PSN PSone Roundup Review

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G-Police

• Developer: Psygnosis
• Compatible with: PS3, PSP
• Price: GBP 3.49

This was the Psygnosis classic I was most worried about revisiting. Released at a time when few developers were attempting free-roaming 3D, when you add in the variables of aerial combat and urban environments, it seemed highly unlikely that my fond memories would hold up in 2008. Amazingly, and thankfully, G-Police is still an impressive game eleven years after it first hovered into view.

In typical Psygnosis style, the game sets its scene using a lot of rendered CG cinematics, all of which boil down to: it's the future, and corporations rule the Earth. There are off-world colonies in transparent domes, and you're a cop in a slinky Havoc jet-copter thing, patrolling Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons. Starting off by responding to reports of general criminal activity, you're soon drawn into a conspiracy storyline. The plot twists are rather undersold by the stiff cut-scenes, but it still provides more backbone to the action than most airborne shooters ever manage.

As well as hovering up and down, you can zip around at impressive speeds, and call upon an arsenal of meaty weaponry to deal with the bad guys. You can scan objects for clues, and the mission structures are such that you're never just shooting mindlessly. Just nipping around the Blade Runner style cityscape is a thrill, even today, and you always feel like you're investigating as well as blasting.

Control was top of my list of concerns, given the game's vintage and the pioneering 3D environments, but it's aged remarkably well in this regard. It's a bit of a fumble to start with, as you get a feel for the speed and manoeuvrability of your ship, but this feels more like a period of readjustment on your part rather than a flaw in the game itself. Switch over to analogue control in the PS menu and the left thumbstick handles your craft, with the right operating the camera, and the effect is wonderful. It controls almost as well as any modern flight sim. For purists, the old-fashioned d-pad control is also available as the default, and proves surprisingly palatable.

The graphics haven't weathered the years quite so successfully - the featureless buildings and low draw distance are both very apparent today - but for those who've been waiting for this gem to re-emerge, your patience is well rewarded.

Now...Colony Wars, plz?

8/10

Judge Dredd

• Developer: Gremlin
• Compatible with: PS3, PSP
• Price: GBP 3.49

A lifelong fan of 2000AD, I have to admit I got a little confused when this slunk onto the Store a few months back. The blurb declared it to be a first-person shooter, but the only Dredd FPS I could recall was Rebellion's Dredd vs Death. Had I completely overlooked a PlayStation outing for my favourite fascist future cop?

Nope. Within seconds of seeing the first laughable live action intro scene, it all came flooding back. The "first-person shooter" tag is rather misleading, since this is actually a truly wretched lightgun game from Gremlin that was swiftly buried by the likes of Time Crisis and Point Blank. From within the helmet of Joe Dredd, you slowly scroll along a linear path through murky locations, plugging away at the boxy enemies who lumber into view. Different ammo types can be picked up, and barrels explode, and...

Look, it's just terrible. It's painfully slow, devoid of excitement and does absolutely nothing to capture the heightened atmosphere of the comics. It's also a lightgun game with no lightgun and, if the game was bad back in 1997 when played with a G-Con, it's immeasurably worse in 2008 with a joypad. Simply dragging the crosshair to each target is an exercise in gluey frustration.

The only reason to even remember this game today is to savour the cheesy agony of these infamous live action cut-scenes, which have the unusual effect of making you pine for Sylvester Stallone bellowing "UH AHM DER LURRRRR".

2/10