Short, but oh so sweet. That’s the best way I can describe SEGA’s new lightgun offering. When I first saw screens of the game prior to its official announcement, I was convinced I was looking at the beautiful visage of Virtua Cop 3. As it turns out, SEGA decided to make this an entirely original game with a James Bond theme, and that’s just fine with me. Still, after spending some serious time with the game and my trusty InterAct Blaster, I’m ready to consider this the spiritual successor to Virtua Cop 2. And that’s a very good thing.
The Confidential Mission Force is a post-Cold War agency designed to confront terrorists and prevent the outbreak of wars. To do that, you take on the role of Howard Gibson or Jean Clifford as you blast your way through three missions (yup, only three) of terrorists hell bent on your destruction. Of course, it’s a lightgun shooter, so you can take or leave as much of the story as you like. It’s not great, nor is it important.
Since there’s only so much you can do with gameplay in a lightgun game, the design of levels becomes extra important, and I’m happy to say that CM comes across with some truly excellent design work. One of my favorite sequences is the boss battle at the end of Mission One, where youf ight in an exhibit room at a museum. Your adversary has a remove control that activates all sorts of remote guns and missile launchers located around the room. It kind of reminded me of The Living Daylights. Another great sequence, this time in Mission Two, takes place atop a moving train as you are beset upon by armed soldiers on snowmobiles. As the game progresses you’ll battle your way through an enemy submarine pen and the interior of a train, just to name a few areas. It’s great stuff, and really drives home why I love lightgun games so much in the first place.
Like the Virtua Cop series, you start each level with a certain number of life marks. You lose one each time you take a hit or shoot a civilian. There are also some challenges in each level, which lead to branching sections if you pass. One requires you to shoot out a vent with special bullets to prevent poison gas from escaping. Another requires you to shoot a grapple at a target to slide down into an area. There are also a number of items you can shoot in each area to get extra goodies, like body armor, an assault rifle, grenades, and bonus points. Oh yeah, Virtua Cop fans should be happy to see the return of the Justice Shot. In CM, these are granted when you are able to shoot the weapon out of an enemy’s hand. You can also rack up Combo Shots by hitting an enemy up to three times before he falls. The game does a good job of rewarding players for using their skills rather than just scraping by.
The visuals feature that great arcade style which features some chunky models, but also some great looking and colorful environments. If you’ve played a recent SEGA game in the arcade, you should know exactly what to expect here.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know that SEGA opted not to bring their own lightgun to the American Dreamcast, and so the manual for CM illustrates the control scheme for playing with the standard controller or the arcade stick. Please, for the love of God, don’t do it. Playing this game, or any other lightgun game for that matter with a cursor is a major drag. Do yourself a favor and pick up one of the third-party lightguns available for the system. I mentioned earlier the Interact gun and I’m very happy with it, but I know that Mad Catz also has a pretty good one on the market as well.
Now, three missions isn’t a hell of a lot to chew on, so CM adds a fun Agent Academy that lets you try your marksmanship out on some mini-games. The Agent Academy is also key to opening up more stuff to do in the main Arcade Mode. Granted, arcade-style lightgun games are always plagued by being short-lived so fans of the genre are probably used to this by now. The appeal here is to replay the game to perfection and try to make your way through it without slapping that Continue button. I found Confidential Mission to be a thrill a minute, not to mention a game that will keep me coming back time again to get my shooting fix. It’s not Virtua Cop 3, but it’s probably the next best thing.
Graphics: Nothing to complain about here. Decent models and good environments. The game would look right at home in any arcade. They still have those, right?
Audio: Bang-bang-bang, mixed with some serviceable music.
Control: Get a lightgun! Pushing a cursor around the screen just isn’t much fun.
Overall Value: SEGA put in some extras to extend the gameplay, but it can still be over pretty quick. Those players looking to perfect their score will get the most bang for their buck.
GameFan Zero 