Reviews

A fast-and-furious shooter reminiscent of the old Shoot-Out Data East coin-op. As a cop you have to dispatch a number of baddies before proceeding to the next screen - there are 10 in total, then the game goes back to the first one. You move along dodging bullets and Molotov cocktails; if you keep Fire pressed you move a crosshair around, which you should use to aim at your enemies.

Graphics are a little basic but clear and colorful with not so much color clash; sound is adequate; gameplay is frantic. A good game to kill a few hours indeed.

by Raffaele Cecco

This was the second Raffaele Cecco's game to be published, after Equinox, and about which the programmer himself said: "I agreed to do it for Mikro-Gen after I stopped being employed full-time with them. It really was not too good, I did it especially for the money, if I'm honest. It was based on a game I saw in an arcade." - but I say that it can be "not that good", but it's not even that bad. It's a sort of point and shoot game like Cabal, the arcade game that Ocean will convert for the Spectrum in 1989, only in an urban environment, and with lots of birds. There's a constant hail of bullets and explosive bullets from figures peeping briefly from the windows and from behind secluded spots, and it's really difficult to manage to hit them and to avoid their shooting at the same time - you must stay constantly concentrated, and have an eye for every moving pixel in the screen. Luckily it's not completely impossible and there's quite a bit of enjoyment obtainable from the game. The presentation is very good, as you would expect from Cecco, with a very nice rendition of the classic ragtime "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin, famous for having been used in The Sting movie, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, in the seventies. So, it's ok, just don't expect variety or depth, or a long-lasting appeal.
3,5/5

A copper shoot-out, nicely presented, but a bit on the hard side. You move your officer from side to side like in Kane and also move a target in all directions to specify where to shoot. This obviously takes a bit of pratice to begin with and get the hang of it, but still it's not the best method of target praticing.
You must avoid enemy fire while dispatching a number of law transgressors to move along the 10 different screens. This can be quite challenging because enemies use multiple shoots. Still it's totally possible to reach the end of the game.
Personally I prefer Mastertronic's Kane released in 1986, which has a Far West theme to it and also features horse riding and other things, but Cop-Out is also a nice title.

Oh Raffaele Cecco, one of the finest programmers in the Spectrum's history, giving us gems such as Equinox, Exolon and Cybernoid, and then also this. It's based on an old arcade game, Shoot-Out I believe, except you're a cop and not a cowboy, hence the name. It's as colourful as you'd expect from a Cecco game, but man it's bloody tough. Bullets and cocktails come from all directions and having to dodge them all as well as shoot your targets with the crosshair is quite a challenge. So yes, just to recap, you have to move your cop to avoid the enemy's fire AND move your crosshair to shoot them, I mean it worked in Cabal but this is no Cabal and it certainly does not work here, not in the slightest. And now I feel like a rambling old git by criticising the work of a man revered by the Speccy faithful over a game that's celebrated among his other classic work, oh wait it isn't. Nope this one has been pretty much forgotten about and perhaps for good reason. In fact the man said so himself going by Cruel's review, saying "it really was not too good" and that he did it "especially for the money". And you know what? He was right. Stick to Equinox and Exolon rather than this.