AIPD - Artificial Intelligence Police Department (PC) Review

AIPD has the style of many older arcade games, as it lacks a story mode or campaign, and presents only one game mode. Actually, there are a few game modes, but they are all essentially the same. There is the default game, where matches begin without modifiers and incrementally add variables and difficulty, and there are options to start matches with specific modifiers. This certainly isn't bad, and it's a good way for players to shortcut back to roughly the same settings after getting far and having an unfortunate accident, but it's like playing Dr. Mario on 1 versus playing on 25—it's still the same gameplay.

A number of different weapon and armour types add variety, but there's a pretty clear difference in effectiveness, with some weapons being objectively better than others. This isn't always the case, and there is room for the creation of a setup best suited for particular players, but the available options are few in number and are essentially the same ones found in 1990's Gun Nac. Instead, enemies get most of the customisation.

Similar to tower defence, the game is played in waves, starting easy and ramping up in difficulty. At the end of each wave, two random options are presented that add new challenge, such as by increasing the speed of the aforementioned Interceptors, or by causing another type of enemy to drop bombs when destroyed. These also add multipliers to the score, because this is a game about getting a high score.

Lots of flashy effects and techno-ish music make AIPD a relatively difficult experience to understand, because it can get downright impossible to tell what is going on. This isn't helped by the absolute lack of tutorials—what are these green squares that can be picked up from dropped enemies? What is an Interceptor, and does it matter if they move faster? Why does the ship lurch across the screen inexplicably?

There's no story to speak of, as it is pretty much a return to the old arcade-style games of the 80s, though with new options and modifiers available. This ultimately boils down to weapons and shields, and it's unfortunate that there are several times as many ways to modify the enemies as there are to modify the player's rig, but it's a small gripe. In the end, the real problem is just that there's only one game mode, which consists of the ship in a circular arena fighting off hordes of enemies while moving and dodging ships and attacks.