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[Virtz]

Skimming through Steam suggestions, I've recently found a kind of diamond in the rough.

miniLAW is a platformer-based Robocop/Judge Dredd simulator rogue-lite, where you go around a dystopian future city threatening, punching and shooting criminals, with preferential rewards for the former two. The bad guys can be straight up gun wielders or different kinds of mutants, meleeists and augmented/mechanized people, and they can be subdued, knocked out or killed based on your tactics. You fly around the city in your car, picking out places to intervene in, racking up requisition points and buying upgrades and weapons, as well as repairs.

Your ultimate goal (at least for the 0.1.5 EA right now), is to locate a nuclear bomb that threatens to blow up the city, as well as the access codes for it, within 24 hours, based on clues you gather in different crime scenes, pointing you to gang involvement in different crime areas and where their HQ is located.

As far as the roughness goes, it controls rather strangely and clunkily, I'd say primarily on account of the smooth but often unbreakable pixel animations. There's also the somewhat unpredictable collision detection, the enemies having overly quick reaction times, and when there's a lot of them in one place it turns into a clusterfuck and becomes kind of impossible to do it nonlethally (unless you bought riot weapons previously and can just reliably knock them out), and you'll likely end up taking damage either way. I also have to recommend taking the tutorial, as the controls and options you get are rather broad but obtuse.

It appears to be steadily updating on a weekly basis so far, and I feel I got my money's worth for what's there right now.

[SharpKris]

PTW looks like a great concept, i'll wait till it's out of EA first so as not to spoil myself

[LoSboccacc]

PTW

[EuchreJack]

I've also had fun, and also had trouble with the controls.

[EuchreJack]

Anyone successfully find the nuke?  Or even iany of the codes for the nuke?

[GentlemanRaptor]

No, I got to an HQ raid and then got shot to death. Tons of fun though, running around pretending to be Judge Dredd and Robocop's lovechild is a blast for sure.

[EuchreJack]

Attention Constables, Infodump Incoming!

Here is my analysis of Time to Win, realizing the ticking clock is the biggest enemy.

There are many assumptions here, so this analysis may need to be revised.

Your goal is to find and disarm the nuclear weapon within 24 hours.

There are three codes and one nuclear weapon.
Assumption -> You need all three codes to disarm the nuclear weapon.

The codes and nuclear weapon are in the Gang's Headquarters.  Each gang has three headquarters.  There are four gangs.
Assumption -> Each gang only has one code or the nuclear weapon.

You need to obtain clues in order to find these headquarters, and whether or not that headquarters has codes/nuclear weapon.  If you hit a HQ without the above, all the HQs are reshuffled for that gang.

Observation-> For each mission, you can either:
1)Get one clue from the prime suspect (dead or alive), or sometimes on a random perp instead of the prime suspect
2)One clue from the prime suspect and one other random perp
3)No clues
...in my experience, it averages out to one clue per mission, although speed runs may miss out on the clue if its on someone other than the prime suspect.

Observation-> The following is the path to discovering info on a Headquarters, but note that you recieve clues randomly, so you usually will get several intro clues instead of pinpointing a Headquarters right away.

1) Discover the gang engages in an illegal activity
2) Discover more about the gang engaging in that illegal activity
3) Discover the Headquarters for that illegal activity
4) Discover whether or not the Headquarters has nuke/codes
5) Headquarters raid for code/nuke

4 detect stages, with each gang having a stage 5.  Note that you could either get the right HQ immediately, or have to learn about two other HQ before you find the right one.

.....
Therefore,
Min per gang of 5 missions and max 13 missions b/c 3 crim enterprises times 4 detect stages, plus 1 (although note that sometimes you get clues about another gang from a gang, but it should even out)

4 gangs, thus min 20 missions max 52 missions.  And you only have 24 hours.  Obviously, you need to be FAST in your missions.  However, I will note that it is certainly possible to finish missions much quicker with experience.  I used to pull 45 minutes missions - now they seem to be under 30.  When you factor in travel and repair time, they really need to be around 20 minutes apiece.
(note: In-game time is much quicker than realtime, thankfully)

Note the following for final analysis:
Repairs are 5 minutes per 10% (don't get hurt, he he)
Travel is around 3 minutes per view, so between 1-9 minutes between missions (more if you need to head to HQ between the missions, which you will regularly).

