G-Police Review

Psygnosis was founded in 1984 and have made video games for multiple systems, but when Sony became its parent company in 1993, Psygnosis would primarily develop titles for Sony's PlayStation.
WipEout and Colony Wars are known examples, but there were other intellectual properties from the UK-based company.
In 1997, G-Police came out for the PlayStation and PC, the same year Colony Wars arrived on the scene. However, G-police was handled by a sub-studio of Psygnosis, just like with Colony Wars: Red Sun, but this time it was by a team from Stroud, England.
The game had a mixed to positive reception, but what do I think of it after all these years?
Sources:
Psygnosis logo -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ps...
SCE Studio Liverpool logo - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St...
WipEout (PAL) cover art -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wi...
Colony Wars (PAL) cover art -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co...
Colony Wars: Red Sun (PAL) cover art -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co...
Blade Runner poster -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bl...
G-Police: Weapons of Justice (PAL) cover art -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:G-...
Music:
'Mario Bava Sleeps In a Little Later Than He Expected To' by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: chriszabriskie.com/vendaface/
Artist: chriszabriskie.com/

[@ravenlordgoat2157]

G-police was a big part of my childhood, i greatly enjoy the fact that somebody has reviewed it and so recently aswell! (atleast relatively recently)

[@Queeg500RD]

same bro, great times

[@ikonik5438]

never played the game but my dad worked on g police when he worked at signosis

[@adrunkvagabond]

​@@ikonik5438 nice

[@ZanzibarBreeze]

Ahhhh nostalgia. This was the first game I ever played on PS1 and I was mesmerised by it.

[@gaz6629]

Man what a classic. This was really ahead of its time when it was made. I remember wishing the flight ceiling was a little higher, but other than that I played this so much as a kid...

[@Great_Watt]

Agreed. Even at the time, I knew it was ahead of it's time and tried to imagine what it could be like a few console generations down the line. Sadly, it got forgotten and there isn't really anything like this in today's market (correct me if I'm wrong!). It needs a reboot. Same with Colony Wars. These 2 games/series felt like the start of something bigger but they got brushed under gaming history's rug and abandoned. The other game I felt this way about, that it was ahead of it's time and more of a proof of concept, was the original Armored Core. And look how the recent return to that franchise has gone! Someone needs to reboot G-Police and Colony Wars!

[@jurgennolte7577]

I like to see it again improved on the PS4 and that is saying everything.

[@ryoohk]

I wish the PC version would pop up on GOG. I miss this game so much.

[@rockingjamie]

Such an overlooked gem. Along with Colony Wars, I felt like it pushed what the PS1 was capable of. A real shame G Police never managed to get a PS2 version, would have been the perfect platform for it.

[@RJ-pb1qx]

Played this on the playstation. Weird how the premise of this game is eerily familiar with today's big tech companies minus the weapons

[@Great_Watt]

That's a classic dystopian sci-fi trope. Look at Robocop and the evil corporation OCP that runs everything. There's a reason the book 1984 stopped getting taught in schools - because it was too good at predicting where things are headed!

[@patrikartell406]

Had this on PC and used with Logitechs Saitek flight controllers it became the Best Game Ever! With those flight controllers the aerodynamic and flightcombat was way ahead of anything ever built.

[@Miguel_Proud_Binary]

One of the first games with the option of prioritize fps or draw distances, today is fps or resolution/quality. I Miss Psygnosis, was ahead of its time!

[@PoppaCYS]

This game was really good at the time. I wish a new and updated game would be made. It could be amazing with today's technology.

[@GTS300Coupe]

Who knew G Police predicted our real future

[@Sinn0100]

First and foremost, excellent review of a great game. I bought G-Police when it was brand new on the PSX totally on a whim and I loved it. It's been a very long time since I have played it and for some reason I can't find it in our massive PSX collection. I will be snagging this game again tomorrow albeit in a more....I guess nefarious way. I haven't been into games emulation in a very long while. However when I bought the abysmal PSX Mini the week it dropped I knew when I got around to it....I'm modding it. The reason I bring this up is you can fix the texture pop-in now with some emulators. The one included in the PSX Mini (hidden) allows you to basically unlock the frame rate while utilizing a bit more of the ARM's CPU to push polygons faster. I would have never believed it would work so well until I watched someone do it. They were able to slowly increase the speed of NFS Porsche until the pop-in was virtually gone while not breaking the game. I was completely floored when I saw this work. The last time I messed with emulation (2012) this was something that would break the game. Seriously, check it out on an emulator that lets you do this.

[@DaveSouthPhoto]

When I got my PS1 back 97/98 with 4 games this was one of them. Loved this game.

[@SequentialSnep]

One of my favourite games ever! Thanks for keeping our memories alive!

[@SergioRatz]

Man I vaguely remember playing this and a kid... all i can remember is that i was to young and it didn’t make loads of sense

[@TCrag]

I love how dark the game looked as a kid, the style of the game is excellent. The low draw distance was the only major drawback for me.

