POLICE TRAINER
DEVELOPER: P&P MARKETING YEAR: 1996 GENRE: LIGHTGUN
■ This lightgun game is one of those sorts of games that isn’t poorly constructed, it’s just incredibly bland. The premise of the game is that it is a training tool for police officers, and thus offers traditional shooting challenges – aiming for specific areas on a body-shaped target, or reaction tests with fast-moving targets. There are also more fanciful ones, with ‘virtual’ people running around and lots of balls being launched from various trajectories.
The big problem is that Police Trainer doesn’t really embrace being a videogame. The look of the challenges is deliberately stark and unglamorous, which would make sense if the aim was realism. But by including the more fanciful elements, you’re left wondering why you’re shooting faceless figures instead of the sharply-dressed gangsters of the
Virtua Cop series. As it stands you’re far better off playing something like
Point Blank, which offers the same kind of challenge as Police Trainer
without being filled to the brim with grim, grey graphics – and with the benefit of a home version to boot.