intrigue, corrupt officials (surprising, right? Only in fiction), courtesans and tapes.
Is it something groundbreaking? No. Does it work? Why, of course it does. The presentation helps a ton, but it really is a story that can stand on its feet… But is best served with all the other side-stories the game presents. The diner, the church, the porno store, the pizza store, the druggist - it's all really cool, really well slapped together and manages to keep the Player hooked through its use of wacky surprises. White, secret sauce. The donut man. The roach. The tape. The briefings right before the day begins!
So on and so forth - it's just grand!
Alas, there are some problems. The endings, mostly. There are many - around seven, maybe eight, if I am counting them right. One comes from getting Killed, one comes from running off to Mexico, one comes from failing to pay alimony to Kelly's divorced wife, one comes from being a very bad policeman and the other four are conclusions to the main plot.
There is, however, no difference in either of them. There's a screen that says: "Game Over", then there's the first page of a newspaper with a few lines of text regarding the events. Considering what leads up to the endings, and how there is an opening… cinematic, I was certain there would be more to the conclusion of Beat Cop's story, but there just wasn't. That quite soured the taste. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I'm going to go ahead and say YES, but that might not be for the reasons one would assume it is.
Beat Cop gave me an insight into what the Police should truly be for, rather than what it currently is for. Rather than the Police being an instrument of the State that serves as a means of suppression of entities created by the State's actions, the Police should be a solver of problems.
Have a Beat Cop, someone patrolling the street and making sure things are okay. If people have problems with one another, the Police comes and resolves them peacefully. The Police should be integrated into the community and should know the people they're serving and protecting, as should the people know their Policemen.
The Beat Cop should care for the well-being of the people living on their beat, and should be doing things to ensure that well-being remains present in their lives. Anyone down on his luck, the Beat Cop should be able to set on the right path, anyone uncertain of what to do or troubled should be able to get in touch with the Beat Cop and get some support, even if just moral.
The Police should be the heroes of the community, its guardians, but not because they are sent by some outside entity to protect it, but because it is their community and they are part of it and they want what's best for it. That kind of thing.
I saw, in Beat Cop, those things. How a Policeman can be more of a guard, keeping the peace, which extends beyond just making sure the laws are followed, how a Policeman can be that aforementioned hero, and how a Policeman can be a total nobody, faced against total nobodies, all on his own out for himself.
There's this word in my mother tongue, "Charshiya", which is applied for the street where all the artisan's workplaces are situated, which is the central street of a village or town. That's the Beat, and the Beat Cop makes sure it's safe…
But enough musing. You get that this game touched me (with consent), and I'm more than satisfied. 1/1
Conclusion
8/10. Beat Cop was something I was almost certain would be pleasant to experience, from just the screenshots on the Steam Store page alone. Turns out I was wrong, as it is a great experience, rather than just pleasant. I'd recommend it to everyone, for all it requires is a mouse and the ability to read. It's not complex, it's not monstrously difficult - it's a game meant for amusement, which is what games, ontologically, ought to be.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display. It is like a badge of office, almost, if the connotations it carried were less severe.