"We're gonna fry your ass, Nukem!" - a Pig Cop.
The Pig Cop (affectionately referred to as Piggy, Piggycop or just Pig) is an enemy in Duke Nukem 3D, and is not only the enemy with the most permutations in the game, but is also one of the most popular ones. It is first encountered in the first level of L.A. Meltdown, Hollywood Holocaust, and does not appear at all in the episode Lunar Apocalypse.
Description
Pig Cops are muscular humanoid boars, mutated from LAPD officers shortly before the beginning of Duke Nukem 3D. It appears only in Earth-based levels (and thus not at all in Lunar Apocalypse, except as two corpses found in Dark Side). Fierce and fearsome, the Pig Cop is one of the most well-known enemies in the game. They are often compared to the Enforcers, sharing the same strength and aggressiveness in combat.
They are cunning in battle, often dropping to the ground to make themselves smaller targets while they fire their shotguns at their victims. They patrol mostly on foot, but also in tanks or aircraft. In groups, the Pig Cop is a fierce opponent which should not be underestimated due to their high pain tolerance and devastating Shotgun attack.
Pig Cops are described in the game's instructions page, that (cited) they are 'extremely intolerant towards humans and exhibit blind rage when they detect human scent'. This could lead for the fact, that Pig Cops are misanthropes, human-haters.
The Pig Cop retains much of the knowledge and intelligence of the human that mutated into it, but thanks to the alien influence they have been turned against humanity. They are described as 'alien operatives' who 'suppress residual human opposition'. However, they do not attack females.
Apart from the voice players can hear at the end of E1L2, they seem incapable of speech, instead producing a variety of lower-pitched squeals and grunts.
Appearance
The Pig Cop is a human-sized boar-like creature. It is not an alien, but a mutated police officer. It has a very large muscular torso and bulging arms, large hands with three thick fingers, wide chest, huge biceps, small ears, a large snout, long tusks and sharp incisors, glowing red eyes, and a brown mohawk on its head that goes down his back. Their red eyes can glow in the dark, which makes them easier to spot.
Pig Cops have undershot jaws - an underbite, meaning their lower jaws are longer than the upper ones, thus their teeth sometimes stick out - even with a closed mouth. They look to be carnivorous, but this may not be the case. They seem to have fur all over their bodies which makes them look brown, considering that their nose is brighter in color.
They wear a torn, dark blue, short-sleeved police uniform and black boots. Their clothes, most apparently the pants, look slightly damaged, with tears and dirt marks on it. They also have a yellow, oval-shaped badge near their left shoulder.
There is an acronym on the front/back of its uniform/bullet-proof vest, which reads "L.A.R.D.", written in yellow (a parody of LAPD). It wears body armor which it sometimes drops when killed (as Used Armor).
They hold a Shotgun in their right hand, however their shotgun features a wooden slide, instead of a grip.
Combat analysis
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The Pig Cop's weapon of choice is the shotgun. While it is a weaker version of the player's shotgun (it produces 5 pellets instead of the player's 7), it can still deal out significant damage. It has almost perfect accuracy, fires twice in each volley and can reload quickly. However, the Pig Cop is fairly slow-moving.
The Pig Cop can attack either while standing, or while lying chest-down on the ground (in its prone position). When lying down, the Pig Cop is harder to hit. A Pig Cop sometimes appears to the player in its prone position to surprise them.
Upon being killed, the Pig Cop will occasionally drop either a shotgun with a varying amount of ammo in it, or some Used Armor (which is weaker than new Armor).
The Pig Cop has a significant amount of health, which means that a bad choice of weapon to use against it is the Pistol. Since it takes 17 Pistol rounds to kill it, the Pistol must be reloaded at some point, which takes valuable time.
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The Pig Cop in othergames
- Pig Cops returns in their normal appearance in Duke Nukem Advance.
- In Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, there are three varieties of Pig Cop:
- The weakest is based on the standard Pig Cop. It has a blue uniform.
- The next stronger wears a black SWAT uniform and helmet, has more health, sometimes ducks to avoid incoming fire, and deals more damage per shot. It is also somewhat more bulky than its weaker version.
- The strongest wears the same black SWAT outfit as the second one, but is even bulkier. It has more health, and its weapon is now a fully automatic shotgun.
- There are more versions of the Pig Cop in Duke Nukem: Time To Kill:
- The standard variety, the equivalent to the Duke Nukem 3D version. This one is armed with a Combat Shotgun.
- The much rarer "kamikaze" version, which charges the player and explodes on impact.
- There are also Cloned Pig Cops, Cowboy Pig Cops, Roman Pig Cops and Medieval Pig Cops corresponding to the different themes in the game.
- The authorized add-ons, Duke Caribbean and Duke: Nuclear Winter feature their own types of Pig Cops: Caribbean Pig Cops with Hawaiian shirts and cool sunglasses, Pig Cops as Inflatable Sea Monsters, or Christmas-themed Pig Cops in red "uniform" and Santa hats. They do not have the acronym "L.A.R.D." written on their torso.
- The Plug 'N' Pray episode of Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown introduced new and original versions of the Pig Cop (see below):
- Pig Cops also appear in Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, and there are three types of them, plus a boss monster.
- Beings similar, but still different to Pig Cops also appear in Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes, as the members of animalistic alien forces that enslaved Earth. There are three main types of them, and one boss character, called General Silverback.
- PigCorps - normal Pig Cop warriors with police uniform and helmets.
