Confidential Mission

"Virtua Cop 3"

Different shooting games come with the same type of action, just different locations and different enemies to shoot at. Confidential Mission takes you on a wild ride through several different locations and gives you Virtua Cop style scoring and targeting! You're given a rather weak story to follow, and you'll blast your way through different locales that include a museum, and a moving train through snow fields up north. Fans of shooting games will find nothing new here, but maybe something familiar with the way it comes off as a Virtual Cop clone!

-The Game Play-

It's simple. You move through several long and enduring stages while shooting enemies that come into view. In order to collect level bonuses, you have to shoot key points on enemy targets and then up into shooting little disks that may appear on screen. It seems daunting, but the challenge level is easy enough to get used to after twenty minutes or so of play. Weapon upgrades can be found sporadically throughout the stages, and usually if you hit a certain enemy that has more than a standard weapon, you can pick up their weapon and use it until the bullets run low!

As you work through the game, you’ll find that there are plenty of things to shoot and the enemies are generally easy enough to hit. The scoring that you get is based on where and how many times you hit them in which it multiplies each time. There are several different items that you can pick up and one of the features of the game is to hit small briefcases that will drop disks for you to pick up. These disks unlock other things in the game and it becomes important that you pick them up in order to unlock other items in other modes, almost like House of the Dead.

Only as good as your light gun is, the control of the game centers around hitting moving targets that come out from merely all directions. In later stages, it takes some time and effort to learn how to hit the far off enemies before their targeting circle turns red, and you're hit up by incoming fire. Speed is of the essence here, so if you see something that needs to be collected, shoot it. When you get into the more intense portions of the game, you might have to work the light gun a little quicker and using the control pad is definitely out because the cursor doesn’t move fast enough.

-The Visuals-

Wide open spaces, or cramped up hallways, everything has a good amount of detail! The enemy designs look fresh, and Virtua Cop fans will find that Confidential Mission looks and reacts the same way that VC does. Enemies are highlighted with the familiar red targeting circle, and even fall away the same way depending on where you hit them. You have different lighting effects depending on what type of environment you may be in, so look for that as you skate through the game. One of the coolest features though is that you have environmental damage that shows in several areas when you shoot the different types of objects in the stages.

-The Audio-

Stage music is set pretty low, and you're really listening to the numerous sound effects that appear all throughout the game. Glass breaking, things exploding and enemies shouting at you, as well as the story dialogue really comes out crystal clear, so you'll be hearing more of those things than you will actual game music. The further you get into the game, the more upbeat the music seems to get, but you’ll find that the music does tend to fall back into the action at a low roar. Aside from that, you might find that the dialogue is just a little too cheesy in some areas and draws more of a chuckle rather than drawing you into the game.

-The Verdict-

While it's not the most innovative shooting game there ever was, it does have some pretty good qualities. Fans of the Virtua Cop series will probably find more pleasure in this than anyone else, so be aware that even through it's a different name, it's still the same game. Though there are plenty of options in the way that you shoot things and the damage that you can do, it doesn’t save the fact that you’ve played this game before in different ways. The audio is crystal clear and the visuals are first rate, but the game play is repetitive and boring at times and the control sucks if you don’t have a gun. For the Dreamcast owner who needs another game, the only thing Confidential about this mission is telling your friends that you bought it so the rest of the world doesn’t stare at you.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/02, Updated 10/02/02