PixlBit

Over this past summer, and even some after that, there were a lot of news stories about police officers not doing what they should be doing, and it caused a lot of heat.  Sometimes even in the form of riots.  While I’m sure that there are police officers who are corrupt and some who lie and make mistakes, I think the majority of officers are trying their best to do the right thing, and need our support.  But that’s just my personal opinion.  So to show my support, here’s a blog about my favorite police officers in video games, and I’ll also share some ways I helped support our local police force in real life.

So first let’s get the important stuff out of the way and I’ll share some ideas and things I did with my family this summer to help support local police.  The first thing we did was really easy and inexpensive to do.  We went to the dollar store and picked up bags of candy, chips, and other snacks like nuts and granola bars.  We also bought a container to put them in and a thank you card.  We then took the snacks out of the bags and put them in the container, along with the card.  Then we went to our local police station and left the candy with the people at the front desk, so that when the officers go out on their shifts, they can grab a snack or two on their way out.  What’s cool is that when we went to the police station, there was a local business there doing the same thing for them!  I also live close to where some of the police related riots were this summer, and I was glad to see a lot of churches were holding prayer vigils for the officers.  We went to one of those as well.  I’m sure there are lots of other ways to help support your local police, and if you know of any ideas, please share them in the comments section!

OK, now let’s take a look at some of my favorite police officer video game characters.  I wanted to just show police officer characters who were presented in a heroic and positive light, so no bad guy police officers here, like that one boss from Final Fight (did you know that when he spits out his gum before the battle, you can go pick it up to regain full health?  Eww!).  And as much as I like Sam & Max: Freelance Police, since those two characters brandish and shoot their guns with reckless and wanton abandon, and have some questionable moral ethics, I really couldn’t put them on this list either, even if they are still pretty hilarious.  Also, there may be some slight spoilers here and there, so you’ve been warned.  OK, on with the list!

10. Keystone Kelly (Keystone Kapers)

I don’t have very many good memories playing games on the Atari 2600, and I hate to say it, but I think one of the reasons is because a lot of them were just not very fun.  Even a lot of the arcade ports, I said I’d rather just play them in the arcade.  But there was one company that made good games left and right on the 2600, and that was Activision.  I knew of a few of them as a kid when I got an Atari 5200, like River Raid, but most of them I didn’t discover until they came out with the PS2 Activision Anthology, which was a fantastic collection of most of their 2600 games.  It’s one of the best compilations I can think of, and even rivals my favorite Namco Museums!  One of the games on there is Keystone Kapers.  You play as Keystone Kelly, a cop who must chase a robber through a department store.  You can climb three levels using the elevator and escalators, and must catch the robber before reaching the top.  You must jump and duck obstacles like shopping carts and other items, so it’s a bit like a fast-paced Donkey Kong.  But it controls well and is pretty fun, so he goes on the list.  What’s cool is that Garry Kitchen made Keystone Kapers, and he’s one of the of folks who helped found Activision along with David Crane (creator of Pitfall) and others.  What’s even cooler is that I got to meet Garry Kitchen (and David Crane), at the National Videogame Museum opening!

9. Chief Wiggum (Simpsons Road Rage)

Remember when I said that the police officers on this list were going to be presented in a positive light?  Well, I made an exception with this one because he’s just so darn funny.  One of my favorite games to play on the PS2 was Simpsons Road Rage.  Sure it was a blatant Crazy Taxi ripoff and SEGA probably had a right to sue, but the game was still fun and carried over a lot of the humor from the show.  My favorite character to play as in the game was Chief Wiggum, because his police car had a siren on it and he would say some funny stuff.  Like when he would pick up Snake the criminal, he’d say, “Hey, don’t I know you?”  I think aside from Wiggum’s son Ralph and Mr. Sparkle, Chief Wiggum is probably my favorite character from the show, too.  It would be cool if they would show him in a more positive light every now and then, but The Simpsons is a parody show so that’ll probably never happen.  Hopefully real police officers can take a joke at their own expense every now and then.

