Virtua Cop

There's criminal activity going on down at the shipping docks and the V.C.P.D. has been called to investigate. Officers Michael Hardy Rage and James Cool Smarty are designated to the area. Armed with their bullet proof vests, targeting visors, and weapons, they speed towards the docks to inspect the situation. Thus starts Virtua Cop by Sega, an exciting 3D shooting game.

On arrival at the docks, you will be welcomed by men dressed in black and brown suits wearing dark sun glasses, heavily armed, and throwing axes and grenades at you. Your visor will locate the most threatening criminals by locking on to them and displaying different colors according to the danger they represent to you. The colors progress from green, yellow to red with red indicating that they are about to fire. Armed with a six shooter, you will attempt to kill the bad guys and make your way towards the gang's headquarters. During the game, shooting at selected boxes may unveil special weapons such as machine guns.

When starting the game in arcade mode, three stages are presented to you which are beginner, medium and expert. Each stage contains three scenes that have a sort of boss character at the end of it. The first one named Kong is dressed in army pants and has a multi missile launcher as a weapon. The boss characters have a health bar and must be shot often before they finally die, unlike the other characters in the game who require only one shot. The other bosses are named King, Fang, and Boss who is the ultimate boss of the game. Points are awarded on how well you aim your shots. A bull's-eye in the chest of a character is worth 5,000 points while just nicking them is only worth 100 points. Innocent people dressed in white are also on the scene yelling, "Help! Don't shoot me!".

The game includes a light gun and can also be played with the control pad. One or two players may play together representing both James and Michael. In the option menu you can set the difficulty level (easy, normal, hard), gun looseness (1-29), number of lives (1-9), number of continues (0-9), visor (on or off), adjust the gun and keypad settings. You may also choose to do some target practice in the training area. There, targets will pop up and you must shoot 30 of them within the 30-second time limit to qualify

Graphics are great and made of textured 3D polygons with characters a la Virtua Fighter. The introduction features cinematic sequences with high quality graphics that show the V.C.P.D. arriving at the scene of the crime. The action in the game is rendered in real time and is very fast, never slowing the game down. You can shoot at oil barrels and watch them blow up or break windows on buildings and cars. You'll even have to shoot at the driver of a truck to avoid getting run over.

Music will accompany you throughout the game with sounds of gun fire, people being hit, explosions, glass breaking, and the reloading of your weapon.

At the end of each scene and stage, the number of shot, hits, and points will be displayed. Your accuracy will also be calculated.

Conclusion:

Virtua Cop is an excellent shoot-em-up and lots of fun! The game can be configured to be really easy and therefore a little short, or much more difficult requiring concentration and fast reflexes.