Rebel Cops

Review

The town of Ripton has been hijacked by a mastermind criminal known has Viktor Zuev. With the help of his stooges, he took over businesses and the local police, and runs Ripton as a forceful dictator.  Whoever doesn’t agree with his methods will pay the ultimate price (sounds like a lovely chap!).  Despite risking their lives, a small group of cops decide to take the fight to Viktor and liberate their town. With minimal weaponry and the financial help of a few courageous residents, they are the only ones who can defeat Viktor and his troops - they are known as the Rebel Cops!

Rebel Cops is a turn-based strategy game developed by Weappy Studio and published by THQ Nordic on the 18^th of September 2019 on Steam, and is also available on PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

The game consists of two modes of play, which are the Campaign and the Rebel Yell Mode. In the Rebel Yell mode, you’ll be given 4 cops with random skills and you’ll have to survive as long as you can against wave after wave of enemies. At the start of the Rebel Yell mode, your cops will be armed with a knife each and will have 3 turns to explore the map and pick up as many weapons, armour and other goodies as possible in order to stay alive.

In Campaign mode, the first thing you have to select is your level of difficulty. There are three levels of difficulty available to you: Hard, Normal and Relaxed. I am very familiar with this type of game and I must mention that Rebel Cops is pretty challenging on the normal difficulty. So, if this is your first time playing a turn-based strategy game, I recommend the relaxed mode first.

After selecting your difficulty level, you’ll be playing your first mission, which is a comprehensive tutorial and will take you around 20 minutes to conclude. From there on, it will not be to peachy, let me tell you. One of the reasons is that you’ll only have a certain number of saves available to you per mission (there is an option to have infinitive saves, but you must activate it at the start of the level). It took me a while to figure this out, and when I did, it was a blessing in disguise (and that’s coming from an avid turn-based strategy gamer). It is a challenging game!

You’ll be given an introduction before each mission, which comes in the form of pictures with a bit of reading, which will outline your main objectives. Then you’ll have to select and equip your cops for the next mission.  You’ll be low on weapons and ammunition, but you’ll have a small amount of money to spend at the unofficial gun shop, which will be located on the top left of your screen on the selection page. You might have one or more side objectives to select, too. These are mainly given by residents and have great rewards, such has guns, ammunition, armour and money, but also approval points if you manage to complete them. If you select one or more of these objectives and don’t complete them, not only will you miss out on needed equipment or money, but your approval will drop into the red too, which is not good at all. Be careful how many of these side objectives you are selecting, as you only have a maximum of 6 cops to utilise per mission. Another thing to know is that whoever you use on a mission, they will be tired for your next mission, and therefore might not be at his/her best if you decide to select him/her on the next mission.

In terms of the leveld, they vary in size and can be very tricky to finish, especially if you don’t allow unlimited saves. Some can be finished in 30 - 60 minutes, and others are literally hours of gameplay.

The trick to win a level is stealth, so try to equip your characters with knives and Cop batons. It’s also very important to have guns at your disposal in case you’ve been detected. If that’s the case, the enemy troops will come to them like flies on a s..t and you’ll smell death soon after. You can use a sniper to help you out, but it will take him three turns to recharge his weapon and he will be available from the third mission onwards.

Each of your cops will have two to three action points and each action or movement will cost you points. In some cases, you might need to have two cops working in tandem if you want to arrest an individual; one who hits the enemy on the head with a baton, and the other who handcuffs him. If your character has three action points you might be able to do it in one go, but it usually takes two turns to make an arrest. If you are successful in your arrest, you will receive rebel points, which you can accumulate and use through the command centre; there are six actions to choose from, which each have a cost attributed to them.

At the end of each mission, your cops will gain experience points and as soon as they reach 1000, they’ll level up, and so on and so forth. Every time they level up, you’ll be selecting one perk and one skill.

Very good graphics, and the soundtrack is pretty good too. In terms of controls, you can use your mouse or a gamepad if you wish. Personally, I prefer using my mouse. It’s the first game I’ve played from Weappy Studio and I must say that I am very impressed with Rebel Cops. This game is labelled by the developers to be unforgiving, and they are dead right!