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Top 10 Games of the Last Decade: #7 Policenauts

Where: http://policenauts.net/english/

Chances are then that you never even heard of Policenauts… right?

Before I start sounding like an elitist hipster talking about the niche credentials of a new favorite band no-one else has heard of, I’ll level with you that Policenauts came from the same mind that brought you Metal Gear Solid; and when it comes to game developers, Hideo Kojima is nearly as big a name as it gets. The reason you (probably) haven’t heard of it is because it never got released outside of Japan.

Before you carry on reading, there are a few things that need to be said here;

Knowledge of Japanese will not be required! This review is for the recently (2009) released English patch. Policenauts, by modern standards, has some morally dubious themes. Most notably, the game crosses the misogyny line on more than one occasion. While this may well be an accurate translation of early 90s Japanese culture, for me, the game is lesser for it.

OK. With those disclaimers out of the way (especially the last one), I’ll begin.

Policenauts is, at its core, a detective story that seems to draw inspiration from an unlikely combination of cinematic influences and genres. For instance, the game starts with a film noir cyberpunk setting that immediately screams ‘Blade Runner’ but before things get too predictable; strains of Terminator and even Akira emerge. By the time, the protagonist, Jonathan Ingram, arrives at Beyond Coast (the space station that operates as the game’s principal locale), an astonishingly Lethal Weapon-esque, ‘Riggs and Murtagh’ buddy cop dynamic emerges. Ingram is reunited with former co – Policenaut, Ed Brown, who is counting down the days to his retirement and; in a scene that could have starred Danny Glover himself, all but declares himself “too old for this s**t! It’s as comedic as it is derivative but fortunately Policenauts doesn’t make a habit of lifting many scenes wholesale. In fact, what becomes clear after several hours of play is that most of the cinematic references are best viewed as homage. Indeed, the core of the game is actually very original.

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