Games Only a Mother Could Love 04.14.09: Crime Patrol (Sega CD)

Posted by Mark Salmela on 04.14.2009

This week we look back at a game that is ten times more awesome than Cops will ever be.

Greetings and salutations my furry friends, I am your host Mark Salmela. This week we're going to take a look back at one of the most underrated rail-shooters of all time, Crime Patrol. Crime Patrol is a light-gun rail-shooter that has been ported to 3D0, PC, and DVD. The box claims that Crime Patrol works on PS2 and Xbox, and while it does work with their analog sticks, it's actually just a DVD that recognizes the controllers and not an actual licensed game. Crime Patrol is absolutely hysterical to play, and since you can find the DVD for relatively cheap online, it should be a must buy for every gamer. So sit back, relax, and enjoy as I dissect this crime fighting game of awesomeness.





Crime Patrol (1993)




Holy shit the world has gone to hell. Ok not really, but there is a lot of crime going on in generic city A *let's say we're in Los Angeles for the sake of having a city*, and it's up to the only two cops in the entire city to stop all the crime. In generic police cop movie fashion you play as a rookie cop looking to make a name for himself, and you're teamed up with one pissed off veteran. So look out world, because this cop does make house calls *bad decision Mark*.

Anyways, armed with a sweet revolver, Crime Patrol puts you in different scenarios with your partner and you must take out every evil-doer while not harming the innocent. The first level is "Electronic Store" but it looks like a shady Rent-a-Center to me. I mean seriously, if you're shopping at Rent-a-Center, you deserve to be robbed. I haven't even started playing yet and I already side with the bad guys. Talk about a corrupted cop, I guess I'll never become one in real life.


Level 1: The Electronic Store


The first level starts with your partner, generic black woman cop, already pissed off at you. Ok bitch, I know this is my first day and all, but you need to cut the shit. If you don't want my help you can go in there alone, I have no problem listening to the radio while you get shot. Unfortunately "laziness" is not an option and I enter the building with my partner, laughing at how outdated all the technology is. These speakers are bigger than me; of course I want to rent them at outrageous rates!

I didn't even manage to catch a price on one of these over-sized bad boys before some idiot with a sock on his head jumps out at me. Here's a tip to all potential crooks reading this column: Don't jump out at armed cops while holding a shotgun and wearing a sock over your head. They're not going to think twice about taking your head off.

Moving on from the first idiot, another idiot, this time a woman obviously addicted to crack, pulls out a revolver at me. Tip number 2: Don't wear a trench coat to a Rent-a-Center. Not only will the police suspect something but the employees who I can guarantee are carrying some sort of weapon will want to hurt you. These guys already bought the merchandise stolen from other crooks, they're not going to let you come in and steal it back. I will give this woman credit though for managing to look like an absolute incompetent moron while holding a revolver. It takes some real skill to look like an idiot rather than a scary monster when you hold a gun at someone.


Look at those gorgeous HDTVs!


Idiot number 3 appears shortly after, this time a woman who actually works at the Rent-a-Center. Ok, I understand that you don't want to run out in the open during the middle of a robbery, but hiding behind a stack of shoe boxes is only going to depreciate your bargaining value to the robbers, so they're more likely to kill you to get their point across.

Making my way to the "video" department, which consists of rows of 22 inch tube TVs, another robber with a rubber shotgun and a sock over his head jumps out at me expecting me to somehow give up. My partner then comes from the side, and pretends like she's doing something. Ok woman, this may be my first day and all, but I'm not an idiot. You're not going to shoot anything, and it's up to me to save Rent-a-Center.

As the level draws to a close, some dude who's clearly down on his luck drops his gun saying he gives up. Oh wait, he pulled out another gun from his pocket. I never saw it coming, except for the fact that I shot him dead before he could get his hand in his pocket *he finishes the animation of pulling a gun out anyways before going into a death animation*. Two more bad guys pop out after their buddy dies, although they're easy to dispose of *and the final black guy falls through a glass case for dramatic effect*.


