What is Virtua Cop? A brief history, how to play it, and more

If you enjoy light gun shooters, then Virtua Cop is likely a go to game for you to play. Created by Sega AM2, Virtua cop was born in the year 1994 and was recreated for the Sega Saturn and for PC in the year 1997. For more on the history and gameplay of Virtua Cop check out the remainder of the article.

Virtua Cop Gameplay

History

Created by Yu Suzuki and his division of gaming developers at Sega AM2, Virtua Cop was started on (or at least the Saturn version was) around April 1995. As we mentioned above, the original arcade game was put into development in 1994. The Saturn version of Virtua Cop was one of the first games to make use of the Sega Graphics Library (which was one of Sega’s major operating systems). The reason behind using the Sega Graphics Library is that they wanted the game to keep that high arcade game quality of graphics (or at least keep the graphics up to the arcade version standards).

Gameplay

In Virtua Cop players are able (and supposed to) play as police officers – James Cools or Michael Hardy. The game is set in the first person and players are required to use a light gun (joypad when they’re playing on the Saturn) to take down bad guys and make their way through this challenging game. You can lose a life in one of two ways: by taking on damage or killing a civilian. To gain either a special weapon or life the player (you) can shoot special items that you find in the game. If you take on any damage once you obtain a special weapon you will then lose that weapon but, you won’t lose your special weapon if you end up shooting a civilian. If you manage to disarm an enemy without killing said enemy you will gain justice points.

*you can also gain justice points by shooting a bullseye (the middle of a target circle).

Here’s a little backstory on the game

Basically the entire story of Virtua Cop comes about because a detective in the game somehow managed to uncover an underground gun-running op and finds that it all circles back an organization called E.V.I.L. Incorporated. The detective manages to find some dirt on the organization but is killed by that very same organization shortly after doing so. After the assassination, the detectives Michael Hardy and James Cools are placed on the case as a special task force and are required to face the organization Joe Fang, King the Kong and the lead of the organization.

Fun Facts about Virtua Cop

  • Since players could specifically target body parts on their targets it kind of eliminated a large majority of the hit or miss feel of it being a shooter game
  • The game was considered to be too short to have a home release even though it was found to be too long for an arcade game

Conclusion

And there is all you’ll need to know about the game Virtua Cop. Remember, if you have any other information pertaining to the game that you feel will be beneficial for us to add, comment it below. Thanks for reading.

This information was taken from Wikipedia

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