Monday, August 24, 2015

Video Game Review: Virtua Cop 2

Virtua Cop 2
Sega Saturn


People always say that light gun games are not as fun to play at home as they are in the arcade. I disagree. True, it definitely isn't quite the same. Having a gun in your hand at the arcade, blasting away at bad guys and reloading frantically in the middle of combat is a pretty unique gaming experience. I am sure there is a light gun for the Sega Saturn out there somewhere that you can play this game with and have a similar experience as if you were playing in the arcade, but I actually don't mind playing this at home with a controller in hand.

Virtua Cop 2 for the Saturn is basically a direct port of the arcade game, with a few minor changes added to make things a little different. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of the game, it is basically a "rail shooter". You can't move your character, but you can control a cursor on the screen that is basically your target reticule. Bad guys are constantly popping in at you from all directions, and it is your job to take them out.... or DIE! Don't expect very deep game play here. You point. You shoot. You reload. And that's about it.

You get about five or six shots out of your gun before you have to reload. In the arcade, you have to point the gun off the screen and fire to reload. On the Saturn, all you have to do is hit a button and it reloads for you. It definitely is a lot easier on the home console as you can basically keep on blasting away at your enemeies without having to reload affect your aim.

The thing that makes Virtua Cop immediately different from other games of this variety is the target that pops up around each enemy. The target changes color as the enemy is getting ready to shoot. So if there are multiple enemies on the screen, you want to take out the ones that are closer to firing at you first. Back in the day I didn't like this addition. I thought the target was too big and colorful and distracted from everything else going on. I had played other games like Lethal Enforcers and Area 51, and I considered this completely unnecessary. But hey I have grown to like it and now consider it an integral part of the Virtua Cop gaming experience.




In addition to the bad guys that appear on screen, there are also innocent civilians. Shoot one on accident and you lose a life. Unfortunately the bad cop strategy doesn't pay off in this game. The environments in this game take damage as well. I got shot a countless number of times while playing this game simply because I was too distracted firing away at background objects to see what my bullets would do to them. I don't know why, but there is just something incredibly fulfilling about blowing away an ATM, shooting drumsets on a stage, or picking out glass display cases rather than actually killing your enemies. My favorite level to shoot stuff on has to be the cruise ship. There is a branch that you can take to go to the ship's kitchen. In the kitchen, there are glasses and pots and pans hanging from the shelves that I take great glee in blowing away. But my favorite things to shoot have to be the watermelons that are sitting out on the countertops. Why is it so satisfying to fire away at them and watch them explode and scatter all over the place? I don't know, but even at the risk of getting hit by enemy fire I do it every time.

Enemies react appropriately (most of the time) based on where you shoot them. Shoot them in the leg and they go down, but still live. Shoot them in the belly and they hold their gut and hunch over. Hit them in the head, and it is game over for them. In fact, unless you hit them in the head, be prepared to shoot each enemy at least three times. This is simple stuff in games nowadays that we take for granted, but Virtua Cop as far as I know was one of the first games to do something like this.

So it is just a lot of fun to shoot things. Which is good, because it is a shooting game. Whether you are shooting bad guys, taking out the environment, or just going hog wild all over the place, you should have a good time. If you like this kind of game that is.




Don't expect too deep of a gaming experience. I don't know if there is a story to this game. As far as I know, you are a cop and you shoot bad guys. That's about all there is to it. And the game is very short as well. I believe I beat it in 26 minutes on my most recent play through.

As far as the game format goes, there are only three levels. Easy, medium, and (you guessed it) hard. The first level you break up a bank heist and end up hopping in a car and chasing the baddies back to their hideout. In the second level, you board a cruise ship and blow away more bad guys. On the final level, you head down into the subway system, blow away some bad guys, get on a subway, blow away some more bad guys, and enter a base where at the end you blow up a tank. Each level has its own boss at the end of it, but none of them are hard. At all.

After you have beaten all three levels (which you can play in any order) you face off against the game's final boss. He just flies around and you shoot him, while shooting down the projectiles he is launching at you. When you win, the game is over. Like I said, very short. Very simple. If you don't expect anything more than this out of Virtua Cop you should love the game like I do.

There isn't much to keep you playing, other than exploring different branches you can take in each level. But they all lead to the same places. There is also a two player mode which is probably a lot of fun. But I was never able to find anyone to play with.




Don't expect to beat the game on its default settings. True, the game isn't that hard but they don't give you nearly enough lives or continues to make it all the way through. I had to crank my lives and my continues up to 9 each, just to be sure I would be able to make it through okay. I think I got shot 30 or so times. So I had plenty of lives left over. But this definitely wouldn't have been enough to get me through on the default setting. I don't consider it cheating. I consider it like I had a pocketful of quarters at the arcade. I was not going to stop until I had completed the game.

There isn't much else to say about this. It's a quick, fun, light hearted experience. If you aren't a fan of the genre, don't go out of your way to get this. Even if you are a fan, I wouldn't bother spending more than a few bucks on this at the bargain bin. It's short and it is easy and there isn't a whole lot of replay value here. But it was a great arcade title and it definitely had a big influence on many games out there today. And it is definitely a lot of fun. I wasted more hours on the arcade and the home version of this game than I care to admit. For me, I consider this a fringe classic... but probably only because it has sentimental value to me. For everyone else, it is likely just a quaint little game that played its part in history and will be forgotten forever.


Overall:
B

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