G-Police

"An old game that should never be forgotten."

Introduction

Being a cop is no easy task in modern days if you think about those little moments that happen while on the streets. Shootouts, hard and bloody fights in the name of the law just to apprehend a suspect who simply doesn't wish to 'come quietly' and give away his freedom. Naturally as with any job that promises to deliver justice uphold the law and protect the innocent danger simply lurks around every corner. Only the best of the best (so they say) are ever able to become an officer of the law, one step higher than the common people one may say.

Enter G-Police, forget that self-defence course, and forget memorizing every single law and learning how to wield a gun and take perfect shots on the leg. In this game, you're the rookie cop fresh off the streets and dare I say… You certainly didn't go to law school.

Set in the future, 2089 to be exact so it's not THAT far off, G-Police puts you in the driver's seat of an AG-60 Havoc as you battle the criminals that threaten to plunge the world of Earth and it's colonies into a time of chaos…

Story

Before I go on and explain the meat of the gameplay and such, let's have a look at the story. G-Police opens up with a few cinematic scenes (quite good for the time the game came out) and puts you in the role of Slater the brother to Elaine Slater a G-Police officer who apparently committed suicide. Suspecting foul play he, against his usual intentions, joined the G-Police an organisation that was supposed to represent the government's authority in the outer colonies.

The G-police isn't your usual batch of police officers, they're all volunteers usually war veterans from the war that broke out several years earlier between the whole of the world when resources were running low (this war resulted in all governments being stripped of power and replaced by a united Earth government). A simple problem with the G-police is the fact that due to little funding from Earth they operated second hand aircraft rather outdated. The general rule to keep in mind with the G-Police is they ask no questions, if you're up for the job, you're in.

Slater, suspecting foul play against his sister quickly managed to join up with the G-Police and with his military record he was easily assigned to his sister's former unit. In the role of this man you take on the missions assigned to you by the G-Police all the while trying to find out what happened to your sister and if she was murdered… by who and why?

Early on in the game of course the few missions you get go rather slowly and naturally you may feel that the plot has been cut there and then. However unlike most games G-Police while it has a slowish start does hot up especially in the later missions and for those who have a good eye for storytelling this will be a wonderful story that greatly challenges your mind to piece together the solution that, while right under your nose, is out of reach. Each and every mission connects to Slater's sister and most certainly while at first you are stuck with the thought of a 'simple' story towards the later ends of the game you will be sitting back, nodding your head and agreeing that this is a story of wonderful magnitude…

The way it's told, the connections you have to make and the ever-lawful eye that you need to piece them together…. All I can say is G-Police has a story that rivals some of the better storytelling games out there.

Gameplay

G-Police is sort of an action game and a shoot 'em up. You fly in an AG-60 Havoc which is a helicopter, rather a futuristic one (as opposed to those in modern day hehe), armed to the teeth with various guns, missiles and bombs as well as being packed with regenerative armour.

The game offers several camera angle views the common one being 'inside' the helicopter, the best view in the game if you ask me as this view comes with a targeting mark which lets you see where your bullets will go. Naturally there's plenty of other camera angles to play the game from including the 'behind the helicopter' view and so on.

The majority of the game takes place in the front seat of the AG-60 Havoc helicopter, however you will later of course get a better helicopter, which is faster and more powerful per se.

The missions given to you range from early on simply scanning cargo crates in one of the districts for illegal weapons, to the all famous 'following' a suspect (which is usually only ever seen in driving games) as well as the usual attack and destroy missions.

Put quite simply G-Police has such a variety of missions that it hardly feels like your doing the same thing. Granted fighting is always going to be happening whatever mission you do given the nature of the 'setting' that the game takes place in but however the missions are so varied that you'll often find yourself doing something you never imagined pulling off before. Naturally this variety allows you the player to enjoy the freshness of the missions and continue to enjoy the game.

For example, after several harsh fighting missions routine police work and so on you are given an emergency mission where you have to unload nuclear bombs off an automatic train that is plummelling towards a dome threatening to take the whole colony out with it. So quickly you have to fly your craft, ignore enemy attacks and winch up one missile at a time taking them to a deserted wasteland to 'drop' and explode away from civilisation! A fun challenge something completely different to your 'usual' jobs.

It is here that G-Police excels, the game itself is enjoyable you'll never actually 'tire' of the game. Variety in the missions, different weapons, tasks and goals are all given to you in this game and this keeps the entire game fresh, imaginative and simply more enjoyable.

The hidden fact that some 'new' missions are given to you right when you're in the middle of a different mission throws in the surprises… Put simply if you want challenges, variety and enjoyable gameplay this is the game for you.

Graphics / Sounds

Graphically G-Police does the job well. Although not brilliant in it's detail (it certainly doesn't look touch the bases of say Final Fantasy 10 and such) the graphics are easily recognisable. You won't have to stare painfully at your television screen to work out what is a car and what is a ship, who's firing at you and who isn't, is that a building or a plane and so on.

The graphics, as well as doing their job well do look nice. Your own craft look sleek and certainly looks like a high technological aircraft (as in it doesn't look like something that can't fly for example), advertisements flash on zeppelin crafts.

Planes and aircraft of the future look very much like something from the games Wipeout although not all of them do, while cars and trucks certainly recognisable drive on the roads with a casual ease. Even the police cars look something like police cars (did they steal the design from robo-cop there?).

Sound wise the voice acting in G-Police is stunning. It is quite rare to find a Playstation game with good voice acting but G-Police captures this with top marks. Mission briefings and debriefings are told to you by a female voice (although it does sound slightly like a computer, what with no emotion there!) and carries the point across in that 'future' style voice…

The briefings alone in that little voice puts you in the right atmosphere, that by itself simply gives you the feeling that you are in the future and you are in a law enforcement program. The various characters when they do show up in the short to long FMV's magnificently designed and very much like Final Fantasy the movie (off the top of my head), talk with a sound of coolness behind them.

Play Time / Replyability

G-Police will most certainly keep you occupied for plenty of hours, possibily even days. Many of the missions may require repeated tries (for example that Nuke mission I was talking about before). In any case the game boasts over 30 missions all with their own little sub-missions to accomplish, further expanding the goal.

Should you wish to be the 'perfect' cop you may certainly try and complete each mission without any civilian losses (yes the game even tracks how many innocents you kill!). Plus there's training missions to finish up as well the main set of missions some of which, can be accomplished in different ways.

Once you've finished the game however there is very little point to playing again unless you enjoyed the game enough to give it another whirl. There's no New Game options and such which, kind of cuts the game short once you've seen the entire plot and finished it up. Most people however may certainly wish to play the game for a second time around and those who do will find themselves picking up things they never noticed on first time through, perhaps that cargo ship that slipped passed you as you rushed to finish off the missions for example.

Final recommendation

There's no possible way you can rent this game anymore having been out for so long. I however strongly suggest buying this game, if flying a helicopter, being a cop, experiencing dogfights and bombing missions or simply playing through a game to see it's interesting and wonderfully created story takes to your fancy then you may certainly like this game.

Look around the bargain bins, for five to ten bucks this game is a steal. Although being rare as it is, perhaps you might want to get that police-eye back in check, or pick up a few moves from the self-defence course so you can snap this game off some lucky camper who may certainly just throw this on the shelf without giving it a try.

Buy this and you've got hours of endless fun, who says old games aren't good?

Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics / Sounds: 8/10
Play Time / Replayability: 8/10
Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/03