Although it’s one of two games releasing in May that involve a trip to the fiery pits of Hell with an arsenal of big fucking guns on your hip, it was through Shotgun Cop Man’s simple conceit that my interest grew. Crashing through the underworld’s blood-red hellscape to slap cuffs on Satan’s crusty ass is enough to get me in a seat, however, it’s through the game’s irresistible, moreish gun-propelled platforming that Shotgun Cop Man stands out as an unexpected afternoon of fun.
From the creators of My Friend is Pedro, which is also built on the back of similar spasmodic movement ideas, Shotgun Cop Man makes an exceptional case for less is more. It has a minimalist approach to its art design, with the titular lawman appearing as a jacket-clad white cube against a largely brown and red background. It’s through this uncomplicated look that Shotgun Cop Man, being a precision platformer, remains readable and unfettered by too much happening on-screen.
Shotgun Cop Man himself is rather slow on foot and, at the start, relies solely on his handgun to propel him through the game’s nearly couple hundred stages. It all abides by Newton’s third law of motion, being action and reaction, as you’re sent hurdling unchecked through the air opposite to where you’ve fired. The greater the force, the further you’ll go. It’s like having a double jump mechanic, except you’re limited to whatever your clip holds. Touching back down on the ground and absorbing a brief second of vulnerability prompts an automatic reload. With a full 360° range of motion around the character, you’ve got enormous freedom of movement. I mostly played with a controller, which, surprisingly, was advised against, and I found the onboarding to be fine even if the learning curve still felt a little steep.
By the time I’d locked in, however, it all became second nature. The lower down into Hell’s depths you sink, the tougher things become, although I never did feel like it was unfair. The level design, with all of its traps and trials, reminded me a lot of Super Meat Boy, which I have to imagine was an inspiration for the team.
Across nine realms and over 150 levels, the game also never fell into a rut, thanks in large part to frequent challenge rooms that test your mastery of the game’s movement, boss battles, as well as its ceaseless introduction of new elements to get players guessing. Whether it’s a simple switch that’ll flip a laser grid’s configuration, platforms that disappear once shot, or brutal enemies that emerge from the walls and pursue you, leading to tense chases throughout these minute-long levels.
Due to several of the game’s levels being bite-sized and extremely short, I did roll credits on Shotgun Cop Man in about five hours. You could easily leave it there, or you could double that play-time by going after each level’s accolades, whether it’s all kills, besting the speed run, going through undamaged, or the pinnacle goal, which is to achieve all of those in one run. I naturally managed a few of these throughout my time with the game, and it’s enormously satisfying to hit that flow state and emerge almost unsure of how you managed what you did. It’s like highway hypnosis, in a sense.
Of course, the game’s legs are even longer than that, as the user-generated content available via the level editor is hopefully a way Shotgun Cop Man can enjoy a longer life cycle than its sold-in campaign should warrant. As a means for creating content, it’s pared back and basic but that’s in keeping with the game itself, it’s also a lot of fun to recreate some real bullshit bullet hell levels that the main campaign was perhaps missing. I’m hoping the stuff people end up churning out gets to Cloudberry Kingdom levels of busy, because Shotgun Cop Man has a similar white knuckle energy to it when it’s in full flight.
I did encounter a rather small, probably infrequent, bug when tinkering with the toolset. I attempted to playtest a stage I’d been filling out. I hadn’t realised I’d erased the starting point, spawned into the innards of a solid block, and got caught in an “I… die!” and respawn loop that could only be resolved by a force restart. As with most other odd things in Shotgun Cop Man, I found it funny more than anything.
The game has a sense of humour that I’d describe as present without being overt. Its story is skin deep and extends no further than the fact you’re a law enforcer pursuing Satan through ever-deepening layers of Hell, only to be met with an “f-you” and a middle finger from the Prince of Darkness himself. It’s to be expected in a game like this, though, which is very gameplay-first, so I can’t be miffed by how non-existent the narrative is.
Although it has a very unique approach to player movement, Shotgun Cop Man is very much a ‘by the template’ platformer. Even its most prolific peers, like Super Meat Boy, prioritise fleeting fun over all else, though I’d argue this game is characteristically underbaked in terms of its shipped content. Over one hundred levels might sound a lot, but once credits crawl by after only four hours and no in-vogue, harder redux of the campaign presents, it becomes clear that Shotgun Cop Man, as fun as it can be, doesn’t have the sauce like others that have come before it.
