Police 911

"Konami adds an excellent idea (in the Arcade Industry) that's worth checking out"

Although Sega and Namco have been making a bid to release nothing but Deluxe Machines (machines that take away lots of money and/or force you to max-out your Credit Card at a certain extent), Konami has been pulling out some meat and potatoes ever since they released Silent Scope in 1999. Konami didn't live up to their standards with certain ''AM'' games such as Total Vice and Operation Thunder Hurricane. However, Konami caught up with their mistakes with Silent Scope (but Dark Silhouette was of a lesser success because it was more of a rehash of Silent Scope rather than a sequel). Konami might be seeing some springtime (or Vernal Equinox) and with Police 911, Konami could encounter the most generous spring in their history of business. This review covers ALL versions of Police 911, including Police 24/7 (for Europe) and The Keisatsukan (for Japan).

Graphics

Even though Konami is still using the same graphics engine that empowers most of their deluxe video games since Konami jumped into the Deluxe Machine Business, Konami decided that the technology of the board needed to be hikened up a little bit so that Police 911 moves 50 times faster than the early Konami Deluxe Machine. The polygons move smoothly and the cities have been faithfully detailed using Motion Capture. Because of the Motion Capture antics used in Police 911, you feel like you are actually THERE!!! The criminals also move reasonably smooth as well and the polygons are also detailed. Also, the blurring effect adds some ''promise'' to Konami's repetoire. There are a lot of special effects and tricky graphical programming used in this game, but I'll leave the discoveries up to you. But trust me, you'll like how Konami used all their noodles to create excellent, mezmerizing effects. The graphical special effects is what gave Police 911 such a great score for Graphics.

Sound and Sound Effects

The Background Music is pretty much trumpets-violin-symphonic style, and the background music kind of gets boring after a while but in order to compensate the flaw of the Background Music, the sound effects really more than makes up for it. You will be hearing a lot of Police Sirens and police voices as well (such as ''Drop your hand guns!!'' and ''The criminals are fighting back with hand guns!''). The gun sounds, the hitting effects, and other sound effects are what really more than makes up for the flaw of the background music. I really liked the gun sounds and the police sirens as these elements add a little bit of realism in the game.

Play Control

Although the gun may not be as accurate as Namco's gun (it's more accurate than Sega's guns, though), what Konami did in order to make Police 911 a true Arcade Exclusive is a brand new technology called Motion Sensor Detection. The Motion Sensor Detection uses a ''Play Mat'' where you actually ''touch'' your feet at. Once you are ''touching'' the mat with your feet, the ''sensor bars'' will then detect what you are doing. Basically, the Light Gun Input will be detected by the pull of the Gun Control Trigger (but not the sensor bars that will detect you while you are in the mat) itself. What the Motion Sensor System (Konami's answer to Namco's Action Pedal Mechanism) does is ''track'' your movements through the use of the ''Playing Mat'' and the ''Sensor Bars''. You step on the mat in order to make the sensors ''read you''. Now you crouch, sway sidewards, or both. When you are in the mat doing these aforementioned actions, the sensor bars ''read'' your movements and then transports them to the game's board. Now the board responds by using its ''velocity engine system'' to ''rotate'' the screen depending on the action you perform while you are on the playing mat, sensor bars reading you. This system allows you to ''block or dodge dangerous hits'' in multiple directions at the direction that you please by crouching, swaying, or both instead of having to rely on one mechanism to ''block hits''. Konami's Motion Sensor System is many times more physical than Namco's Action Pedal System because you're required to get physical by swinging your body aloft in order to reload your gun and/or to avoid getting hit by bullets or the like. The Motion Sensor System really makes gameplay great, if not, the best thus far in the Arcade Industry.

Challenge

With the long explanation of Play Control/Playability done for right now, I can now explain how the Challenge is. Instead of continuing on after losing life points, you will start over with criminals not firing at you for a few seconds. Konami has decided to give us a break because they thought we needed some mercy after losing a life this time around. You lose a life, the criminals will wait until you're ready to attack again. You shoot an innocent, the criminals will wait until you're ready. For the first time in a Konami Game, a Mercy System is imposed. The better you are and/or the further you get in the game, the harsher the enemies will be. Not to be overlooked is that in certain instances, it will not be easy to trash the enemy because the enemies usually react every time you miss and will try their best to avoid you, sometimes hiding behind innocent bystanders!!! The 3-D Effects are utilized a lot better than earlier Konami games, making clear shots hard to get!!! That is why you need to learn how to use the Motion Sensor System well in order to get some hard-to-get shots in some instances because the enemies may be visible in sone angles, so move around to see what you may discover for yourself. Some enemies will be trying their best to get a cheap pre-emptive attack on you before you are ready, so you need to react fast in order to put up with the challenge!!! With the Mercy System, the challenge should be fair and square, despite some surprise attacks in some instances. There is a time limit in the game (just like Namco's Crisis games and Konami's Silent Scope/Dark Silhouette) which ensures that you need to act fast in order to get your way around. Unlike many games that rate you on one category, Konami actually uses an Aptitude System that grades you on categories-a-plenty rather than a single category. You will be graded on how brave you are, how accurate you are, how quick you are, how well you behave, you name it. Your score is based on your real-life Police Aptitude so you really need to behave like a Police Officer if you are bidding to overcome the brand-new challenge provided in this one. Not to be overlooked is that you're also judged on how long you take to beat the game. The faster you finish the game (and the better your police behavior becomes), the better you will be. Police 911 provides a challenge which doubles as a Police Training Simulator with a strong storyline.

Storylines

You are a young talented LAPD Officer who's been asked to provide *unconditional* support for BOTH the LAPD SWAT Team and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, who's trying to arrest the most violent Japanese Mob of all time. This mob is trying to start out some sort of Arms Black Market between Little Tokyo and Shinjuku by smuggling a mass shipment of illegal firearms into Japan from America. Unless this mob is stopped, the smuggling ring operation will eventually become complete. It's up to you to arrest this violent mob and save both Los Angeles and Tokyo from a possible terrorist threat. The Storyline is many times better than Silent Scope, which had you rescuing a first family from the grip of the terrorists. I would definitely beg for a sequel to Police 911 as of this point because Police 911 has one of the industry's most exciting and lovable storylines IMO.

Overall

Since Police 911 has either close-to; if not, no flaws at all (the only thing I didn't like about the game is that it's only a one-player game), the Motion Sensor System brings in the most innovative stunts in a Light Gun Game ever yet because with the Motion Sensor Technology, you have to act like a real police officer by moving your body around and around. With the Motion Sensor System being the main feature of this video game (and an excellent new idea for Light Gun Games), I say that you definitely MUST TRY POLICE 911 AT ALL COSTS and if they do not have Police 911 yet, then I highly recommend that you *politely* beg them to get it because not only the Motion Sensor System will please you a lot, but you eventually might get addicted to its gameplay because once you've got the feel of it, you'll definitely want to play this game 24/7 all year long.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/01, Updated 04/07/02