When comparing Corpse Party vs Beat Cop, the Slant community recommends Beat Cop for most people. In the question“What are the best indie games on Steam?” Beat Cop is ranked 35th while Corpse Party is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Beat Cop is:
Even if it's set 30 years ago, Beat Cop manages to make a statement about issues relevant today. Problems like race, police brutality, and corruption are dealt with with a good dose of satire and introspection. It throws the player into a hostile environment and asks them to make important decisions under extremely high pressure and difficulty where doing something immoral is often seen as the simplest and fastest way of reaching your goals. The quota-based system is reminiscent of the statistics-based systems many countries employ to measure a cop's performance. This blurs the line between moral and immoral choices. Do you choose to take the high road? Or do you make an immoral choice in order to reach your goals faster? This way, Beat Cop shines a light on the many difficulties policemen have to address every day and the game does so while remaining impartial and without throwing needless accusations around.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Deep interactive storied gameplay
While there are no battles in the game (as one would expect from the RPG look of the title), the game does feature a deep interactive story that sees the player control different characters in different horror scenarios. Throughout the game you will be searching for clues and investigating mysterious events. The choices made throughout the game will affect the outcome, which makes for not only a good reason to replay the title but also a unique way to explore the story being told.
Pro Minimal style creates tension through imagination
Corpse Party is based off of an old release from 1998 that was created with RPG Maker. This port uses that design and as such has a lot of text and sound effects due to not being designed around flashy graphics. This means the text and sound effects are what creates the atmosphere of horror in the game, which makes the player use their imagination to fill in the blanks of what is happening. This can actually work out to even more horrific scenarios when imagined over just being shown, which makes for an old school feel that requires the player be invested in order to get the most out of the game.
Pro Never becomes too unnerving
While the plot of the game can be quite heavy and scary, there are times where the tension eases up (when exploring) as the music takes a lighter tone. This gives the player a much needed break from how unsettling the game can be.
Pro Deals with relevant issues
Even if it's set 30 years ago, Beat Cop manages to make a statement about issues relevant today. Problems like race, police brutality, and corruption are dealt with with a good dose of satire and introspection. It throws the player into a hostile environment and asks them to make important decisions under extremely high pressure and difficulty where doing something immoral is often seen as the simplest and fastest way of reaching your goals.
The quota-based system is reminiscent of the statistics-based systems many countries employ to measure a cop's performance. This blurs the line between moral and immoral choices. Do you choose to take the high road? Or do you make an immoral choice in order to reach your goals faster? This way, Beat Cop shines a light on the many difficulties policemen have to address every day and the game does so while remaining impartial and without throwing needless accusations around.
Pro Players are required to make meaningful decisions that have meaningful consequences
In order to progress in the game, players have to make a variety of difficult decisions. For example, accepting a bribe may improve your relations with the Mafia but reduce your overall reputation with your fellow police officers. You can choose to play a good cop that plays by the rules, but it's not easy. You can issue tickets even for cars that are not breaking any laws, but those tickets count towards your daily ticket quota. Issuing them may have long-term consequences.
In order to reach their daily goals, the player must make the choice they think will get them closer to it. Whether that is the moral choice or not is entirely up to the player themselves. The right choice will reward the player, the wrong choice however can greatly penalize and set them back.
Pro Perfectly captures the feel of classic cop shows and movies
Beat Cop successfully captures the general feel of '80s shows and movies about cops. It's got all the stereotypes people find and enjoy in those shows and movies. All the cliches make it seem like it's straight out of Miami Vice.
Cons
Con Overly familiar premise
For those familiar with Japanese horror games, the plot in Corpse Party should be pretty familiar. A group of school kids have accidentally performed an occult ritual and are now stuck in a haunted school trying to solve the mystery of who is killing off their friends. Basically, a haunted school horror RPG. While the gameplay is pretty good, making an effort to present a solid package, the plot itself is pretty hum drum and will be all too familiar for many.
Con Can fetishize violence
One thing that is a bit unsettling about the game is how much it fetishsizes the violence contained within. This may take the games violence a bit too far for the player due to how it often presents it in a unrealistic light.
Con In-game time management could have been handled a bit better
Five minutes in-game are equivalent to a couple of real-world seconds. This makes time go awfully quickly in Beat Cop. The idea is that time needs to go quickly in order for the player to strategize and think hard about which choices they will make during a single day. This fact is further emphasized by NPCs repeating again and again that you will not be able to complete all of your tasks. The problem is that it's perfectly possible to complete all given tasks in even such a small timeframe.
You have a daily minimum number of tickets you have to write, if you reach double of your daily quota the game will reward you for that. But because in-game time management is poor, it's quite easy to even quadruple your daily quota which seems to not have been predicted by the game creators since the game gives no rewards whatsoever for reaching more than double your ticket quota.