Donuts 'N' Justice - Indie Crimefighting Shmup

Being a cop in videogames is pretty tough. They're either the protagonist or antagonist to a the kind of crimes that only videogame developers could cook up. Things like ninjas, thugs, cyborgs and all manner of virtual villainy stand in the way of justice, Donuts 'N' Justice to be specific. This sidescrolling police shmup is a prime example of the hurdles that pixelated police must overcome. It will take all your mettle to master the four stages and solve a case that may just implicate donuts themselves. Time for some Donuts 'N' Justice. 

Officers Mike Riggs and Nick Gordon can either team up or go it alone. The option to play co-op means that there's one more gun on your side, but if you're the lone wolf type, you can choose your favorite and get shooting. Either way, the merciless thugs will spawn on both sides of the screen and take pot-shots at you. There's a button to fire backwards, though the game is a 2d autoscroller, left to right. I'd say that Donuts 'N' Justice is a type of shmup, the type that only gives you the bottom portion of the screen to tackle the boat-loads of enemy mobs, so in a way it's within the beat-em-up domain also. The key is clearing the screen before the thugs can get a shot off, so being quick on the trigger makes this a shmup at it's core. Clearing the streets of the evil element won't earn you a medal of honor, but the job has it's perks. 

Loose cash and dropped donuts are important pickups. Donuts add a some hp with the additional calories. The loose cash that falls out of dead crooks is used to unlock hats in the shop and if you collect enough police badges, it will add another randomized weapon drop, kind of like a roguelite, though Donuts 'N' Justice saves progress between the four stages. Don't be a fool like me and overlook the unlocks screen, adding a hat to the men in blue will provide that extra edge with some game-changing buffs. I found that the random factor to the weapon drops could make or break a stage attempt, some weapons are clearly better than others. Other randomly dropped items are both the Mario mushroom and bullet powerup. The magic mushroom provides a little Max Payne style bullet time, while the bullet powerup adds enough punch to make even the default pistol a powerhouse. Like other shmups, it's all about killing and collecting. 

Difficulty wise, a game that only has four stages has to be either difficult or run the risk of being a ten-minute affair, granted that for me a lot of added difficulty game from ignoring the purchasable head-wear and nearly finishing the game with the default officer hat, not that it's bad, it gives a bullet proof vest for the start of every run. There's a "thumb sucker" difficulty for when the frustration really sets in, but if you bang your head against the wall enough it'll crack. It's a case of rolling the RNG enough times to get a good run and finish the stage. The game wraps up with a final boss that has that indie charm we all crave, but the rest of the game didn't really hint at there being some case or conspiracy to solve, just legions of badguys that's only unifying trait was a need for city funded lead. Not a bad game by any means, but amongst the other titles in my library fails to stand out from the rest, it's simply decent.