In the single-player side-scrolling game the player is a cop in a seedy futuristic urban city. Armed with a pistol, the player has to kill various thugs, before the timer runs out. While the game has several levels, the background in the game does not change often.

The other half of the game is a driving sequence, similar to other computer games such as Roadblasters.

Techno Cop was one of the first games made for the Mega Drive/Genesis from a third party developer and was part of an attempt by Razorsoft to test what sort of content would Sega allow on a game made for one of its systems.