NARC

NARC is Williams' 1988 drug-war revenge fantasy, and it announced itself with a digitized voice yelling the game's name in a way no one who heard it forgot. You play two DEA-style agents clearing city blocks of the Mr. BIG syndicate, shooting or arresting everything the streets throw at you.

The arrest mechanic is what separates it from a plain shooter: a separate button grabs a dazed enemy, and arrested enemies are worth far more points than dead ones - greed versus safety as a formal scoring rule. The graphics were state of the art: full digitized sprites and digitized speech everywhere, from the screaming enemies to the roadside pushers. Later stages introduce the Kruel Kops, drugged-up attack dogs and boss confrontations with the syndicate's heads, ending with the literally enormous Mr. BIG. It was controversial for its content, popular for its mechanics, and its voice samples remain some of the most quoted audio in arcade history.

• ▸Shoot or arrest: a real scoring decision on every enemy
• ▸Full digitized sprite graphics and speech in 1988
• ▸Escalating city stages ending in the giant Mr. BIG boss
• ▸Simultaneous two-player law enforcement