Virtua Cop

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Virtua Cop
System(s): Arcade, Sega Saturn, PC
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega AM2
Genre: 3D Action

Virtua Cop is a shooter arcade game created by Sega AM2, and headed by Yu Suzuki. Its original incarnation was an arcade game in 1994 and it was later ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995, and the PC in 1997. It 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, 2002 and November 29, 2002 respectively. It included gallery extras and implementation of Namco's G-Con 2 lightgun support, being the best port of the games yet. In 2004, a port was developed for the handheld Nokia N-Gage, but this was cancelled by the quality control team before its release. Very few beta units were manufactured. Virtua Cop was followed by two sequels, Virtua Cop 2 and Virtua Cop 3.

Gameplay

Players assume the role of police officers and use a light gun to shoot criminals and advance through the game, with penalties for shooting civilians. Virtua Cop was notable for its use of polygonal graphics, which were subsequently used in both House of the Dead and Time Crisis, instead of the two dimensional sprites that were popular for previous games in the same genre. It is also notable for being one of the first games to allow the player to shoot through glass. It is name derived from this graphical style, which was previously used in Virtua Fighter, Virtua Striker and Virtua Racing.

Story

A detective in the player's department uncovered an illegal gun-running operation and was able to trace it back to a powerful crime syndicate. He compiled a large amount of evidence and was ready to take them down, but he was discovered and assassinated. Some of the evidence managed to make its way back to headquarters and a special task force was put on the case.

Production Credits (Arcade Team)

Main Programmer/Director: Katsunori Itai
Supervisor: Yu Suzuki
Main Designer: Akihito Hiroyosi
Senior Programmer: Shunsuke Sekikawa
Programmers: Masayuki Sumi, Tadanobu Numata
Designers: Masataka Auchi, Saori Nisikawa
Sound Composer: Kentaro Koyama
Design Support: Kazuhiro Izaki, Yukinobu Arikawa, Makoto Osaki
Planning Support: Yuichiro Mikami
Cabinet Design: AM R&D Dept. 4
Created By: Sega AM2
Presented By: Sega

Production Credits (Saturn Team)

Director: Takashi Isono
Supervisor: Yu Suzuki
Main Programmer: Masayuki Sumi
Programmers: Takeshi Iwasaki, Junichi Ishito, Takashi Isowaki, Norihiro Sekine, Takashi Ono, Hiroyuki Tsuzuki
Designers: Takafumi Kagaya, Kazufumi Ohashi, Saori Nisikawa, Masakazu Takizawa
Sound Composer: Kentaro Koyama
Publicity: Fumio Kurokawa, Koji Umeda
Speical Thanks: Yukinobu Arikawa, Masataka Aochi, Kazuo Ohtani
Created By: Sega AM2
Presented By: Sega