14 DAY TRIAL // 
Rebel Cops is Weappy Studio's latest game and a spinoff from This Is the Police, the series that made the developer known to the gaming industry. However, unlike either of the two This Is the Police games, Rebel Cops is a straightforward experience that doesn't require management skills, nor moral choices.
If you've played This Is the Police, this is a similar game stripped down by all other aspects except for the turn-based combat. The moral choices are limited to using lethal or non-lethal force when taking down an enemy, but they are merely reduced to decisions related to how you want to approach a mission from a tactical point of view.
The premise of the game is as generic as a cop flick's scenario: a Russian crime boss takes over a rural town paying off all cops or eliminating those who oppose him. The last stand for justice is a group of incorruptible cops, who resign from the police force and take it to the woods to try and retake Ripton from Viktor Zuev's clutches.
The road to victory is long and tedious, especially since your rebel cops are armed with the most basic weapons, and they have little financial resources to help improve their equipment. Luckily, the townsfolk can help with that if you perform well in your campaign and do some of their quests.
However, taking townsfolk quests and failing them will massively decrease their attitude towards your crusade and they will offer you fewer resources or nothing at all. On the other hand, splitting the loot at the end of a mission or completing side quests will increase the favorable attitude of the townsfolk towards you.
Money and resources aren't necessarily crucial for you troops, but having a helmet and a body armor greatly increases the survivability of you renegade cops. There are no hit points in Rebel Cops, which makes the game simpler than the likes of XCOM, but more unforgiving. Your rebel cops can be shot in the hand, leg, chest or head. If they don't wear protective equipment almost any injury means death.
A shot in the head means instadeath while getting hit in the chest lets you save the cop if you have a medkit and reach him in time. You have a minimum of three rounds to heal a cop hit in the chest, so it's recommended to keep your troops clustered rather than spread. When you're hit in the leg, you will no longer be able to move, while a shot that pierces your hand will prevent you from using weapons.
In Rebel Cops, being a rebel cop has only one but crucial benefit: stealth. Criminals can't see your cops if they are behind cover unless they approach from an angle that's not 100% covered. That offers your troops the upper hand and the possibility to choose how to approach every mission.
As long as your troops remain invisible, you don't need to use your fire weapons. You can simply hit the guards and criminals with your baton and then “arrest” them. Arresting an enemy makes it disappear from the battlefield completely, which is both ridiculous if you think about it, but also useful and simpler gameplay-wise. Once you're spotted prepare for hell, as most of the time the criminals will ask for reinforcements, so keep it low profile as long as you can.
The side quests that you're doing for the townsfolk aren't as easy as they might seem at first glance (i.e. liberate a kidnapped daughter, recuperate an Arcade machine). A lot of times these secondary objectives are far away on the battlefield and you'd have to divide your troops to manage to reach all of them in time.
You can only take six rebel cops with you in a mission, but after each one your team must rest, otherwise, they will be less effective. This means that you'll alternate between two teams throughout the entire game. As your troops gain experience, you'll be able to improve one of their three skills: strength, shooting, and speed.
Rebel Cops uses a buddy system that allows your cops to avoid being surprised by an enemy they don't see. If two cops are near, they will cover each other, so when one of them moves in the direction of an unseen enemy, the other one will warn him and you'll have the option to continue or stop moving.
The Good
- Inspired setting
- Beautiful cartoonish art style
- Great soundtrack
The Bad
- The uninspired story, full of cliches
- A stealthy approach is mandatory
- Barebone combat system
Conclusion
The game doesn't have too many missions, but prepare to spend a lot of time on some of them. Of course, being a short game isn't a bad thing, but having to spend hours on a single mission is a bad design choice. Also, there aren't enough gameplay mechanics to keep you invested in the game throughout the entire campaign.
Despite its many shortcomings, the few interesting ideas that the game brings up, as well as the beautiful art direction and surprisingly good soundtrack, save Rebel Cops from mediocrity.
