Virtua Cop 2

I love Virtua Cop, but Virtua Cop 2 is where it is really at. Funny story here, I grew up in the UK and we had this video game TV show called GamesMaster that aired in the 90s, it was awesome. Well, one episode had this dude he was the best Virtua Cop 2 player in the world, he was so good that he was able to play on two machines at once. So, once you have read this review, been inspired to play Virtua Cop 2 go and watch that dude play two machines at once!

The City Is Back Under Siege

Once again, two cops stand in between a peaceful city and a city full of bad guys, running guns, taking hostages, and getting up to all kinds of no good. It is your typical cop story and one that I feel is much more “fleshed” out here than it was in the first game. Fleshed out may be going a tad far, but it does have a bit more cinematic flair to it this time around.

The presentation has been given a shot in the arm, I am not 100 percent sure, but it does feel like Sega used a lot more polygons this time around as things do have a smoother look to them. The game still has that unmistakable mid to late 90s Sega 3D look about it though.

Clean Up The City

The core gameplay of Virtua Cop 2 has not really undergone any changes. That is not a bad thing as I felt that Sega really nailed it with the first game. You once again, need to shoot bad guys to progress through the stages. You can also once again, disarm them instead of killing them for a really cool bonus. You can select what mission/level you want to do from a choice of three. Once you have beaten these, you then have one final boss battle that you need to do in order to beat the game.

Are You Gonna Go My Way?

What I feel makes this a better game than the first is the fact that you now have choices to make as you play. During gameplay, you will be given the option of what way you want to go. This not only makes things much more exciting, but it also gives you an incentive to go back and play the game multiple times so that you can see all the different areas that the game has to offer. You once again have a small number of lives and you can earn more by getting bonuses as you play. Bonuses can also be more powerful weapons that you can use to put those bad guys in their pace

I love the original game, but I have to be honest and say that Virtua Cop 2 is the better game. The overall presentation of the game is better, it feels a bit more fast-paced and I like how there is more to the game overall. It is a shallow experience, but it is always a fun time, no matter how many times you play through it. If you have a Sega Saturn, then 100 percent, this is a game that has to be in your collection.

In a time where not everybody owned a home console, the places called Arcades were all the rage. You could go there with your friends and enjoy all kinds of games for a reasonable price, and that-s where Virtua Cop 2 came from. Even though it was originally an arcade game, we'll be talking about the home port of the game.

Nowadays people don't go that much to the Arcades, but they still do exist, and new games are released there every day. But let's see what these games were capable of two and a half decades ago.

About the game

In Virtua Cop 2 we get to choose from three different offices and we'll go through their different missions on the field. This is a rail-shooting game, which means we'll be on rails and we'll only control where to aim and shoot our gun.

Proceed through the different levels shooting all kinds of criminals and going through extreme shootings. Since this game started up on arcade machines, there are some trade-offs when it comes to playing it at home. For instance the lack of a game cage or screen with gun-like controls. In an arcade, you could just aim with the special controllers at the screen and pull the triggers. Of course, the best thing about having it on your own PC would be having it at home to play whenever you want.

King of rail shooters?

Virtua Cop 2 is a great title, with extreme experiences and a nice difficulty curve. But it's definitely not the best shooter on rails available. When you compare it with more popular arcade titles like The House of the Dead, this game falls short on imagination. There are more explosions here, and in a way, you could say that there's more action here. But the visuals and the intensity of the experience is superior in The House of the Dead.

Still, we know that horror games are not for everybody, and The House of the Dead is certainly a spooky title. So, if you're not a fan of horror, this was an excellent game for you.

Review

This is a worthy sequel to the original title, no matter how you look at it. There are new mechanics in the game that make the experience feel much more interactive, even though you never really control the action.

This game took everything that made the first game great to the next level. The animations and visuals are improved, and the overall map-design is much better. There are even bosses at the end of each level, and once you finish all the levels you'll have to face a final boss. The game is a nice experience on PC, but it certainly is much better if you get to play it on the original arcade machine.

• Graphics and visuals: The game looks great, especially taking into account that it was released in 1995. The 3D models and levels come with greatly improved animations too. The explosions and shooting effects look great, and it adds up for a solid visual experience.

• Gameplay: As we mentioned before, the game experience is far superior when you get to play it on an arcade machine. But it's not terrible playing it on PC, instead of aiming with a gun to the screen, you move your mouse and shoot. It can be more precise too. In each level, there are about two different paths to choose from so you can explore the levels more diversely. It adds a little replayability to the game,

• Sound: The sound is just there. In arcades it wasn't really that important since you'd be in a loud place anyway. So it's no surprise that the soundtrack is just basic for an action game. So are the sound effects, they're not bad, they're just there.

I'm so glad that I will soon have another game that uses the gun I bought with the first Virtua Cop! The gun itself is so cool it that seems like a shame to waste it on only one title. Actually, there are quite a few others coming from third parties, but none has the big name-recognition that this coin-op big boy packs. Virtua Cop 2 takes a quantum leap ahead of the first game, and it's coming to blow you away.

Last year, the original Virtua Cop helped the Saturn to enjoy a healthy Christmas season and drove parents nuts with kids shooting people on their TV sets.This year promises more of the same, except for the fact that Sega needs to make more of the VC guns available, hopefully at a lower price, Virtua Cop 1 puts you In all-new police situations, including an Insane car chase and bank hold-up,This sequel is much tougher than Vlnua Cop and will, we hope, feature more bonus options than its predecessor.The enemies are more varied now. and are detailed with extra texture maps which give the game an edge over the first edition. There is no rest for law enforcement's finest.

Before the Dreamcast was released, much speculation was made about whether Sega would release a "Sega Ages" collection chock-full of Model 2 classics. After all, Sega's 128-Bit monster had specs that surpassed even the Model 3 board. While we wait for VF2, both Gunblades, Daytona and Rally, Sega offers us an updated Virtua Cop 2. There's a little good news, and a lot of bad news. The good news is that we now have another game that uses our dusty DC light guns. Unfortunately, VC2 is a disappointing port of the PC port of the Saturn version. That's right, VC2 is a PC port. Sure, the graphics have been touched up a bit from the PC game (mainly texture quality and frame-rate), but not much else has been enhanced. If you've never played VC2 before, go check out this game--in an arcade. VC2 is out now in japan.