Gun recoil (or kickback) has often been viewed as a negative in gaming; something that, through the application of unlockable perks, can be lessened or even eliminated entirely. Yet with Shotgun Cop Man, recoil is fundamental to both combat and traversal.
Created by Swedish developer DeadToast Entertainment (Victor Ågren), Shotgun Cop Man is, quite simply, the studio’s most accomplished work so far. It’s a more back-to-basics affair compared to My Friend Pedro, but the resulting gameplay is just as frenetic and satisfying as anything you might find in Super Meat Boy or Celeste.
You play as the eponymous Shotgun Cop Man who, five years after his training, is sent to Hell to arrest Satan. That’s pretty much the entirety of the story right there. In fact, when you transition between worlds, there are brief cutscenes in which Shotgun Cop Man and Satan cross paths, though each interaction is limited to the former demanding Satan’s surrender, while the Prince of Darkness himself simply flips the bird and flies off.
It’s a funny game, then, and this is perfectly encapsulated in the gameplay itself. By default, you wield both a shotgun and a pistol, though you can swap out the latter for different weaponry discovered on the fly. Traversal is tied directly to your shotgun: utilising a simple twin-stick setup, you aim with the right stick, fire, and the recoil will send you flying off in the opposite direction.
So by firing your shotgun, you’re able to move through the stage and also wipe out any enemies that happen to be in your way. This alone will not be adequate for most scenarios, however, so it’s important to utilise both of your weapons at the same time. Your pistol (or Uzi, sawn-off, minigun, flamethrower, whatever you happen to have on you at the time) generally provides a faster rate of fire along with a much smaller recoil that can help you dodge incoming fire.
Firing your secondary weapon also allows you to remain airborne for a short time, with each successful kill reloading your shotgun ammo by one. To be clear, you have unlimited ammo at all times, but you can only fire your shotgun three times before you need to reload. Unless you’re able to kill an enemy and thus keep the ‘combo’ going, you’ll have to land on the ground, which is fine and dandy for the most part, but not if it’s riddled with circular saws flying back and forth.
It might sound bonkers, but what’s impressive about Shotgun Cop Man is how effortlessly everything falls into place. It’s a pretty forgiving experience and, in the earlier levels in particular, you can generally survive by simply firing your guns in every direction and hoping for the best. But when the environments get more complex, you’re forced to take more considered actions and work your way through the stages in the most optimal way.
The game encourages this by introducing optional objectives. You can get through each stage in whatever way you see fit, but to fully ‘complete’ them, you’ll have to beat each within a certain time, kill every enemy, and do it all without taking damage. Focusing on these really makes Shotgun Cop Man sing, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing each objective get ticked off at the end of each level. In short, if you like methodically wiping out every enemy in Hotline Miami, then you’ll feel right at home here.
But what if you do get hit? Well, thankfully, DeadToast lets you get out of most sticky situations if you happen to catch a bullet here and there. If you get shot once, your heart will fly out of your body and remain suspended in the air, slowly making its way back to Shotgun Cop Man. If you manage to grab it, then you’ll be back up to full health, but take another shot while heartless, and you’ll die and revert to one of the stage’s many generous checkpoints. Heck, even this is funny, though, as each death scene sees the camera zoom in on Shotgun Cop Man’s face as he sadly exclaims, “I DIE.”
With nine worlds containing a total of 17 stages each, there’s plenty to be getting on with. Each world also ends with a boss fight, and these can really test your skills with creatures that morph into various forms, spawn standard enemies at will, and teleport around the arena at high speed. Once you get used to how the game controls, however, you’ll find that most encounters won’t prove overly difficult. To reiterate, it’s nailing those optional objectives that provides the most challenge, yet thanks to the remarkably satisfying gameplay, you’ll be gagging to replay levels over and over again to achieve 100% completion.
In terms of presentation, Shotgun Cop Man takes a lot of inspiration from Super Meat Boy with its visuals. It boasts small character sprites and a wide view of the action, which is good for scoping out incoming threats. That said, the actual environmental design can be a little bit samey, utilising an industrial theme that makes the stages look like they belong in an underground nightclub.
Speaking of which, the music would also be quite at home in a nightclub, with a thumping bass track accompanying you throughout the entire game. It really gets your blood pumping, and coupled with the bombastic sound effects from your guns and the splatter of blood from your enemies, it makes for an experience that Michael Mann would approve of. When you get hit and lose your heart, the audio becomes muffled, almost like you’ve been plunged underwater; it’s a really cool little quirk, and a good way to know that you’re in danger.
Finally, performance on Switch is generally rock solid. There may be rare occasions when you’re blasting away rubble or you’re surrounded by enemies all firing at the same time that the frame rate drops ever so slightly, but it’s never enough to dampen the experience. Similarly, load times are almost non-existent, with death or level transitions practically seamless. It’s an incredibly polished game, and we sincerely hope to see more from Shotgun Cop Man in the future.
Conclusion
Shotgun Cop Man can easily stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Super Meat Boy and Celeste in terms of raw, precise gameplay. Using your guns for both traversal and combat with a simple but effective twin-stick setup is a stroke of genius, and it makes for an effortlessly rewarding experience that you’ll want to play again and again. While not overly difficult in itself, nailing the optional objectives is key to achieving 100% completion, and it’s here that you’ll find challenge and satisfaction in equal measure. It’s funny, it’s violent, and it’s polished – and we suspect it will go down as a cult classic.