Level 2: Gang


The second level is called "gang" and starts off right in the middle of the action. My partner is sitting on her radio telling whoever's on the other line that we're at "that gang fight location". Good description you dumb bitch. I bet the police department knows exactly where "that gang fight location" is. At least the gangs pretending to fight in the background have a sweet 1920's Model T, and it's red to boot!

This level consists of taking out all the "gang" members, who are in fact the same robbers as before, while they try to hide behind the Model T in the background. The only thing stopping me from unloading on the screen carelessly hoping I'll eventually hit everyone is the fact that I have way too much respect to shoot a Model T. If the car pulls a gun on me I'm screwed.

After wasting about 4 white people, one Asian, and one black guy the level nears its conclusion. One final dude appears from the hood of the car, and after one bullet he dives in front of the car towards me. That's right, I just shot this guy in the chest, and as a dying animation he dived towards me. Umm… Ok? The level isn't actually over, as a bunch of guys in parking garage up above try to snipe me with their 9 mm pistols. I don't think it's going to work boys… Then again this rule doesn't actually apply to me, since my accuracy is perfect *as it should be*. The final guy in the level falls from the third story of the parking garage to his death, but it was so obvious that one of the guys was going to fall to his death that I'm not impressed at all.


Level 3: warehouse


Level 3 takes place in "warehouse" and is your generic warehouse complete with stacks of useless crates everywhere. At this point I've decided that I'm better off without my partner cop, since I'm far more likely to shoot her than she is to shoot a bad guy. Hell, she doesn't even appear on screen until I've already killed everybody else, so she's a complete coward as far as I'm concerned. One of the first guys to appear is a robber driving a forklift, which is absolutely amazing. I can't begin to explain how awesome it is to see a robber driving along on a forklift minding his own business before noticing me. There's also a guy in a Kinko's uniform who cowers in fear once I appear on screen. What did you expect? Did you seriously not just see the robber cruising around on the forklift? Maybe he's in cahoots with the robbers; he should consider himself lucky that I let him get away.

My partner and I encounter… an electric fence? Wait… what? First off, what point does an electric fence serve in the middle of a warehouse? Second, why the hell does my partner feel the need to tell me that it's an electric fence? I can fucking read bitch, I don't need you to tell me something that I noticed 5 minutes before you. There is no way that OSHA approves of this. Anyways, if it wasn't already obvious, the point of the electric fence is that at least one of these robbers will be electrocuted. At least it was pretty funny once it actually happened. After electrocuting one of the robbers my partner jumps out of the screen and says something that is completely messed up because there is no way you can possibly understand what she says. I'm serious, I've played the game several times, and have watched the YouTube video several times and there is no way you can understand what the woman is saying. Worst of all she unleashes one of the creepiest grins I've ever seen after saying it. I actually shot her the first time she did it, and it was completely worth losing a life. There was no way I was taking the risk of letting her mutate into a creature from Resident Evil like she was attempting to do.


Level 4: The airport


After wasting a few more bad guys it's on to level 4 "The airport". God I love the titles of these levels. I forgot to mention that I was promoted to undercover cop from rookie, despite still being on my first day *at least I don't think any time has passed, but at this point I don't care anymore about the story*. I've been upgraded from an angry black chick to a fat ass Italian who obviously doesn't care about his job. Get in line buddy; I stopped caring before the end of the Rent-a-Center fiasco of earlier this afternoon.

I will give curly fat Italian one thing, and that he's ten times more hysterical than the black bitch. After telling me who I need to kill *as if I wasn't already going to kill everything that moves*, he uses the awesome catch phrase of "let's eat their lunch". Yeah, you go Italian; you're the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. After taking out a bunch of dudes hiding behind their cars, the fat Italian comes up and puts his hands on one of the dead bodies. Eww… Umm, I don't think you're supposed to touch the dead bodies sir.


