Now, despite the extensive coding libraries available to Psygnosis, all of this on-screen glitz and glamour comes with a price, and that price is clipping. The one drawback to the entire splendor is what we commonly refer to as “draw-in” or “pop-up.”
G-Police has a limited viewable horizon with which to work. This anomaly compounds itself at higher altitudes, where buildings only a few hundred feet in the distance pop in front of your HAVOC. Fortunately, what I have found, after having played the game extensively, is that the rate of speed at which your HAVOC travels, does not seem to cause the clipping to hinder your ability to properly negotiate the terrain.
Speaking of negotiating terrain, this game is programmed to make use of the Sony Analog Controller, which is the recommended method of flight for those wanting to achieve the most control of their ship. With it, you will be able to nose your HAVOC around with pinpoint accuracy. Also, when using the Analog, the right stick serves as a 180 degree rotating viewpoint in the cockpit views. This is very useful when on escort missions for surveying the airspace around your HAVOC.
It was September 9, 1995, and I had just purchased my brand-spanking-new Sony PlayStation from the local mall. Besides picking up both Ridge Racer and Battle Arena Toshinden, as well as a memory card, I purchased a magazine published by the folks over at “EGM” that had a plethora of gaming information on all the upcoming releases and those to be released further down the road. One title that really caught my eye with its lone screen-shot was G-Police. As skilled writers are very capable of doing, the one paragraph caption managed to capture a segment of my imagination; keeping hold of it until the next wave of information on the Psygnosis title began to surface... almost one year later.
After what definitely was a very long wait, G-Police has actually made it from idea to concept to product relatively unchanged from the description printed almost two years ago. I have to say up front that it was a very wise choice to delay such an ambitious title until the “third coming” of software was in development. With the minor limitations that Psygnosis encountered in bringing this product to market, I would be hard pressed to believe that they could have made this game as playable as it is on first run development libraries.