8. Patricia Wagon (Mighty Switch Force)

In this game you must catch some lady criminals in every stage, and you play as a female police officer named Patricia Wagon (get the joke in her name).  The game kind of reminds me of a more puzzle-filled Mega Man X, and it was made by WayForward, so it’s pretty good.  I never played the sequel, where Ms. Wagon is now a firefighter.  That would be a good blog idea, too, to make a list of firefighter video game characters (we support the local fire department, too).  But there just aren’t enough games where you get to play as a firefighter.

7. Lucia (Final Fight 3)

Back in the 90s, there were TONS of beat ‘em ups.  But while I did play a few, I missed out on a lot of them because at the time, I was more into 16-bit RPGs, and most of the beat ‘em ups on home consoles were not that good.  So I never played Final Fight 3.  I probably would now, though.  But I thought it was cool that one of the playable characters, Lucia, is a police officer.

6. Blaze (Streets of Rage series)

I’m not sure if she’s a retired cop or an undercover cop, as I don’t keep up with the stories in beat ‘em up games very well.  But she’s still cool and I pick her all the time when playing this game, so she goes on the list, too.  I never had a Genesis as a kid, so I was WAY late to the party with this game.  I didn’t even play it until it was on one of the collections on the Dreamcast, and that’s when I discovered how good the Streets of Rage games were.  They’re on par or even better than Final Fight (at least the console ones anyway).

5. Chun-Li (Street Fighter series)

Again, I don’t really keep up with the character storylines in fighting games, but Chun-Li is supposed to be an Interpol detective, right?  So that’s kind of a police officer, so she goes on the list, too.  It would be cool if they played up her police roots more in the games.  Maybe one of her alternate outfits could be a police uniform?  I bet she goes through a lot of uniform pants with those big ol’ muscle legs of hers.

4. Dick Gumshoe (Phoenix Wright)

The Phoenix Wright games are my favorite series on the DS, and I enjoy the 3DS ones, too.  I’m even playing the new one, Spirit of Justice, right now.  In the games you mostly play as Phoenix Wright, a lawyer.  You gather clues at crime scenes and then use those clues in a courtroom to catch witnesses in lies when you cross examine them.  Of course, you’ll come across a few obstacles in your investigations, and one of them is Dick Gumshoe.  He’s a detective, but he works for the police force so he goes on this list.  His boss is actually the prosecuting attorney, Phoenix’s rival, so Gumshoe’s not always going to help you.  But he’s so loveable and nice that you can’t help but like him anyway.  Gumshoe is always down on his luck, and sometimes makes mistakes, but he always gives it his all and tries to do the right thing, and that’s why he’s one of my favorite characters.  Only one I like better is the Blue Badger.  I thought about putting him on this list, but the Blue Badger’s just a police mascot, not as actual officer.  In one of the games, I thought it was cool they added a similar police character to Gumshoe in the form of Maggie Byrd, who kind of pairs up with Gumshoe.  So cute!  He deserves a girlfriend.  I wonder if he shows up in Spirit of Justice?  Also, he has a cool theme song.

3. Denise (The Misadventures of Tron Bonne)

I love love love this game.  I’m so sad we’ll never see Mega Man Legends 3 because we won’t be able to see further adventures of everyone’s favorite sky pirate, Tron Bonne.  Since you do play as a sky pirate in Tron’s own game, Officer Denise is actually your opponent most of the time.  But she tries so hard.  She can even judo throw you when you’re in your mech, and she’s just on the ground standing there.  Must be really strong!  I think it’s cool that by the end of the game, you actually end up helping Denise keep her job and catch an even bigger bad guy for her.  One time I came up with an idea for a sequel to The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, and it would be two-player simultaneous and the second player would control Denise.  I just think it would be funny to come up with scenarios where Tron and Denise have to work together, even though they’re on opposite sides of the law.

