C.O.P.: The Recruit

C.O.P. The Recruit may not be a GTA killer, but it it's not a hopeless GTA wannabe either. Its unique shooting controls and its mission variety make this game worthy to check out.

In spite of some minor glitches and the DS’ obvious technical limitations, C.O.P. The Recruit offers a rich and enjoyable gameplay alongside a sandbox structure, and a living and breathing virtual world.

While not nearly as groundbreaking as it's console-based role models, Ubisoft's C.O.P. The Recruit serves as a solid sandbox title with some incredibly fun gameplay and inventive shooting and stealth scenarios.

There is a lot of combat and, overall, COP is good, it just lacks some of the elements that pull you deeper into the world.

It has a few design flaws that detract from the gameplay, particularly in terms of simple usability, and to tell the truth there’s not really a huge amount of originality on display. If you’ve played any open world GTA off-shoot in the past ten years you’ll find little in C.O.P. to surprise you, but if you’re after a less-adult title in the genre then C.O.P.

A decent stab at a GTA style game but it lacks choice and that essential feeling of life. [Christmas 2009, p.73]

Ubisoft fails to deliver a solid alternative option to GTA.

A great idea in theory but in practice it's just not as much fun being the good guy.

It’s a decent enough game that has the ability to keep your interest for a while, but there are enough flaws with it that it isn’t worth a purchase.

If you're looking for a somewhat fun action, you could do worse than C.O.P the Recruit. The shooting controls needed work, and it would've been nice to have a multiplayer mode, but this is one police story worth listening to.

The game offers an amazing graphic and a pretty good storyline, but the shooting controls are seriously too frustrating to entertain the players until the end titles.

The core problem with C.O.P. is that it is unfinished. The “dramatic” story is comical: there is a large cast of characters that I don't know anything about nor do I care to, and the plot is confounding and hard to follow. The gameplay is unpolished: driving isn't fun and gunplay is defective. The sound is just not good.

If you were hoping to get a decent GTA clone out of C.O.P., prepare to be disappointed. It's a pretty big letdown from the action-packed trailer that was shown at last year's E3, and it certainly doesn't deserve a second glance from most DS owners.

A lot of unused potential will even let hardcore GTA fans feel this game as less then average.

From a technical standpoint, C.O.P.:The Recruit is very impressive and tech-heads may find it worth checking out if only to see how smoothly it runs with such a large environment at play.

C.O.P. The Recruit's greatest achievement is a technical one. To deliver a GTA-like city in 3D on the DS is something we didn't believe was possible. It's a shame the gameplay doesn't achieve the same level. Driving around the city is fun but not enough to compensate for the problematic shooting-mechanics. The game provides variation and an entertaining story, but never is fun to play.

C.O.P. The Recruit makes you appreciate, if indeed it further needed your appreciation, the true worth of Chinatown Wars.

It’s not totally broken, but those that wish to "Starsky and Hutch" it up on the cheap will enjoy it on that merit as they pick it up amongst the unwanted "Petz" and licensed movie tie-in games, the rest of us are going for a life of crime. It’s much more interesting.

I wanted to like C.O.P., but there simply wasn’t enough effort put into localizing it and giving the characters some personality.

For a true sandbox game on a handheld you should not get C.O.P. A large open world doesn’t make a game with the same quality as Chinatown Wars. No, C.O.P. is simply boring because the story is not interesting, there is little to do in the environments and that what remains in the game is just to repetitive.