G-Police: Weapons of Justice

"It's not Ace Combat, but it's still good."

Wing Commander 4 has an insane control system. Warhawk is too short. Colony Sun is terrible by every measure. So are there any worthwhile action flight games for the PSX that AREN'T Ace Combat? Yes. There's G-Police: Weapons of Justice.

You will have to take everything I say with the knowledge that this is a PSX game. When I say the graphics are good, I'm not saying that it's any better (or on the same level) as a PS2 / Dreamcast / X-Box game.

Graphics - 8

Smooth graphics, very realistic. You'll know what you can hit, and what's out of range. You won't have much trouble telling what is what, and the HUD is visible without being intrusive.

Control - 9

Very intuitive control. Once I went over the game manual, I never had to go back because I forgot how to do something. I never felt uncomfortable positioning my fingers to push the right buttons at the right times.

There is analog control support, but I don't use it, so I won't comment one way or another.

Gameplay - 10

There's plenty of variety to spice up the game. You get to control four different vehicles on the various missions, that range from patrol, to protection, to seek and destroy. Nothing groundbreaking, but enough variety to make it worthwhile.

You'll inevitably be stuck with the implausible ''Destroy 3,782,194,715 enemy air craft.'' or the ''Lone fighter against a gargantuan cruiser and it's convoy'' missions, but not to the ridiculous scale you see in Colony Wars.

As an added bonus for the truly sadistic, there are plenty of civilian targets to pick on in the early levels.

Story - 8

The story is pretty banal, but it's less contrived then most flight games. It's presented in brief cut scenes that use game-play graphics. The exposition is brief enough that you won't sit there bored waiting to continue the game. Also, if you have already seen the cut scenes, you can skip them with a press of a button.

Sound - 7

Not much of a point in hooking this up to a surround sound theater system, the sounds are not that earth-shakeingly terrific. In fact, the sounds of your weapons and your ships are downright weak.

I give it a better-than-marginal rating because the voice acting is well done. Voices read dialogue to you during the mission briefing and de-briefing, as well as inter-pilot communications. There is also voice-only exposition for cut scenes. These are well done in general, and even better considering how bad video game acting general is.

Replay Value - 7

The story's linear, so you play all the missions the first time through. There are secrets to unlock, like training missions, design art galleries, and other things of that nature. There is also a difficulty setting, so if you conquer the default difficulty, you can bump it up to ''hard'' and test your skills as a true PSX dog fighter.

Tilt - 8

There is nothing revolutionary in G-Police, but all the worthwhile action / flight-sim conventions are present. It's lack of popularity keeps the shelf price down (I think my copy cost me $15.) Overall, I'd call this a ''Buy'' game. It's especially good for newbies to this genre.

Overall Score: 8.2 (8/10)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/02, Updated 07/13/02