Ride on, forklift driver. Ride on…


After killing everyone in sight, the fat ass Italian walks up next to the girl whom I'm supposed to kill, and starts shooting bags of cocaine. Wait, why? That's a waste of perfectly good cocaine. Besides, shouldn't you be shooting the girl next to you? Wasn't that the whole point? Wait, what the fuck? Now I'm watching a car chase, where the guy in the first car clearly snorted some of that cocaine, because he's swerving all over the road. Now that guy peeled out and swerved right off the road. What the fuck is going on here?!!!

So now apparently I've transported myself into a car, instead of being in a helicopter flying above watching all of this. After killing both the driver and the passenger, which was retardedly easy, the car goes from driving along a straight road next to a cornfield to flipping out and exploding in a parking lot. It's so retarded and such bad editing that it's totally awesome. I love this game.


Honey, I think the moonshine's gone bad.


The next two levels take place in a nightclub and an impound lot, and feature more of the same. Get a 5 second introduction, kill a bunch of robbers/drug lords, and then watch some of the worst acting and editing ever. It is totally awesome, and thankfully each scene takes about a minute and a half to complete. Otherwise the concept would get old quickly. After completing the 3 levels as an undercover cop you're promoted to a SWAT member, where you fight terrorists. It's kind of like Target Terror, except nowhere near as awesome since you lack the weapons and blood that Target Terror provides. It was awesome by 1993's standards, and might have even set the precedent for Target Terror, but Crime Patrol has nothing on Target Terror now that you're fighting terrorists attempting to hijack nuclear weapons.

After completing 3 scenarios as a member of a SWAT team, you are upgraded to Delta Force. These 3 levels are more of the same, and are basically Target Terror-lite situations where you must save the world from terrorists. Boy, this is definitely different from fighting robbers at Rent-a-Center. The final level takes place at a nuclear facility where terrorists are attempting to hijack plutonium. The majority of the level takes place while wearing night-vision goggles, which make a nice change of pace. Well, it actually isn't much of a change of pace, since it's the final level, but I give them credit for doing something interesting.


Hey kids, wanna see a dead body?


Crime Patrol is a rail-shooter that never made it to arcades. It shows too, since it has some of the lowest production values ever *which is saying a lot for a Sega CD game* and has some of the least responsive gameplay ever for a shooter. The only redeeming factor of Crime Patrol is how hysterical it is. I was sold after seeing a video of the robber riding a forklift at the warehouse. Crime Patrol can be picked up online for around $15, which isn't bad for 30 minutes of gameplay.

I had plans for doing Crime Patrol 2 for next week, but to be honest I couldn't find a DVD copy for a reasonable price. I may just settle for the PC version but for now no Crime Patrol 2. It's a real shame too, as it looks to be a lot funnier *and better made* than the first. I'll keep my eye out and hope to do it in the near future. If anyone knows where I can find a copy cheap let me know *the cheapest DVD I can find that's not backordered is $30*.

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-What I Hate About You by John De Large. John's column is basically the polar opposite of my column, so mad respect to John.

-B3yond the Report by Mark Salmela.

-The Full Circle by Joe Roche. Joe Roche didn't know video games existed before Halo.

-Nintendophiles by Theo Fraser.

-Want to hear more about Target Terror? Be sure to read Games Top 5 by Mark Salmela

-In case you missed last week's edition on Supreme Warrior, be sure to check it out here.

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Be sure to leave feedback by either sending an email to [e-mail] or by leaving a comment below. I love to read your feedback, whether it's positive or negative. These full motion video games are some of my favorite games of all time, and I love talking about them. These games are best experienced with your friends, so if you do decide to pick up any of these games, be sure to invite over your friends. Even if they only get to watch, it'll be a much better experience than playing alone. Anyways that's it for me this week, cya in 7!