Play It:
For the Arcade, Playstation and Saturn (as part of Lethal Enforcers
1&2), Genesis, SEGA CD, and SNES.
Story:
Well, lets see... the closest thing you get to an introduction is a
rip-off of a Dirty Harry movie (see title for a clue which one.) The
manual says: You're a new officer to the police force (Whichever it
is. It would appear to be Chicago.) Its your job to go and clean up
the city.
The instruction manual gives you a personal introduction from the captain
or whoever it is. I won't bother to recite it as it is riddled full
of clichés you've probably heard if you've watched any cop movies
or series. Go shoot stuff. That's all you need to know.
Graphics:
Early 90's.
Sound:
Ah, depends on what you got. I'm not sure about the original arcade
music, but the SNES and Playstation music is atrocious. The Genesis
version probably has the best soundtrack. The SEGA CD one has CD quality
(well, what did you expect?) which is definitely higher quality, but
I don't think it sounds as good. Think of it this way: one car has a
better paintjob, but the colors are ugly or clashing. The other car
isn't painted as well, but it looks sweeter and has some bitchin' hood
flames. Not much speech. Innocents scream ("Don't shoot; they're
crazy!" Uh, yeah) and the gangsters spout out some trash talkin'
such as the immortal "You missed me, pig!"
Difficulty:
Not so easy, especially for the SEGA ports. Totally old school. Things
were much harder back then. Strange thing is that Normal difficulty
seems to be harder than Hard setting. You do get a few more lives on
the harder settings, but continues are harder to earn. I've beaten Hard,
but I haven't actually beaten a game on Normal yet. What's up with that?
Enjoyment:
Variable. The thing that sucks about this game is that there was no
"best port." Each home port is lacking in some way. The Playstation
port comes close, but the music sounds bad. The SNES is even worse.
Not only is the music completely horrible, the game is also choppy as
hell. All that hype about Blast Processing wasn't propaganda after all!
The characters actually stop between frames and it takes them 5 seconds
just to stand up. However they fire really fast to compensate.
The actual frames have been slashed too. I don't think the bad guys
even had death frames and simply flashed out of existence. I do remember
that the guys doing flips would stop in midair and fall straight down
to the ground, which is actually pretty hilarious. For about 3 seconds.
Also, there was some censorship where The Drug Dealer level was renamed
The Gun Runners and the Chemical Plant had the word Sabotage tacked
on at the end. If I remember right, they even removed the blood from
when you get shot. The Genesis and SCD version are about the best, but
there are some truly flabbergasting omissions in both of them. All the
destructible objects were removed! Boo! Also, many arcade touches like
the guy in the trunk were removed. Plus, there was a quality quota added
where you had to have an acceptable accuracy and avoid killing innocents
in order to proceed. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it jacks
up the difficulty, but I'm sure a good portion of you probably just
thought: "What!?! Accuracy requirements!?! Fuck that shit! This
game sucks!"
Normally, the default gun sounds on caliber with Dirty Harry's piece,
even though it is NOT a magnum. However, you do obtain a Magnum, which
actually sounds weaker than the default gun, which ain't right. Both
the SEGA and SNES ports tone down your normal gunshots to a pussy little
pop, although that does fix the magnum vs. revolver sound problem. Next,
all versions except for the Playstation took out the slang (use of "copper"
and "pig"), and I think all the home ports have removed the
female criminals from the Bank Robbery, although they left the Chinatown
chicks in for some reason. The arcade version is the definitive one,
although not many of you could probably afford one... Still, this game
game kicks, and if you never played the arcade, you won't notice what
you are missing. 2 player and double gunning it is possible, although
the latter is not particularly fun... Just remember kids, you need both
a blue and a pink Justifier.
Replay:
None at all.
Rant Session:
Well, I pretty much said everything already. Oh wait, there is the assault
rifle, to which I hereby present the award "Most Worthless Powerup."
The draw of this weapon is its semiautomatic firing (1 trigger pull
= 3 bullets.) I mean, more firepower is great, right? Not really since
everyone dies in one hit (same with VC, but you could 3-point them at
least) and you've got an accuracy quota to fulfill if you've got the
SEGA ports. The 3 bullet rule means that for every hit you make, you
miss 2 shots unless there are 2 bad guys standing really close
to each other, in which case you only miss once. Basically your accuracy
is at best around 1/3 hits. No matter how good you are, it is impossible
to beat a level using the assault rifle. This is a powerup that will
actually screw over your chance of success.
Bottom Line:
This should be a prerequisite for anyone in Gunstars 101 (listed as
GST 101 on page 455 of your course manual.)