A Light Gun Game by Sega, best described as Virtua Cop WITH A SPY THEME! Released in 2000 for the Naomi arcade board, a Sega Dreamcast port with extra gameplays modes followed in 2001, being one of the last first-party release for the system.
The World’s Coalition weaponized satellite has been hijacked by the terrorist group Agares. The Confidential Mission Force has dispatched agents Howard Gibson and Jean Clifford to resolve the case. Their mission, should they choose to accept it, will have them retrieve a data disk in from a museum that is a front for Agare’s evil activities, rescue a programmer held hostage in an alpine train and infiltrate the organisation’s Elaborate Underground Base for a final showdown. Hey, nobody said the life of a secret agent would be easy!
The game plays much like Virtua Cop with two major additions: the first is that Mook Chivalry is abandoned, meaning multiple enemies can take aim at the player at any given time. Players will thus need to learn how to prioritize targets, as the order enemies will shoot you is not necessarily the same as when they appear on the screen. The other is the presence of Operations, short sequences where players must complete a specific task and whose success or failure will determine how you progress throughout the level.
The game features examples of these tropes:
- 1-Up: You get an extra hit point by collecting one of each C, M, and F pick-ups.
- Arrange Mode: The Dreamcast port adds a few:
- Agent Academy, which has you go three-step training exercises for various skills (Reflexes, Target prioritization, Justice Shot, 3-hits combo, timing, and ID-ing hostages from enemies). Once the initial set of exercise is completed, the player unlocks...
- Another World, which is the main campaign with slightly altered layouts, rearranged background music, and trickier enemy placement focusing on the skills learned in Agent Academy (there are many more sequences involving shooting partially-concealed enemies or timing shots between running hostages, for instance).
- Display Off, which removes all HUD markers including the lock-on sight.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: As with Virtua Cop, shooting the enemy’s weapon-holding hand will result in a Justice Shot (and bonus points). Unlike Virtua Cop, however, you can shoot their hand a second time just to be sure.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: Players can collect armor pick-ups, which protects the player equipped from a single hit no matter the caliber. It does not protect from a life loss if the player shoots an hostage and does not persist between levels.
- Dull Surprise: Howard delivers all of his lines in a stoic monotone irrespective of context, courtesy of Norwegian-born actor Barry Gjerde (the man responsible for voicing Barry Burton in the first English dub of Resident Evil).
- Fat Bastard: The Stage 1 boss is a short, fat, cowardly fellow who spends the whole first mission running away from you with the data disk in his hands.
- Flunky Boss: The first stage's boss mostly crawls and run around between cover, activating traps in the Egyptian exhibit while you deal with his henchmen. He only pops up to take the occasional potshot, mostly behind your back.
- Gameplay Grading: The name entry screen assigns players a letter grade based on their total score, going from C all ther way to SSS.
- Hilarious Outtakes: Bloopers are shown during the ending credits, featuring scenes such as the Stage 1 boss getting stuck under a security door or Howard hitting a window head-first.
- Hostage Spirit-Link: Shooting a civilian will, as is the case of lightgun shooters by Sega, deduct a single hit point and some of your score.
- Interface Screw:
- One trapped room in the first stage has you locked in a small room with poison gas coming through the vents. Your vision gets wavy and warped as you breathe it in. Even if you succeed in disarming the trap, you still have to endure the wavy screen for a few seconds while you fight off enemy soldiers and wait for the poison to clear your system.
- A short event in Stage 2 has the agents looking into a train car from the roof, so you fend off several soldiers while upside down.
- Invisibility Cloak: The Final Boss wears a ridiculous looking outfit made of numerous video screens, though its purpose is revealed when he pulls a similarly screen-covered hood over his head and turns invisible. Shimmering can still be seen as he darts around, and the screens start to glitch and fail to display properly as he takes damage.
- Kill Sat: What the satellite is. The final Operation sequence has you use it to fry the Big Bad’s escape submarine.
- Locomotive Level: Stage 2 takes place on a train going through the mountains. You fight through multi-level passenger cars and dining cars, and spend a bit of time on the roof of a car as well.
- Nonstandard Game Over: One plays out if you fail to line up the Kill Sat correctly with the Final Boss's submarine. He gets away and the island the agents are on blows up, taking the two with it.
- Painfully Slow Projectile:
- Some enemies will toss grenades at you that can be shot out of the air.
- As is standard for most light gun game bosses, most of their attacks consist of rockets and similar explosive projectiles that can be shot out of the air. The first boss activates missile launchers hidden in the museum, while the second shoots missiles from his mobile artillery as he chases the agents. The third boss uses several strange gadgets such as explosive pucks and rocket launching drones, all with attacks that can be shot out of the air.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: As expected from the genre and format, there’s much more blasting bad guys in public spaces than there’s actual spywork being done.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: After being shot through a window, the final boss activates the Island Base's self destruct sequence before escaping on a submarine. Defeat the final challenge, and the two agents are able to make their getaway in time.
- Supervillain Lair: The final level takes place on Agares' island base, which includes a submarine pen.
- Tuckerization: Howard Gibson was likely named after the Sega of America employee Howard Gipson.
- Tuxedo and Martini: Howard dresses like this, befitting of his nature as a James Bond stand-in.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: After his defeat, the Big Bad will attempt to escape in a submarine. You must then attempt to finish the job by locking on the Kill Sat onto his sub.
