Future Cop
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: 3Dfx Interactive
Released: 1998

Notice

Mark this review down as a piece of history folks. My 145th review marks down a change to my new format for my reviews. All but about 10 or 15 of my previous reviews used a format different to this. This format is just like my old format, but I know give the section headings in bold, a separate line above the paragraph, and I include the final ratings rundown now, so I can give more precise scores. And finally, there’s a new “In brief” section which points out the main good and bad points about the game. But enough of my gibberish, let’s get on to the review.

The Game

When I bought my new computer, the guy I bought it from included a whole bunch of games with it. I didn’t get around until playing them recently. One of those games was Future Cop. By the game’s opening intro tells you the whole story about the game. Apparently the story is set in LA, but in the future. And you control this futuristic cop car that transforms into some big robot. And you fight by yourself taking out criminals and stopping scandals and such. The game is designed somewhat like Loaded and Smash TV, but with objectives and stuff, so it just isn’t a kill everything in order to win game.

Graphics

The FMV’s are well done for this game. The opening FMV was amazing! It definitely told me what the game was going to be like. But of course, FMV’s aren’t the graphics used for game play, but used to make the game more fun to play. Any ways the graphics for the game fit the game right. All the humans look fairly simple and kind of designed after the character models in such 16-bit games like Prince of Persia and Blackthorne. There’s nice red line that points from your robot to an enemy during game play so you can easily hunt down the bad guys.

All the robots and buildings and the surrounding environment are well done, and you can easily tell everything apart. For example, hostages are easy to distinguish from the bad guys so you don’t end up killing people by mistake. There are a wide variety of machine weaponry and all of them look great, but there were a couple of things I couldn’t even make out as weapons like I thought I was just walking by a statue, but my red target scanner kept pointing at it, and then all of a sudden the dang thing started to attack me!

There are a couple of problems with the game camera. It’s an overhead camera that rotates as you move. It rotates pretty precise most of the time, but I have trouble when my cursor locks onto enemies, and when I try to move in on the target, the camera moves me off the target, and while I’m trying to get back in place the bad guy is blasting my brains away!

Sound

You got a pretty decent background music tune that fits the crime fighting genre well, but it play throughout all of the game’s levels and it gets annoying right away, but at least the background music isn’t the most notable thing about the sound. The sound effects are decent, and everything sounds the way it should be, for example, gunfire sounds like gunfire, explosions sound like explosions and so on. I love the use of voice in the game. You got some lady giving out comments as you go along through the game and giving you tips, like she let’s you know what targets to take out, or if there’s mine’s ahead of you or enemy air support. I found this really helpful for playing the game.

Game Play

You go through several various campaign missions and you get a briefing for each one that let’s you know your mission objectives. Any ways you go through the mission, killing off all the bad guys, and completing the mission objectives and so on. The game’s default controls for the keyboard are very confusing, because unlike most games, it uses the directional pad on the number pad to move, and because most keyboards automatically have Number Lock turned on when your computer launches, you’ll find your character doing other actions, because numbers on the keyboard do different actions too, but of course, you can customize the controls to your needs.

After you customize the game’s controls, the game progresses very smoothly, and moving around seems is very easy to do. And killing off the enemies is a cinch too, because you got that auto lock on targeting, but it gets annoying when walls and such get in your way. You got an auto-firing gun and a missel launcher for your main weapons. Throughout the game you can pick up upgrades to improve your weaponry and refill your lost life. I like the nice variety of opponents. It makes the game really challenging. You got land vehicle robots, land mines, floor guns, snipers, and flying sniper planes. So it’s a real challenge to get past the levels. And if you ever get lost you can turn the overhead map on so you know where to go.

Replay Value

The game can be played multi player with the use of a modem or 2 players one computer with the use of split screen on just one PC. So up to 2 player can go blasting through the levels at once, bringing back memories of games like Loaded and Smash TV. There’s plenty of missions to choose from playing so you can be playing for hours. And for some more added value, the game comes with a free comic book for your reading pleasure! And I’m sure since you’re reading this, you’re a big fan of reading, right?

In Brief

+: Great sound, good variety of weapons, 2 player mode on one PC!

-: Some camera problems, bad default controls, problems locking on to air units.

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 7.5
Sound: 9.1
Game play: 8.3
Replay Value: 8.2

Overall: 8.2

Rounded to fit GameFAQs score: 8