One of the more prominent types of arcade games out there that I don’t really have too much experience with would be with light-gun games, which is a shame too, considering that, from the little experience I do have with them, they can be some of the most fun games you can get from the arcade. I remember playing quite a lot of these games back in the day whenever my family and I would go somewhere that had an arcade, such as a Jurassic Park game I can’t remember the name of, a Terminator game that I can’t remember the name of, and of course, The House of the Dead, which my Dad and I would play more than any of the others because of how fun it was. It has been quite a while though since those good ol’ days, and I haven’t really touched any other games from this genre for quite a while (or at least, any good ones), so I figured I would finally jump back into things with one of the more primitive games in the genre, Lethal Enforcers.
I have had zero experience with this game or series before playing it for this review, but I was aware of it to an extent, given how it was one of the games that sparked controversy in 1993 for how “realistic” and “violent” it was, right alongside the original Mortal Kombat and Night Trap. Aside from that though, I knew nothing about it, but just from taking one look at the game through a video, I immediately said to myself “Wow, this looks really fucking dumb…….. I’m sold”, and decided to give it a spin. From that playthrough, I can certainly say that this is the light-gun game of all time, but not gonna lie… I kinda can’t help but love it, not just because it still works well enough for a game in this genre, but also because it is just as dumb as that video from before made it out to be, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The story is practically non-existent, where one day, a local Chicago cop by the name of Don Marshall is enjoying himself on his break, when all of a sudden he gets a call on dispatch informing him that a large crime syndicate has taken over the city, and most of other officers have either been badly wounded or killed, so it is up to him and Unnamed Partner Cop (I can’t find her name online if she has one) to go stop these criminals once and for all, which just sounds like your typical day in Chicago to me, but hey, it works well enough for a basic premise. The graphics are… certainly something, to say the least, and they look incredibly crusty nowadays, but it must’ve looked pretty impressive for the time that it came out, so I’ll give it credit for that, the music is pretty great, giving off that good ol’ arcade Konami feel, sounding like it came straight from one of their TMNT games as well, which makes it all the more enjoyable to listen to, and the gameplay/control is as basic and barebones as you can expect from a light-gun game, which is to be expected from a game like this, but it was enough for me at the end of the day.
The game is a light-gun shooter, where you take control of either Don Marshall or Unnamed Partner Cop, go through a set of five different levels, each with a different crime that you have to stop, shoot down any thug on screen before they get the chance to shoot you down, but don’t shoot any innocent civilians or other cops that will get in your way constantly (because why wouldn’t they), gather plenty of different guns to help you out against the many threats that you will be facing while out on the job, take on several bonus stages to see how many targets you can shoot before time runs out for additional points, and take on some big and tough bosses, who will truly test you in how fast you can shoot down their many bullets and get only one shot in before you try to reload and then immediately die as a result………….. yeah, it’s one of those games. All of this is pretty standard for that of a light-gun game, and for what we have here, it works well enough, but it isn’t anything you haven’t seen from any other light-gun game released before or since this game. However, like I mentioned before, there is one thing that did ultimately draw me into it and made me love it despite all of that… how stupid it is.
Given the fact that this game uses digitized footage of real actors and voice clips not just for the short cinematics at the beginning of each level, but also for all the enemies and they’re animations, you can tell just what kind of game we are dealing with here, and just like with something like Night Trap, you will most likely get the most enjoyment out of this game just from watching and listening to it. All of the stages look like they are just a bunch of images ripped straight from the internet and placed together, the movements for all of the enemies are incredibly stiff and ridiculous, the voice acting you will hear from everybody is horribly done, making all of the lines spoken in this game hilarious to some extent, and then there are the death animations for the bosses, which are just… oh so glorious. It fits perfectly right alongside the many other terrible FMV-type games out there, and thankfully, the gameplay still manages to be simple, yet enjoyable enough to where you will have a good time playing the game while goofily smiling at everything else.
However, dumbass visuals and voice acting can only get you so far, and for Lethal Enforcers, it isn’t quite far enough to where I would say it is a masterclass of this genre. It is a very typical light-gun game in every way, where ya point, ya shoot, ya die a lot because of arcade syndrome, ya input coins into the machine until your Mom decides she won’t give you anymore change to keep going, we all know how it goes at this point. There have been many games that have come out since this that manage to do this much better, so there isn’t too much here aside from the crusty visuals that will make people want to come back to it. Not to mention, while I do appreciate how there are different weapons you can acquire throughout the game, most of them are practically pointless, since most of the enemies you will encounter usually die in one hit. Yeah, you could save the weapons for the few tougher enemies and the bosses you encounter, but considering how you lose said weapons after only getting hit once, that is more than likely not gonna go well for you.
Overall, despite its basic gameplay and outdated visuals, the original Lethal Enforcers still managed to be a fun time regardless, providing a good amount of light-gun gameplay without feeling like it overstays its welcome (for the most part), as well as plenty of goofy visuals and lines of dialogue to where someone like me would want to see everything it has to offer, just to see how much dumber it could get as it goes. I would recommend it for those who are fans of other light-gun games, as well as those who enjoy dated products like Night Trap, because while other games can certainly do what this game does but better, this one could still provide a good amount of fun regardless, especially with a friend alongside you. I just hope that, for the sequel, they double down on all of the stupidity that was found in this game to make something even more beautifully cheesy. From what I have seen though, that game is gonna be going for a cowboy theme, so needless to say, I have nothing to worry about in that regard.
