G-Police: Weapons of Justice - IGN (2024)

I'm happy to say that Weapons of Justice doesn't disappoint. While it doesn't exactly recapture the sense of awe I felt with the first game, it delivers an excellent time with more craft to control and a lot more gameplay and story depth.

Gameplay
On Callisto, the war is finally over, but crime and fighting are still raging in the streets. Weapons of Justice kicks off by placing you and the G Police as the only forces standing against the crime syndicates and civil war.

At its heart, G Police: Weapons of Justice is a mission-based shooter. At the start of each level you're assigned a number of goals to achieve. Objectives like "kill all the bad guys" and "scan this location" are common. If all that the game did was present a list of objectives and set you loose, it would still be a decent title. Fortunately, there is a lot more to it than that.

Although you begin a mission with specific goals, chances are that mid-mission they're going to change based on what is happening in the game world. In fact, not only do missions change almost whimsically, but a lot of things are out of your control. You have to react to what happens quickly or get taken out. At your disposal are five different craft to pilot with wingmen and ground forces to direct. These are probably the two biggest gameplay differences between Weapons of Justice and the first G Police.

There are a total of five vehicles in Weapons of Justice, compared to the one ship in the first G Police. At your disposal are two airborne gun ships, the familiar Havoc and the new Venom. You also have a Mech-like ground assault vehicle, the Raptor, a weapon-toting armored car, the Rhino, and a Corsair space ship. Each vehicle handles differently and has unique strengths and weaknesses. Psygnosis has done an excellent job of creating missions that exploit the different vehicles and the addition of the four new craft really adds to the game's overall variety and replay value.

Piloting for G Police means you are part of a team. You start out a small player but eventually end up commanding wingmen and ground forces. Very quickly, missions become too difficult to succeed at on your own and effectively commanding your troops becomes the only way achieve your objectives. A few button taps is all it takes to issue a command, but the inclusion of these forces brings a strategic aspect to G Police that makes for a much more satisfying, and immersive, game. I like the team-based play because it breaks up the standard shooting fare, and it's relatively easy to pull off commanding your wingmen.

As great as all the new additions to Weapons of Justice are, the game is actually harder now, despite Psygnosis' stated goal of lowering the learning curve for the game. It takes a while to get used to flying a Havoc, and by mixing up the vehicles, chances are you're going to be playing through some missions twice just so you can practice vehicle control. It's not a fault by any means, but many gamers may find themselves just wanting to excel with one vehicle rather than take the time to learn them all.

Graphics
Psygnosis' PlayStation games are always known for one thing. Hardware pushing graphics. Weapons of Justice delivers a visual experience that can only be described as Awesome. That's right, with a capital "A." The huge domes of Callisto are living, breathing cities with civilian traffic, huge billboards, and all the lights and sounds you would expect from a location where people live and do business.

All this great eye candy comes at a price, however. The horizon is painfully close. Enemy craft will appear suddenly out of blackness and the landscape draw-in is painful to watch. The developers clearly had to make trade offs between display performance and visual experience, and despite the less than stellar draw in, their decision to go with eye candy was the right one. Part of what makes G Police such a fun game to play is the sense of activity around you and skimping on the visuals would have eroded that.

Sound
Let me just put it this way: You're going to want to play this game loud. Every craft, yours, the enemies', civilians', each has a unique sound. You can actually judge what vehicle is coming up behind you based on sound alone. Weapons of Justice is a great game for you stereophonic gear heads out there.

Environmental sounds also play a big part in creating the busy sensibility in the domes of Callisto. The constant humming and buzzing of commuter traffic is a canopy that whizzing bullets, screaming missiles and bass rumbling explosions play against. With all of this sound happily distracting you, it's clear that Psygnosis spend an enormous amount of well-spent time getting the sound right. You simply have to set your stereo up and crank it high for this sucker. Without a doubt, Weapons of Justice delivers one of the best soundscapes of any PlayStation game.