"The age is showing..."

Here we go, one of classic shooters from the 90's is finally re-released on the Dreamcast. We have, Virtua Cop 2. This is the 3rd light gun game that has been released for Dreamcast, and it's actually pretty good considering how old it is.

GRAPHICS: 5/10

Unfortunately, the graphics show signs of age. It is a port of the PC version. While the graphics look a lot better than the Saturn version did, it still is a little plain. Everything seems to have a monotone look to it, and personally I grow tired of it. The explosions have a cheap sprite based look to it which annoys me. The levels could have used some more detail to it.

SOUND: 5/10

The gunshots and etc. are here. When you shoot various objects, there are richochet sound effects which is pretty cool. When the innocent Virtua City citizens run for their lives while you are shooting away like Chow Yun Fat in a John Woo film, they scream and shout. I didn't care much for the music in this game. It was somewhat decent.

Control: 10/10

I have no problems with the control whatsoever. As long as you are using the Sega light gun it works like a dream. I encountered no problems with the aim. Where I aimed and pulled the a trigger, an enemy went down. I had no problems with the shots going places on the screen where I did not aim. The control on this game easily beats out House of the Dead 2. Using the controller is OK. It could have been better, but the reason I rate control 10, is because light gun games should only be played with the light gun. Not the controller because it takes away from the overall experience.

REPLAY VALUE: 5/10

It's a fun game at first. But after you beat it, there is not much else to do. There are multiple paths in the game, but it only requires you to play through a total of 2 times to see everything. Sega really should have added stuff to it. All you get it is a straight PC to DC port which isn't much of a big deal. It lacks stuff to do sadly.

OVERALL: 6/10

Bottom line here is that this is a game Sega should have just released under the ''SEGA AGES'' subtitle. Better yet, Sega should have just released a Sega Ages collection with this game as well as Virtua Fighter 2 and Daytona. Only buy this game for nostalgia value or if you have never played the Virtua Cop games. If you have a store that rents import games, just stick with a rental. This is one of the cheaper Dreamcast imports you will come across. It is only about $35 new. If you just feel like spending money on whatever, then spend it on this.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/18/00, Updated 05/18/00