is a 1994 light gun shooter video game developed and published by Sega for arcades. It was developed for the Sega Model 2 system, and was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995 and Windows as Virtua Squad in 1996. The Saturn version included support for both the Virtua Gun and Saturn mouse, as well as a new "Training Mode" which consists of a randomly generated shooting gallery.
Virtua Cop was notable for its use of real-time 3D polygon graphics with texture mapping, with Sega advertising it as "the world's first texture mapped, polygon action game". Emphasizing the real-time nature of the game, enemies would react differently depending on where they were shot. It was one of the first games to allow the player to shoot through glass. Its name is derived from its 3D graphical style, which was previously used in Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, and later Virtua Striker.
Despite some initial skepticism over its introduction of 3D polygons in a genre that previously used realistic digitized sprites (most notably Lethal Enforcers), Virtua Cop went on to become a commercial success and received critical acclaim for enhancing the genre with its 3D graphics, camera system, realistic animations, and ability to target specific body parts with realistic consequences. It was influential on later shooter games, with 3D polygons being adopted by subsequent light gun shooters such as Time Crisis (1995) and The House of the Dead (1996) instead of the digitized sprites previously used in the genre, as well as inspiring the first-person shooter GoldenEye 007 (1997).
Virtua Cop was followed by Virtua Cop 2 and Virtua Cop 3. The game was later bundled with Virtua Cop 2 in Japan and Europe on the PlayStation 2 as Virtua Cop: Elite Edition (Virtua Cop Rebirth in Japan) on August 25 and November 29, 2002 respectively. It included gallery extras and implementation of Namco's G-Con 2 lightgun support. In 2004, a port was developed for the handheld Nokia N-Gage, but was cancelled by the quality control team before its release. Very few beta units of the N-Gage version were manufactured.
Gameplay
Players assume the role of police officers - either Michael Hardy, or his partner, James Cools. Played in a first-person perspective, players must use a light gun (or a joypad in the Sega Saturn version) to shoot criminals and advance through the game. Players begin the game with a reloadable chamber of six bullets and a set number of lives. Taking enemy fire causes the player to lose a life; power-ups can be shot to grant the player a special weapon or even an extra life.
A division of Sega AM2 began work on the Saturn version in April 1995. Along with the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2, it was one of the first games to make use of the Sega Graphics Library operating system. Saturn port director Takashi Isono said: "We are trying to keep to the quality of the arcade. If three of us agree for improvement, then we try to modify the graphics". In North America, RePlay reported Virtua Cop to be the fifth most popular arcade game of April 1995. It went on to become the highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1995 in Japan, and one of the top ten best-selling arcade video games of the year in the US.
The arcade game received generally positive reviews from critics. Tim Davis of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it a positive review, praising the polygon graphics, the zooming camera "that takes you all over" the place, the "automatic target sighting which pinpoints" enemies, and the weapon power-ups. Computer and Video Games also gave it a positive review, calling it "a classy title" and praising the 3D graphics, "excellent" animation, weapon power-ups, and the gameplay in both single-player and multiplayer modes. Games World magazine called it an "excellent fun" game, comparing it favorably with the shooters Operation Wolf (1987) and Lethal Enforcers (1992) as well as the film Reservoir Dogs (1992), while Dave Perry said the Virtua Fighter like 3D targets made it a "more challenging and satisfying" shooter.
There was initially some skepticism over its introduction of 3D polygons in a genre that previously used realistic digitized sprites, Next Generation later revised their views, praising its use of 3D technology to introduce the ability to target specific body parts with realistic consequences, which "totally eliminates the hit or miss polarity of other light-gun games and adds a whole new level of detail to the genre".