Also, I should note that shooting "annoying" perps, or groups, is typically a good idea, as you get 5-10 extra requisitions for capture-surrender, but it costs 15 requisition per repair point.  So capture/surrender when you can, kill when you must.

Just try not to kill the prime suspect if you're suppose to capture him, as its the difference between gaining 35 points or losing 35 points, a 70 point difference.

[Virtz]

The game is really stingy with the clues concerning the actual bomb and codes. I've even had it give me duplicate info, and it wasn't particularly helpful, just told me some gang's HQ doesn't know anything about bomb codes twice. :|

I hope they make the clue gathering somewhat less random and a bit more thoughtful in the future. Sort of like Covert Action maybe, where you at the very least had to pick out which places and where you infiltrated, and could even seek specific information once you knew what you were looking for.

But while it seems almost impossible to beat for the moment, it's pretty satisfying once you start getting good at it, as you can get quite a momentum going, almost like in Hotline Miami. Although certain things seem to stifle that momentum so far, like the shout only making surrendered criminals go prone when you start it, making the random cool down really bothersome. But it's still really satisfying to dash into cover, put two shots in a guy to make him give up instantly and then dash-kick another guy off a roof top.

[EuchreJack]

The game is really stingy with the clues concerning the actual bomb and codes. I've even had it give me duplicate info, and it wasn't particularly helpful, just told me some gang's HQ doesn't know anything about bomb codes twice. :|

I hope they make the clue gathering somewhat less random and a bit more thoughtful in the future. Sort of like Covert Action maybe, where you at the very least had to pick out which places and where you infiltrated, and could even seek specific information once you knew what you were looking for.

But while it seems almost impossible to beat for the moment, it's pretty satisfying once you start getting good at it, as you can get quite a momentum going, almost like in Hotline Miami. Although certain things seem to stifle that momentum so far, like the shout only making surrendered criminals go prone when you start it, making the random cool down really bothersome. But it's still really satisfying to dash into cover, put two shots in a guy to make him give up instantly and then dash-kick another guy off a roof top.

Eh, having to chose between Safecracking and Sub-machine Gun in Covert Action wasn't that fun. 

[Cthulhu]

Also I remember like 90% of winning being the ticker tape machines.

Can you not rebind the controls?  I just got this and my fucking mouse doesn't work, making the already wonky controls basically unworkable.

[Virtz]

For now you can apparently play with a gamepad if you switch to x-input. Although I've heard there you can't rebind the movement to use the analog stick.

And nyeh, at the very least if you were really good in Covert Action, you could keep everyone in the plot from fleeing and capture them all. Although admittedly I found most of your options more of a hassle than just infiltrating everywhere and being perfect at that. Maybe besides the phone tapping, which was easy enough, didn't take up much time, and gave you most of the basic info. But still, better than just getting two not very useful clues before you started getting relevant info.

[clone95]

For now you can apparently play with a gamepad if you switch to x-input. Although I've heard there you can't rebind the movement to use the analog stick.

And nyeh, at the very least if you were really good in Covert Action, you could keep everyone in the plot from fleeing and capture them all. Although admittedly I found most of your options more of a hassle than just infiltrating everywhere and being perfect at that. Maybe besides the phone tapping, which was easy enough, didn't take up much time, and gave you most of the basic info. But still, better than just getting two not very useful clues before you started getting relevant info.

God, I'd love a good remake of Covert Action - Driving, Wiretapping, Crypto, and Infiltration all in one game. Stick the Tom Clancy's team on it and it'd be a really great replayable sort of game.

[Cthulhu]

A new update has made the game playable for me.  TO be honest I'm not super impressed.  It's really clunky and awkward and while that kind of reinforces the theme, Robocop and Judge Dredd aren't exactly ninjas, the clunkiness feels like it's coming from the controls rather than from the fact that you're playing a human tank.

[EuchreJack]

A new update has made the game playable for me.  TO be honest I'm not super impressed.  It's really clunky and awkward and while that kind of reinforces the theme, Robocop and Judge Dredd aren't exactly ninjas, the clunkiness feels like it's coming from the controls rather than from the fact that you're playing a human tank.

The controls definitely take some getting used to, although the controls in NES Robocop were also clunkly.  So its a true remake!   

[Retropunch]

PTW. Looks great, but might wait until it gets a bit more polished.