Under the Influence

Man, what a find! Here's a Saturn-centric clip from a British television series called Bad Influence. It features three of the best games in the system's library, including Virtua Cop, Sega Rally Championship, and that most killer of apps, Virtua Fighter 2.

What's most peculiar about this clip are the celebrities used to test drive these games. They're Gladiators, yet quite clearly NOT the American variety I remember watching as a teenager (or now, for that matter). It's surreal to watch one of these muscle-bound, spandex-clad brutes sit down to a game of Sega Rally, then politely observe, "I say, these graphics are cracking good! Jolly good show, I say! Blimey, I would certainly enjoy a spot of tea right now..."

Video Game Vault - Virtua Cop 2

Here's another Saturn VGV for ya!

Despite detecting some hate towards the game, it's a vid about a Saturn game, and that's always worth posting.

Talking about VC2, I think I've played every version of that game except the Saturn one! This includes the original arcade version, the Dreamcast port (available in Japan as a stand-alone game and in the US as part of the Sega Smash Pack collection, us Europeans were left out) and the PS2 one, available as part of the rather great Virtua Cop Elite Edition compilation. Well, when I finally get a Saturn gun I promise to grab this game, along with my other favourite The House of the Dead.

By the way, since I'm not a contributor to the Dreamcast Junkyard, here's a nice VGV of Power Stone. Maybe Father can post it there where it belongs ;)

Virtua Cop: Elite Edition review

First of all, sorry for not posting much in the last weeks, but I've been really busy and it's all going to get worse from now on, so don't expect much from me.

Anyway, let's get to the point! I have a question for you all. What happens when you put this:

and this:

together?

Lots of fun, that's what!

After many year's playing light-gun shooters with a regular controller, which sucks hard, I've finally acquired this beauty called G-Con 2, and to make up for the fact that my first light-gun ever wasn't for a SEGA console, the first game I played with it was Virtua Cop: Elite Edition!

Unfortunately I can't really make a comparative between this and the original Saturn games, like Father K wanted to do, for I've never played them before. Ok, I played the VC2 port that came on Sega Smash Pack for the Dreamcast, but that wasn't the Saturn version, so...

Anyway, for all of you that don't know exactly what is this VC:EE, this is basically just a compilation of both Virtua Cop 1 and 2, with a couple of extras.


Wait, what's that, you don't know what Virtua Cop is? Fear not, for NebachadnezzaR is here! Journey with me through the annals of history (what? ANALS?) to the distant year of 1994, when a game called Virtua Cop took light-gun shooters to the next level!

Like Virtua Fighter or Virtua Racing, VC was the first of it's genre to feature fully 3D graphics, and with that came a lot of other features, like the localized shots or the improved interaction with the environments.


So, what can we expect from the PS2 versions of both this great game and it's even greater sequel? Well, the graphics for instance are obviously better. The resolution is way higher, the textures are more detailed and overall both games just look better (I suppose, since, as I said earlier, I never played the Saturn versions). VC2 looks even better than the DC version, especially when the cars explode (the fire and smoke just looks awesome).

But never forget that in their core, they're still Saturn games, so don't expect anything near as good as other PS2 shooters.


Moving on to the extras, there's not much here. There's the training mode, where you can train your skills by shooting at cardboard targets alone or against the console, and there's the gallery, where you can gaze at various artwork that you have to unlock first, by shooting those coward bastards that runaway instead of facing you like a man or the various objects in the scenery.

When I beat VC1 I also unlocked a "random mode", which I can activate in the options menu, but I have absolutely no idea what that is, since my game came with no manual. Do you anything about this, Father?


By the way, since I already talked about the options menu, there's something here for everyone. If you plain suck at this kind of games you can select infinite continues, and if you're a gun maniac like me you can activate the "select weapon" option. Now you just have to pause the game and shoot off-screen to select your weapon from a wide variety of fine armament!

So, overall, is this a good purchase? Well, yes and no. If you've never played any of these games before and prefer to have just one disc with nicer versions of both games, instead of having to track down the 2 Saturn versions, this is indeed a pretty cool compilation. On the other hand, if you already have this games for the Saturn, there's really not much of a point in having this game, since there's almost nothing new here.


Anyway, this is a good way to pass time while we wait for the Wii version of Ghost Squad, a shooter very similar to VC judging from what I've heard about it. And if that game turns out to be a success, who knows, maybe SEGA will convert Virtua Cop 3 too. It should be an easy task, since both games run in the same arcade hardware.


