Retro|Spective 098: Virtua Cop

[QualityChimp]

This popped up in my Twitter feed this morning:

https://mobile.twitter.com/Octav1usKitten/status/1147233170154315779

[Asura]

how it was the 1st gun game I remember, where players animation was dependant on where you hit them and also the game rewarded you for being a good shot.

I think that not enough is said about what Virtua Cop did for gaming. I personally feel it achieved two great things.

First, it breathed life into the light gun game genre. There had certainly been many light gun games before VC, with the likes of Operation Wolf being prominent among them, but with the exception of maybe Mad Dog McCree (which wasn't "good" but was certainly notable), the genre had grown stale and I'm not convinced any of those earlier games were actually particularly good. They always felt like a novelty. Virtua Cop was incredibly playable, with a well-thought-out scoring system and a design that was more grounded in reality as befit a 3D game (none of Operation Wolf's situations where 30 enemies jump out from behind one barrel!).

Second, it came out around during the ascendancy of the first-person shooter (arcade lightgun shooters could, after all, be considered as the genre that preceded the modern FPS) and it did many things which would later find their way into FPSs, such as this thing TA has pointed out. The creators of Goldeneye said that Virtua Cop was a big influence on them, and you can see this in how enemies in Goldeneye move.

EDIT: Isn't Confidential Mission one of the VC series?

[Leon Retro]

This popped up in my Twitter feed this morning:

That looks hilariously terrible - - but also strangely cool.

[Anpanman]

I had VC2 on the DC and really enjoyed it but preferred all the other light games aside from the Grandstand but that's just me, I can certainly see where the attraction lay though for those that got into it.

[Team Andromeda]

I think that not enough is said about what Virtua Cop did for gaming. I personally feel it achieved two great things.

First, it breathed life into the light gun game genre. There had certainly been many light gun games before VC, with the likes of Operation Wolf being prominent among them, but with the exception of maybe Mad Dog McCree (which wasn't "good" but was certainly notable), the genre had grown stale and I'm not convinced any of those earlier games were actually particularly good. They always felt like a novelty. Virtua Cop was incredibly playable, with a well-thought-out scoring system and a design that was more grounded in reality as befit a 3D game (none of Operation Wolf's situations where 30 enemies jump out from behind one barrel!).

Second, it came out around during the ascendancy of the first-person shooter (arcade lightgun shooters could, after all, be considered as the genre that preceded the modern FPS) and it did many things which would later find their way into FPSs, such as this thing TA has pointed out. The creators of Goldeneye said that Virtua Cop was a big influence on them, and you can see this in how enemies in Goldeneye move.

EDIT: Isn't Confidential Mission one of the VC series?

TBF I think Lethal Enforces did a lot to revive the Gun games and was a bloody good game, VC took it to another level and brought the Gun game in the modern age with Model 2 visuals. I really like how the bad guys reacted to where they were shot, not only did it look brilliant, but it really made you take the time and practice at the game (to get the perfect shot) which just added to the replayability of the game.

I also like the setting more of VC compared to the others and the music score was just incredible and added so much to the game. Like I said I remember getting the game in run-up to Chrismas 1995 and I was expecting my mates to be playing Rally or VF II the most, when in my house, but they all wanted to play Virtual Cop and so I got a 2nd gun and it was just a blast to play in 2 player mode, or like some of my mates liked to do, was to play with the game with 2 guns in their hand.

It was also the same Christmas, one of my mates got Who Shot Johnny Rock for his CDi along with the Gun and that was fun to play, too. Great times tbh when we had all broken up from work for the Christmas Peroid and you all go to each other house play loads of games, have loads of drinks, before heading off to the Pub