A.B. Cop for Sega

Hands on the handlebars, shoulders hunched, the game begins. Vroom! Vroom!  A.B. Cop or Air Bike Cop is a 3 dimensional racing game for arcades.  The game was released by Sega as a free standing unit.  The developers of A.B. Cop were Aicom who worked for Sega, creating games that would interest the public.  The first time the A.B. Cop games were seen in an arcade was in 1990.  A.B. Cop was a lot like Chase HQ, a previous release from Sega.

A.B. Cop was made for a single player with paddle and three buttons to use in order to get the bike cop around the tracks.  The player is the A.B. Cop chasing and disarming a band of thieves.  These particular thieves were robbers.  The object was to get to the robbers before time ran out on the machine.  A.B. Cop was a new dimension for arcade games as it began the era of level guardian games.  The arcade system powering A.B Cop games was the Sega X Board.

Throughout the game there were several levels the player would have to make it through.  There was a water, city, country, and wooded scene.  The easier screens would appear first, such as the city in which you had to navigate around other bikers and buildings in order to catch the perpetrators.  In the water scene, waterfalls and bridges laid the tracks for chasing down the bad guys. The country screen gave a little Sci-Fi to the entire game, with aliens and an alien space pod along the thoroughfare.

At the top of the screens the top score, your score, the number of chances, time, speed, and jump capabilities were listed.  The credits were listed at the bottom of the games screen.  The credits would enable the score to become higher as well as keep the game going.  Like most of the racing games of the1990’s, little time icons would appear that you could select in order to keep the game going as time ran towards an end.  If you missed one of these you would not be able to make it through the level.

Other options also exist on the screen such as a faster speed.  If you could hit those little icons you could speed up on a straight shot and possibly win the game.  The graphics of A.B. Cop are quite defined, with little fire rings shooting out of the back of the bike.

Before we launch into the hints of the A.B. Cop games we should look at how the stage ends.  By using game cheats and other hints it is possible to get through the various stages, catching the criminals, and getting to the boss of that section.  Before being able to move on to a new level the boss has to be beaten.  The boss is a heavily armed guardian.  To beat the guardian it will take numerous hits on target.

Hints:

At the start of each level the player is given a certain number of jumps as we mentioned above.  The player needs to use these jumps at opportune moments.  Jumps can get the bike in the air to avoid vehicles in the bath and even capture the enemy.  If the jumps are selected correctly the enemy could be squashed by the bike.  It is also possible to attack enemy targets that might be left on the track to stop the player.  There are other items as mentioned above that can be run over and collected to further the game.

By pushing up on the joystick it is possible to get a speed boost.  This helps complete the run and capture the bad guys before time runs out.  There is an unlimited amount of the speed boosts.

If you beat the game with more than 60 million points it is possible to unlock an extra stage in the game.  The special stage has the player fighting every boss that is found at the end of every stage.  However, the boss is now turned into a deformed Chibi looking character.

Beating the guardians will take skill.  There are no game cheats that will truly get you past them.  The best way to get around the guardians is to hit their target spot head on until the damage is enough that the boss dies.

A.B Cop is still a very exciting game to come across in an arcade.  While you may not be sitting on an actual bike it still requires a bit of skill to win against the various levels.