A.B. Cop is an arcade game developed by Aicom and released by Sega in 1990. The “A.B.” stands for Air Bike. So it’s “Air Bike Cop“. A.B. Cop uses the “Sega X Board“, which originated with 1987’s After Burner.
A.B. Cop is almost like an updated version of Deathchase, except your air bike is viewed from behind and above, with the landscape coming at you in 2D. The ‘furniture’ sprites being given some seriously-impressive scaling effects, and always facing towards you at all times.
Your character, and your bike, have been given some special attention, though, as they move and animate – still in 2D – but obviously as the “hero” object in the game, they’re given a real sense of weight and scale as they move around.
After a nice launch sequence you’re ejected out onto the battlefield… As you twist and turn through the oncoming roads and trees your main aim is to chase down a set number of biker criminals before the time limit expires. Making the gameplay very much like Chase HQ, which is no bad thing. Unlike Chase HQ, though, you have to do the chase multiple times in a row to complete the stage. In fact: you have to defeat all the riders first, before the boss of each stage reveals himself to do battle. And then you have to beat the boss.
You must boost or jump into a criminal biker (or boss), or knock into him with a swift side-shunt, to take them out. You can bypass bikers if you like, but they will all catch up to you eventually and will then attack you as a group. So knocking them out one by one isn’t a bad idea if you’re trying to conserve lives. Every enemy biker is indicated by an arrow over their head. You also have a limited number of jumps.
Being an “Air Bike“, the bike you ride in A.B. Cop can also fly over water, which adds some variety to the levels.
The arcade cabinet for A.B. Cop used real handlebars for the controls, which is why the attract sequence demonstrates handlebar controls to the player.
I enjoyed playing A.B. Cop quite a lot. I hadn’t seen it before and it impressed me with its graphics and presentation, and its gameplay, which is fast, frenetic and fun.
It’s another great arcade ‘hidden gem’ unearthed! 🙂
More: A.B. Cop on Wikipedia
