Cop Review

Interactive pixel hunters have been very hit or miss over the course of gaming history. Some of the most popular games of all time have been pixel hunters, but lately the gaming community has been moving away from the genre because of its lack of playability. As much as people like figuring out puzzles and completing stories, they like blowing things up with Rambo-like inventories more. This isn't to say that pixel hunters are bad, but I will go as far as saying that they need to be exceptional for the gaming community to take notice.

Cop - The Case of the Cloned Beauty Queen is unfortunately not in the exceptional category. The problem lies with the control system, as it was definitely not made for the iPhone. Exhibit A is the mouse cursor that you must use to interact with items in the game. Say you want to search through a trash can, instead of just touching it, you have to drag the cursor over to it and then touch the screen like it is a mouse click. Nothin in the world annoys me more than fake mouse cursors on my beautiful retina display.

Past the obvious control issue, the game feels like a cross between Leisure Suit Larry and the Pink Panther. You play a doting cop who "brought no skills to the station but the flu." Because you are the last cop available, you are assigned to the case of the cloned beauty queen. Throughout the game you travel through 50 settings and interact with numerous characters. The characters are all vibrant and rich, but they all have sub 65 IQ's. If you don't like slapstick dialogue, this game definitely isn't for you.

At the end of the day, Cop seems like a low to middling budget point and click adventure that is deeply scarred by a miserable control system. If you are a huge fan of the genre you'll probably get a kick out of the acceptably tedious puzzles, but the rest of the gamers should probably just stay home. Spend the few hours that you'd be playing Cop paying attention to your friends and family; you'll be happier.