Now, in an unrelated matter, I'm trying to build a decent light-gun collection for my PS2 and right now I'm after Vampire Night, among others. Since that game was produced by SEGA maybe I'll post something about it in the near future.


And in an even more unrelated matter, I can't finish this post without telling you about my latest PS2 acquisition: Gungrave! It's a fucking awesome action game, the brainless kind of action games, and it's really short, which is great! So, here's my advice: if you're like me and you're looking for short, brainless, immediate fun for the PS2, this is the game to get. NOW!


As always, good bye and good games ;)

Virtua Cop 1 & 2 Review

Firstly, and this is a bit slack, I'm reviewing the two as a pair... I'm sure gaming purists will be horrified by this but its just a general guide. I'll be happy to be corrected by any Saturn purists out there....
As readers of the Dreamcast Junkyard will know, I love guns. Light-weight plastic guns that is, that fire beams of light at your telly, not real ones that fire metal bullets at innocent individuals. (You know, the type the Metropolitan Police use on the tube...)

The first Light Gun game I ever played was Virtua Cop for the Saturn. I didn't play it until relatively recently, however, using the Light Gun. No, for years I enjoyed the game using the ordinary Saturn pads. The Gun, however takes the game into a whole new dimension. I now have three Saturn Light Guns. One of them is in the Lovely themed 'game and gun ' package pictured in the last post...

But I'm getting ahead of myself...



"What is the premise of these games dear Father? Tell us about the gameplay... How did the franchise develop? Has it ever appeared on another console?" I hear you cry...

To you I say "Calm down my friends... It'll all become clear presently..."

Originally an arcade game, lucky Saturn owners were given a port of Virtua Cop for home gaming, that was virtually an exact copy of the arcade system. Connect your Light Gun to your system, press start and the action gets started straight away.




In the game you play as one of Virtua City's Finest. Arriving at a bank robbery as it is taking place, your job is to use your marksmanship to take out a plethora of robbers, gang bangers and terrorists who are causing mayhem, taking hostages and making a general bloody nuisance of themselves.

All the action takes place in the first person view. You don't need to see the barrel of your gun, because if you are playing it as it was intended to be played, you'll be holding one in your hand.

To hep you suss out the immediacy of the impending threat of one of the hoods shooting you, they each have a large green target which appears around them when they are about to 'lock and load'. If you don't take them out quickly, this target turns, to yellow, then red... the nearer you are to getting 'capped'.







You can shoot your adversaries dead, but as you represent the forces of light over dark, there is always the "Justice Shot". the Justice Shot allows you to shoot the weapon from your opponents hand, thus allowing him to be arrested. You'll score more points for this...

Various weapon upgrades are hidden in crates dotted around the level environments. a rifle for example allows you more bullets than the standard pistol, so you don't have to reload as often. (you re-load by shooting outside of the screen.)




The graphics are superb for the time. A variety of environments are presented through out the games. Bank, docks, building sites, onboard a ship, in the subway. Objects within these environments can be shot at and will be caused to swing, fall or shatter...and that's fun in itself!

At the end of each level, there is a suitable car chase to take you to the next place of action and fresh batch of villains. These necessitate you firing at moving vehicles, shattering windscreens, bursting tyres and causing the cars or vans to flip out or explode.

Level bosses are brilliant to take out. In Virtua Cop One the bosses include a hysterical laughing behemoth, who throws barrels, grenades and even a van at you. You need to shoot them before you get hit by them. otherwise your lives will disappear. Beat him before he beats you and your onto the next level... Fairly straight forward then!!

The options allow you to play on the usual easy, normal or hard levels, so you can comeback to the game once you have completed it, and challenge your reflexes with increasingly harder reaction times, faster shooting etc.

at various point's you'll be given the option to choose you route through the game by shooting one of two sign posts e.g. Docks or Subway. again this lends variety to the game as different environments throw up different challenges.




The games definitely stand the test of time. After the demise of the Saturn, the games were ported to 'next gen consoles'. They appeared in slightly enhanced form on the Dreamcast as part of the wonderful 'Sega Smash Pack' and on the Ps2 as 'Virtua Cop Elite Edition'.



Virtua Cop 3 made an appearance on the XBox. The franchise would seem to have a rosy future!

Overall Score for this particular pair of titles... 9/10. For a frankly better review you can visit here.