Virtua Cop came to life during the 32-Bit era and Sega capitalized on rail guns beautifully with it. The graphic style was impressive and eye catching. Prior, companies such as Konami and American Laser Games attempted to use Full-Motion Video (FMV) to create realistic rail shooters. Sega went with polygons for their light gun, rail gun, release instead. I like to look at Metro Cop as a “what if” type game. While it is its own game created for the 2018 Demake Jam, it has many similarities to Sega’s light gun franchise. That is an extremely good thing.
Light on story but heavy on action
The story of Metro Cop is a little light and that is being generous. Your goal is to shoot the bad guys till you face off with the Big Boss. He is operating a black-market arm smuggling business in the harbor and your job is to stop illegal shenanigans.
Honestly, I cannot remember the storyline behind Virtua Cop one or two. I just remember how much fun those games were, especially playing with my father at home on my Sega Saturn. My dad had bad arthritis so action games like Mario and Sonic were a no go for him. Games that used the light gun though, he could enjoy those and did, quite a bit. I remember scouring used game stores for light gun games for Saturn. I had Area 51, both Virtua Cop games, etc.
Is it fun though?
Control is simple, move the cursor around the screen with your mouse and shoot with a left click. There is a reload button at the bottom of the screen that must be clicked to, well, reload your gun.
Commentors on Itch.io’s website have pointed out how much nicer it would be to reload with a right click. I see their point, but it might also make the game less strategic, especially your first play through. Do you go for the reload during the calm before the storm or risk what is coming with four bullets or less?
It sounds simple but that little restriction, the time it takes to move to the reload button and click, causes so much tension while playing. Enemies come from everywhere, including in your face like in Operation Wolf (who remembers that classic arcade game?).
Metro Cop accomplishes being fun, even with extremely limited graphics and audio. The enemies have reticles that let you know how much time you have before they fire. This allows you to gauge which enemy to dispose of first.
There are a few destructible elements in the levels too, giving Metro Cop a bit of interactivity that this style game is not known for.
It is completely free to play, in your browser, over on Itch.io’s website. You cannot beat the amount of fun you will have with Metro Cop for the price.