Virtua Cop (a.k.a. Virtua Squad)

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Name: Virtua Cop (a.k.a. Virtua Squad) Year: 1996 Publisher: SEGA Entertainment, Inc. Developer: SEGA Entertainment, Inc. Platform: PC Genre: Arcade Total rating: 70.4% - rated 32 times rate now: please log in to rate Submitter: Res Added: Aug 07 2004 Warez status: Warez

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Author: Bokkie Date: May 11 2005 - 18:23 Score: 75 points

Ah the simple pleasures in life. Bad guys popping up every where and you blasting them a couple of shots from your pistol. Who said games have to be so complicated in order to be fun? Virtua Cop is what twitch gaming is all about.

Virtua Cop is made by Sega and, like many Sega games, started life as a coin-op arcade game with lasers guns to shoot the enemy. They have just tweaked it a bit and put it on CD so it'll work on your PC but basically the bad guys jump out of the same places as in the Coin-op (so if you want to really impress your date, play it on your pc, learn where all the bad guys are, and then go post a high score at the nearest game arcade). Incidentally, the game arcades down here in South Africa are so out of date that Virtua Cop is still considered cutting edge, go figure.

PLOT
There is no plot. You are a cop in a town filled with bad guys who like jumping out and shooting at you. Oh there are also civilians who jump in front of your gun and then tell you not to shoot them in really cheesy japanese english. How it all links together is never explained so if you want a good story look somewhere else.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND
As I said earlier this is a direct adaptation from the laser gun arcade game and so graphics are not extremely high tech. They are psuedo-3d in the sense that the camera moves in and out dynamically, depending on how quickly you dispatch the bad guys, and also as you are taken around the levels you might see the same place from different angles.
Of course this is almost like a computer generated version of the old interactive movies like "Maddog mcCree" because you also have no control over where you go and so the graphics engine doesn't have to be all that smart. Textures are pretty low quality and get quite pixelly if you're taken in too close. Colours are limited, models are overly simple (they have just one fat finger and a thumb on each hand) and animations are unintentionally comical (The bad guys look like they've got books in their pants).

Sound effects are loud and fake just like they are in all arcade games. Plenty of fake grunts and crashes from baddies as you hit them and funny english accents from the civilians (every time a chic civilian jumps out and says in her sing song accent "Don't shoot me" you'll find yourself laughing). Your gun shots sound like hand claps and explosions sound short and crackly. If you like the coin-ops then turn up the sound till just passed the point your speakers can sanely handle and then you'll find yourself really getting into the arcade groove. Cheap and nasty just like the doctor ordered

GAMEPLAY
So if there is no plot, graphics are lazy and sound effects cheap, why should you even bother playing the game? Elementary Watson, any old gamer will tell you that before graphics plot or sound, there was gameplay. Fast but simple, like pacman or space invaders or any really ancient classic, "twitch gaming" is what made us play those dinosaurs in the first place. And twitch gaming is what Virtua Cop is all about.
Your mouse replaces the laser gun with a little target aimer, left click shoots, double right click reloads. And thats it. No complicated system of keys, just point the target at a bad guy, pull the trigger, reload. Gameplay doesn't get simpler than this.

There are three modes of play to choose from each with one or two player modes (the second player uses the keyboard or joystick/gamepad).
The first is the arcade mode which is the main game where you choose one of three levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and then get lead by the hand through various locations and bad guys. Each of the three is split into a further three or four sub levels and at the end of a level you get to take on a big bad guy who takes more shots to kill and throws stuff at you.

You get points based on how many times you hit each guy and where you hit them. If you don't get hit, the bonus multiplier increases, meaning you get even more points for your bang. Finish all three levels and you'll be taken to a fourth level where you can take on the really big boss. If you die you get a couple of continues, in the same way you would if you put more money in the coinop. The whole game only takes an hour and a strained index finger to finish and then you can unlock different options like cheat mode and mirror mode in the options screen.

The second mode is training where all you have to do is hit x many targets with y percent accuracy in z minutes. There are about ten levels like this to get through and then you'll get an overall score to boast about at the end. Play against someone else and it's even more fun.

The third mode is ranking mode and this is the same as the first but you don't get any continues and you will get a ranking at the end based on how far you got, how accurate you were and how many good shots you got etc. This is nice to play against some friends as you have a definite score to compare.

Even though the game is short you can keep coming back to it if you've got a couple of minutes to spare to try improve your score. It's the same as those early games where beating your old score is how you "win".

OVERALL
Gameplay is king, no doubt about it. Virtua Cop is addictive and despite every thing that's logically "wrong" about it, you'll still really enjoy blasting all the bad guys. Besides, it's a good stress reliever, and any doctor would recommend it. This is what early gaming was all about. simple, repetitive but really fun. Download it now and let Virtua Cop become your guilty pleasure.

FINAL CHALLENGE
Become a number one cop in ranking mode. This means you'll have to just about finish the game only taking four hits or less and you'll have to be pretty accurate while you're doing it too...

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By Dragns3 - Feb 11 2006 - 06:08 Absolute classic!

By Ffistie - Jan 08 2006 - 21:11 This brings back memories

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