Undercover Cops

The Good
Most gamers remember the Japanese company Irem for its legendary R-Type series, which was released for a variety of platforms, both computer- and console-based. They also released other arcade games that you may not heard of, including Undercover Cops. Released in 1992 and running on the M-92 hardware, it was the company's answer to Final Fight. The game received a port to the Super Famicom thanks to Varie.

When New York is in a grip of a crime wave in the year 2043 thanks to Dr. Clayborn and his army of thugs, Commissioner Gordon sends three of the finest city sweepers to restore law and order to the city. As a person who has played Capcom's beat-em-up many times, the game shares the same gameplay mechanics. As well as fighting enemies with your bare fists, you can also pick up weapons, either found lying on the ground or in objects such as barrels; and as usual with any beat-em-up in the Nineties, you deal with a boss at the end of the game's five stages, with my favorite boss is Francoise, the dominatrix who cries a lot when her health meter is half-empty.

A nice little touch to the game include the ability to pull certain objects out of the ground such as I-Beams and girders, and use these to deal far more damage to enemies. (With the I-Beams, you get to watch them deteriorate as you beat up numerous enemies.) Another little touch is eating animals to boost your life/special attack.

The game's five stages have some variety to them. The first stage is set on a beach that eventually leads to an elevator, then you arrive at the plane where you need to defeat Clayborn. The highlight is fighting the first boss near the elevator, and trying to lure him into the shaft so you take a large chunk of his life way when he is crushed. Due to the SFC's power, some animations are omitted, such as the large pipe jetting water out into the ocean. Your characters and enemies have good animations, and I like how your character performs a special attack and how they struggle to pull an object out.

The characters are beefy and there are huge sprites in almost every level. The music and sound effects match those of the original coin-op version, complete with the vocals in the background. Like any console-based game in the Nineties, you can choose to listen to all the game's music and sound effects before you actually play the game.

The Bad
There seems to be a considerable amount of slowdown when too many sprites fill the screen.

The Bottom Line
Undercover Cops is an overlooked title that was designed to complete with other beat-em-ups like FF and Streets of Rage 2. It is a very good game, but with noticeable slowdowns. However, unlike the more superior coin-op version, the SNES version was only available in Japan. If you live outside the country, you can get your hands on FF instead.