- AlbinoPigCorps - bigger and stronger albino versions of pig soldiers.
- AfricanCorps - the biggest and most dangerous of the pigs.
In Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes, the latter are also named as:
- Feral Pigs;
- Hoglodytes;
- There is the boss character, General Silverback - one of the alien leaders, a humanoid pig/ape-like alien that controls alien armed forces in the future of Earth.
Trivia
- Rarely in Duke Nukem 3D, Pig Cops can be seen to be able to teleport, though not in the same manner as Assault Captains. When they do it, it is always behind Duke or a wall, so it is not visible. Pig Cops can warp into an area, when Duke enters a certain place. This happens in Red Light District's bar and at the beginning of Death Row. However, Pig Cops can teleport in other Duke Nukem games, too.
- Pig Cops sometimes intentionally blow up large, yellow gas canisters in order to create a hole into a wall large enough for them to go after Duke. This is one of their surprise attacks. Examples are in Hollywood Holocaust's Arcade room and Red Light District's bar. This happens only when Duke is near enough and they sense this.
- In the game, some Pig Cops are not meant to leave their sector. They are actually programmed to act like this in the game; However, if the player freezes them with the Freezethrower, they will be able to leave their sector and roam around freely.
- If the player would continuously freeze (i.e. let it thaw then freeze and rinse repeat) a Pig Cop with the Freezethrower it would occasionally drop shotguns or used armors.
- The Pig Cop's shotgun is a different design to the player's shotgun. If it drops a shotgun]] when killed, the dropped weapon will be the sleek black version the player uses. The sprite of the Pig Cop corpse still shows it holding its version of the shotgun.
- Sometimes, Pig Cops are guarding Atomic Healths.
- Pig Cops can be met in standing or crouching positions, but they are always ready to attack the player.
- When a Pig Cop starts to go after the player and the player hides from him - after a short period of time - the Pig Cop will stop walking and will stand still.
- Rarely and unintentionally, Pig Cops can destroy objects, hurt and/or kill Babes, or other enemies, including fellow Pig Cops in a gunfight.
- When dying, the sprite version of the Pig Cop loses one of his tusks, while the High Resolution Pig Cop does not.
- The Used Armor sprite appears much too small to fit on the Pig Cop (and Duke too). It is also impossible to see the Armor in the Pig Cop's sprites while it is still alive.
- Corpses of Pig Cops that can be found, such as in Dark Side or Pigsty, cannot be blown up since they were not killed by the player.
- An unused tile (2061) shows a map mode view (top view) of the Pig Cop. This is likely a remnant from an abandoned plan to make the enemies appear in the map mode view.
- The Pig Cop was originally intended to hit the player with his shotgun as a melee combat manoeuvre, but this idea was dropped in the end. Some of the sprites showing this are still included in the art files.
- An unused set of tiles shows what many assume to be a third vehicle for the Pig Cop to use. This vehicle is dubbed the Scorpion Tank by players.
- The Pig Cop has appeared in almost every Duke Nukem game since Duke Nukem 3D. It is unique in this respect, as no other enemy in the series has appeared in as many games since their debut.
- The Pig Cop is arguably the most iconic enemy in the entire series.
- There were action figures produced by the now defunct toy-making ReSaurus Company Inc., depicting the Pig Cop in Duke Nukem 3D, along with Duke Nukem, the Battlelord and the Octabrain.
- Even though the Pig Cop appears in Duke: Nuclear Winter the sprite doesn't replace the original Pig Cop, the sprite is actually replaced by Santa Claws. If the player tries to play any of the original episodes found in Duke Nukem 3D they will instead encounter Santa Claws.
- The Pig Cops found in the add-on Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach wear Hawaiian shirts with red, blue, green, gray and golden yellow colors. They have short white pants, not torn, which goes down their knees. The boots and the shotgun remained the same. They also have black sunglasses, which hides their otherwise obvious red eyes.
- The word "L.A.R.D." written in yellow letters in a Pig Cop's uniform is a humorous take on lard and also a pun on L.A.P.D..
- In Death Row, players can find a recorded audio tape on a wall near a door and a camera not far from the submarine. Whenever the player "uses" the tape a Pig Cop can be heard.
- A Pig Cop corpse can be found on a plastic surgery table in Lunar Apocalypse, Dark Side and another one at the early beginning of the level, behind an iron door.
- Pig Cops appear as hittable enemies on the Duke Nukem: Balls of Steel pinball table, along with Octabrains and others.
- Their porcine forms are a possible reference to how people would call police officers "pigs", especially during the 1960s and 1970s where people of the hippie and anti-establishment cultures refer to cops as pigs.
- In the Sega Genesis port Pig cops are present in the game's Lunar Apocalypse episode, They also fire much more faster and are even more dangerous.
Gallery
See also
- Recon Patrol Vehicle - a flying enemy piloted by a Pig Cop.
- Pig Cop Tank - a ground-based enemy driven by a Pig Cop.
- Pig-in-a-Dress - a variant of the Pig Cop exclusive to Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown.
- Magnum P.I.G. - a variant of the Pig Cop exclusive to Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown.
- Zombie Pig Cop - a variant of the Pig Cop exclusive to Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown.
- Inflatable Sea Monster - a rubber dragon toy with a Pig Cop in it from Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach.
- Pig Cop (DNMP) - the Pig Cop as it occurs in Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project.
- Scorpion Tank - an unused enemy similar to the Pig Cop Tank.