Virtua Cop: Elite Edition screenshots   The Final Say! Gameplay 7.0 Graphics 7.5 Sound 7.0 Value 7.0 Virtua Cop: Elite Edition -  reviewed by Andrew B  Review Date: 5 December 2002 Review Score 7.0/10 Distributed By: Acclaim

One of the world's most popular light gun games has arrived on the PlayStation 2, SEGA's Virtua Cop: Elite Edition and it's almost 7 years after its arrival in the arcades in 1995. The premise behind Virtua Cop is quite simple, kill or be killed. Your character's are each armed with a gun with six chambers of bullets and they must shoot their way through a myriad of bad guys in order to proceed to the next level. As with previous Virtua Cop games, one shot can disable your enemy permanently no matter which part of the body you aim for.  Your role in Virtua Cop is to play an elite police officer and engage the criminal and terrorist underworld in an all out assault against crime. As with the arcades, Virtua Cop: Elite Edition features a two-player mode that lets your friends join in the action and I must say that the more the merrier, not to mention it's much easier with two players than one.  The game has three different stages of play that is each comprised of a further three levels that allow for multiple routes but still revolves around the linear storyline. Apart from the bad guys in Virtua Cop, you must be aware of civilians who pop up every now and then and if you accidentally shoot a civilian, you will automatically lose a life. The game does have an auto lock feature that makes the gameplay easier and allows you to rank up the score by shooting multiple targets on screen at once.  The main difference with this version of Virtua Cop is the new training levels and gallery mode. The gallery mode is a special inbuilt feature of the game that appears when you have shot an enemy in a particular way. There are dozens of different gallery icons to collect and does help with the replay value of the game. Graphically Virtua Cop: Elite Edition holds well against the current crop of light gun games such as Vampire Night and Time Crisis II and still has that arcade look and feel behind the game. The game looks almost identical to the arcade version but contains new character models with higher polygons and new hi-res visuals. The animations in the game are extremely realistic, whether it's the enemy hiding behind cars, holding hostages at gunpoint or seeing them fall from the roof after you shot them all comes together perfectly.

The sound effects of Virtua Cop Elite Edition contain all the screams, shouts, gunfire and explosions of a great arcade game and nothing is left to chance. The soundtrack of the game is a little lacking but does set the atmosphere of the game and will start sounding faster when the action picks up. It should be noted that the voice acting in the game is extremely cheesy but what do you expect from a Japanese arcade game. 

Virtua Cop: Elite Edition is a great little light gun that you will have no trouble in finishing. The single-player option is a little boring but when you have a group of friends over, it makes a great party game. This game was tested with both the lightgun and DualShock and they both performed exceptionally well. Check it out lightgun fans!

- Andrew B