Game #555
I have had zero experience with this game or series before playing it for this review, but I was aware of it to an extent, given how it was one of the games that sparked controversy in 1993 for how “realistic” and “violent” it was, right alongside the original Mortal Kombat and Night Trap. Aside from that though, I knew nothing about it, but just from taking one look at the game through a video, I immediately said to myself “Wow, this looks really fucking dumb…….. I’m sold”, and decided to give it a spin. From that playthrough, I can certainly say that this is the light-gun game of all time, but not gonna lie… I kinda can’t help but love it, not just because it still works well enough for a game in this genre, but also because it is just as dumb as that video from before made it out to be, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The story is practically non-existent, where one day, a local Chicago cop by the name of Don Marshall is enjoying himself on his break, when all of a sudden he gets a call on dispatch informing him that a large crime syndicate has taken over the city, and most of other officers have either been badly wounded or killed, so it is up to him and Unnamed Partner Cop (I can’t find her name online if she has one) to go stop these criminals once and for all, which just sounds like your typical day in Chicago to me, but hey, it works well enough for a basic premise. The graphics are… certainly something, to say the least, and they look incredibly crusty nowadays, but it must’ve looked pretty impressive for the time that it came out, so I’ll give it credit for that, the music is pretty great, giving off that good ol’ arcade Konami feel, sounding like it came straight from one of their TMNT games as well, which makes it all the more enjoyable to listen to, and the gameplay/control is as basic and barebones as you can expect from a light-gun game, which is to be expected from a game like this, but it was enough for me at the end of the day.
The game is a light-gun shooter, where you take control of either Don Marshall or Unnamed Partner Cop, go through a set of five different levels, each with a different crime that you have to stop, shoot down any thug on screen before they get the chance to shoot you down, but don’t shoot any innocent civilians or other cops that will get in your way constantly (because why wouldn’t they), gather plenty of different guns to help you out against the many threats that you will be facing while out on the job, take on several bonus stages to see how many targets you can shoot before time runs out for additional points, and take on some big and tough bosses, who will truly test you in how fast you can shoot down their many bullets and get only one shot in before you try to reload and then immediately die as a result………….. yeah, it’s one of those games. All of this is pretty standard for that of a light-gun game, and for what we have here, it works well enough, but it isn’t anything you haven’t seen from any other light-gun game released before or since this game. However, like I mentioned before, there is one thing that did ultimately draw me into it and made me love it despite all of that… how stupid it is.
Given the fact that this game uses digitized footage of real actors and voice clips not just for the short cinematics at the beginning of each level, but also for all the enemies and they’re animations, you can tell just what kind of game we are dealing with here, and just like with something like Night Trap, you will most likely get the most enjoyment out of this game just from watching and listening to it. All of the stages look like they are just a bunch of images ripped straight from the internet and placed together, the movements for all of the enemies are incredibly stiff and ridiculous, the voice acting you will hear from everybody is horribly done, making all of the lines spoken in this game hilarious to some extent, and then there are the death animations for the bosses, which are just… oh so glorious. It fits perfectly right alongside the many other terrible FMV-type games out there, and thankfully, the gameplay still manages to be simple, yet enjoyable enough to where you will have a good time playing the game while goofily smiling at everything else.
However, dumbass visuals and voice acting can only get you so far, and for Lethal Enforcers, it isn’t quite far enough to where I would say it is a masterclass of this genre. It is a very typical light-gun game in every way, where ya point, ya shoot, ya die a lot because of arcade syndrome, ya input coins into the machine until your Mom decides she won’t give you anymore change to keep going, we all know how it goes at this point. There have been many games that have come out since this that manage to do this much better, so there isn’t too much here aside from the crusty visuals that will make people want to come back to it. Not to mention, while I do appreciate how there are different weapons you can acquire throughout the game, most of them are practically pointless, since most of the enemies you will encounter usually die in one hit. Yeah, you could save the weapons for the few tougher enemies and the bosses you encounter, but considering how you lose said weapons after only getting hit once, that is more than likely not gonna go well for you.
Overall, despite its basic gameplay and outdated visuals, the original Lethal Enforcers still managed to be a fun time regardless, providing a good amount of light-gun gameplay without feeling like it overstays its welcome (for the most part), as well as plenty of goofy visuals and lines of dialogue to where someone like me would want to see everything it has to offer, just to see how much dumber it could get as it goes. I would recommend it for those who are fans of other light-gun games, as well as those who enjoy dated products like Night Trap, because while other games can certainly do what this game does but better, this one could still provide a good amount of fun regardless, especially with a friend alongside you. I just hope that, for the sequel, they double down on all of the stupidity that was found in this game to make something even more beautifully cheesy. From what I have seen though, that game is gonna be going for a cowboy theme, so needless to say, I have nothing to worry about in that regard.
Game #555