Lethal Enforcers
Arcade
Nostalgia Factor:
Back in the 90s, I absolutely loved Lethal Enforcers. I would run into this game at nearly every arcade I would visit – and I’d always feel obligated to play it each time. You may laugh at this statement, but back then I thought this game had the best graphics I’d ever seen, and that video game graphics simply couldn’t possibly get any better than this.
My number one memory of this game comes from a family vacation we took to Florida in 1995. Our hotel had this game by the pool, and I made it my mission to finally beat Lethal Enforcers. While everyone else was swimming, I came in with my pockets bulging full of quarters and I got the job done. That’s probably the last time I’ve played Lethal Enforcers.
How would the game hold up nearly 25 years later? Let’s find out!
Story:
There’s not much to this game’s story, at least what is explained in-game. You play as a cop, and your goal is to take out an evil crime syndicate - fighting through the game’s stages and shooting bad guys as you go.
Gameplay:
Just like there’s not much to the game’s story, there isn’t much to its gameplay either. You point at stuff and you shoot it, only stopping to reload. Lethal Enforcers is a very simple game, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I’ve played both the arcade and the emulated versions of the game, and I can say that they are both equally as fun. Of course, nothing can replace the feel of holding the light gun in your hands and firing away at your enemies on screen, but the game doesn’t really lose anything in translation if you are playing with a controller. It’s still the same, fun Lethal Enforcers.
The game is six stages long. Your goal is to shoot the bad guys that pop out before they can shoot you. If you accidentally shoot a civilian or a fellow police officer, you lose one of your three lives. If an enemy hits you, you lose a life. This is a game where you get killed a lot, so if you’re playing in an actual arcade, you better have a bulging pocket full of quarters like I did if you want to beat this one. In addition to shooting enemies, you can shoot things in the environment as well, such as lights or windows. Occasionally you’ll encounter a special gun like an automatic rifle or a rocket launcher that you can use to unload on your enemies. If you get hit while in possession of this gun, you lose it. So be careful!
At the end of each stage, you’ll fight a boss character. Simply shoot the boss over and over again repeatedly and eventually you’ll whittle its health down enough where it finally dies. At the end of the sixth stage, you fight the final boss and beat the game. Woo.
Graphics:
Back in the day, this was considered an incredible looking game. The environments were photo realistic. The characters had that digitized look which everyone went nuts for in the 90s. This was as close to a “real life” looking game as you could get. If you had never heard of this game before, you simply couldn’t walk past the Lethal Enforcers arcade cabinet and not give it a second look. This was groundbreaking stuff back then.
Unfortunately, I have to say that it hasn’t aged particularly well. The characters are horribly stiff and awkward in their movements, in addition to being fuzzy and pixelated. The backgrounds look like still, unmoving photographs. In the car chase stages, the backgrounds move but they loop repeatedly over and over again.
There’s some weird, impossible stuff that happens. Using the car chase stage as another example, enemies pop out of cars to fire at you every few seconds or so. There are some cars where you seriously kill seven to eight people in the vehicle before you finally leave it in the dust. How in the world are these villains cramming so many people into their cars?
Sound:
I’ve heard that this game has a decent soundtrack, but I could barely hear the music over the constant sound of guns firing, enemies shouting when they get hit, and the announcer yelling out “RELOAD!” every time I’d empty my weapon. This game is constant carnage that doesn’t really let you stop and appreciate the music at any point. I can say, however, that even though this game is made by Konami, Lethal Enforcers didn’t seem to have any of that Sunset Riders/TMNT charm in its musical score. From what I could actually hear it was nothing special to me.
Overall:
Lethal Enforcers has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. In present day, I’m sure a lot of people might look at this title and immediately write it off because of its graphics – but I think doing that would be doing the game a disservice. This is a fun game. There’s so much about it that hasn’t aged well, and that really doesn’t matter to me. It’s always been about “is this game fun or not” in my opinion. And I think that Lethal Enforcers is.
That said, I am not sure if I would feel the same way if I didn’t have a significant amount of nostalgia attached to the game. If I had picked up the game today and played it for the first time I think I still would have liked it, but only to a certain extent. The game is extremely short, simple, and limited- in addition to the graphical issues I’ve already mentioned. So even though this is a fun game, it’s by no means a flawless game. Or even a good game, or a great game. It’s a FUN game. Does that make sense? I don’t freaking know.
What I do know is that after beating this game, I have absolutely zero desire to come back and play it anytime soon. Maybe it’ll be another 25 years before I pick it up again. To me, that is what keeps Lethal Enforcers in the “only slightly above average” category. It’s a fun game while it lasts, but quickly forgotten about afterwards.
Final Score:
C+
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