2. Waffle (Tail Concerto)

This is a forgotten PSOne gem that I also love a lot.  In the game you play as an anamorphic police dog named Waffle.  You pilot a mech around floating islands and you mostly capture naughty kittens and battle a trio of cat girl sky pirates.  It’s like playing a cartoon.  By the end of the game, you end up befriending the cat girl sky pirates and their kitten army, and work together to save the world.  It’s such a charming game.  Waffle and the other Tail Concerto main characters also appear in the DS sequel: Solatorobo, but only as side characters in optional missions.  But I’m still glad we got both games in the US!  For some reason, Tail Concerto also reminds me of Mappy, and speaking of which…

1. Mappy

Big surprise here, I know.  My favorite video game police officer is from a classic 80s Namco arcade game.  Interesting thing about Mappy, when it was brought over to the US, Namco gave Midway the choice to either publish it or Pole Position.  Midway chose Mappy because they had such big success with Pac-Man, they thought this cartoony game would be the next big thing.  So Atari got Pole Position and you can guess who got the better deal out of that. It’s a shame that Mappy wasn’t as big of a hit here, because it’s awesome!

You play as a police mouse named Mappy.  You know how we have slang terms for police like ‘cops.’  Well in Japan, one of their slang terms for police is “Mappo,” so that’s how Mappy got his name.  The game is kind of a mix of Pac-Man and a platformer.  Mappy chases a gang of cats into their hideout, and must retrieve the stolen treasures to move on to the next stage while avoiding the cats.  You can jump on trampolines and use doors and other objects to stun the cats.  There’s a really neat trick to boost your score exponentially.  The treasures you collect come in pairs, and if you can collect a pair in a row, you’ll get a score multiplier. Keep on doing this and the multiplier will go up.  So if you can collect the items in pairs and know which items score more, you can end up collecting the safes for 500 x5 points rather than just 500 points, for instance. 

Mappy got a few sequels as well.  One was Hopping Mappy in Japanese arcades.  You control Mappy on a pogo stick while hopping around in top-down viewed backyards while still avoiding cats and collecting treasures.  It’s really not that good, so you’re not missing out on much.  The NES got a few new Mappy games as well.  The first was Mappyland, which felt like more of a true Mappy sequel than Hopping Mappy.  I’m glad Mappyland made it to the US.  It was really fun and I rented it a few times as a kid.  Another Mappy NES game that stayed in Japan was Mappy Kids.  It’s a little odd.  You play as one of Mappy’s two kids, Happy or Rappy, and they compete with each other to win the heart of a girl mouse named Picky.  Gameplay is like a more competitive version of Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, as this game has a split screen for two players.  There’s a few reasons why it never came to the US, but I won’t go over them here.  If you want to learn more, you can find out yourself.  And finally, in the 90s Namco released some of their classics in arcades with “Arranged” versions with improved graphics and gameplay.  Mappy Arrangement played like the original game, but had a split screen mode for two players as well.  Sadly, Mappy Arrangement is one of the few titles in that collection that never got a home version.  It’s a shame because it’s really fun.  All Mappy games have cute and colorful graphics and catchy ragtime style music.

Mappy’s made cameos in other games, too.  Like Ridge Racer and tons more.  You’d think by now he’d have his own cartoon.  Well, he sort of had one on YouTube.  A few years ago, a web comic company called ShiftyLook published some web comics featuring Namco characters, and even made some YouTube cartoons with them.  The Mappy cartoon wasn’t much on animation, as it was mostly just still pictures while people talked, but it was still kind of funny and had a lot of other classic Namco characters in it, like Dig Dug and the Prince from Katamari Damacy.  Too bad that ShiftyLook went out of business, but I think you can still read the comics and cartoons online.  Well, I think I’ll stop jabbering about Mappy, I could probably make a whole blog out of him. 

Cop-clusions

And those are my top ten favorite police officer video game characters!  I couldn’t think of too many honorable mentions.  Is Jill Valentine a police officer?  I don’t know much about Resident Evil, and she does wear a police style uniform sometimes, but I don’t know if zombies are a part of police jurisdiction.  I guess zombies usually break the law at some point, though, so they probably would be.  I like calling her Jill Sandwich.  Only other one I could think of was Detective Carrie from Drill Dozer, but I think only three other people besides me played that one.  Anyway, in the comments section, let me know your favorite police officer game characters and if you have any ideas for helping your local police department!  --Cary