[@Queeg500RD]

I used to love this game

[@jonw3152]

I don't really agree that the gameplay is compromised. I played this game as a child and, fully replaying it recently, it is amazing how well the mechanics (and the story to an extent) hold up for a 1997 game. I think the controls are fiddly but very satisfying to get the hang of and overall I find it a brilliant game with lots of stimulating challenges (especially the optional secondary objectives) and moments of achievement. If there was ever a remake to improve the graphics (especially the draw distance and redraw rate) it could be something superlative.

[@ButherLi55ett]

Had this when it first came out. It was mentally hard for no reason and got stuck on a level that I simply couldn't get passed. Shame actually liked the game.

[@mcilrain]

I remember playing the demo version on PC.

[@paularnold2289]

Are you going to review the sequel?

[@TTBurgerThePlayStationGamer]

i remember playing this game it was so much fun it reminded me of descent but better!

[@Andrew-el8xi]

Blimey i played this ...what a game company a number of hits

[@MH22814]

Loved this game!

[@Ghost_Of_SAS]

Certain PAL editions of this game had a bug that made the cutscenes of disc 2 not play at all, so I never knew how the story went. Not that it matters too much.

[@THE-BUNKEN-DRUM]

It turns out, Darth Vader, was his father, all along.

[@ГеройАсфальта]

Чувак, я помню ее на плейстейшене играл. Сейчас бы повторить... 😊

[@Cheka__]

Big corporations becoming more powerful than governments. What a silly scenario.

[@mol-o2766]

I would pay a 100 quid for a remake/remaster.

[@RuddsReels]

OK, I need help! I finally got my old PC working and able to put it through my HD TV! My old games work great! All except G-Police (My favourite game in my old collection - "Typical") But when I try to play the missions, everything has pink stripes and blocks, including the HUD! The tutorial missions and menus work fine, but the main story mode, once game play starts, turns pink!!!! It's not my GPU because other games work fine! I tried uninstalling and reinstalling! I'm using Windows 98 (I played it before using Window 95). Is there a compatibility mode in Windows 98? Any help from anybody will be of great help! BTW I have this game running on my modern computer, but my Xbox 360 controller doesn't work with it! Is there a way to make this work or are there other controllers I can buy that work with the game? Thanks for any help!!!

[@RuddsReels]

@S A Hi! Thanks for the reply. I actually fixed the problem some time back. It was just a tick box option, on a popup screen at the start of playing the game. It was somehow selecting another option. (I haven't played it in 20 years) It was ticked on D3D Device 1. I then ticked 16 bit hardware instead (only these two options) and the game works fine!!! Even better than this video, since the thruster section border of the HUD is how it should be and not practically unmarked. It's just as good as I remember!!!

[@mdfkrz79]

I played it on a demo disc a bunch lol

[@potstella]

I've just replayed this on my vita, yeah I'm struggling with the controls 🌿👍🍺

[@samuelsolomon7330]

Available now on ps4 and ps5.

[@xinlou6707]

Wait so you're telling me that this godlike game that i absolutely love had issues on a pad ? XD

[@Jamic9]

Why is this stretched to 16:9 format? Surely it wouldn't be difficult to display the game in its proper 4:3 aspect ratio for Pete's sake.

[@benjaminshiels1824]

Can't get past rouge robots without strafe ability. Sad 😔

[@CrayonMechant]

Do you plan on reviewing G-Police 2?

[@TheIndulged1]

ever think to use the PlayStation mouse?

[@GoldenGateNum9]

This series was underated as hell, highly intelligent and good quality British developers along with the legendary Bullfrog ❤️ shame that oversaturated mindless violence from the Assassins Creed, Call Of Duty and GTA series dominated the earth In the end. Oh well 😘

[@reinforcedpenisstem]

Gee, police!

[@fedricojgarza464]

Love G-police and so many rage quits beat the game 10 times on ps1 😊🎉

[@Great_Watt]

What an oddly abrupt ending to that video... And you don't give us a recommendation or a score of any kind. Not sure if this really qualifies as a review? Anyway - G-Police is a classic example of a game whose ambition exceeded the capabilities of the hardware it was released on at the time. The draw distance was an issue, but I loved the controls. They took a little getting used to but they never felt unfair, juts had a high learning curve. Once you had your setup and got used to it, it was a lot of fun flying around shooting enemy craft down with the various weapons at your disposal, and it was one of the earlier PS1 titles to give you a true sense of 3-dimensional gameplay. I would LOVE to see a reboot of this today, along with Colony Wars. They share similarities in gameplay and graphical limitations. This is the kind of game that is best enjoyed on a decent emulator like Duckstation so you can ramp up the frame rate and smooth out graphics, etc. among other tweaks to optimize what's there.

[@Daimo83]

Get yourself a PC copy mate

[@Joseph-Mamma]

Your voice is too monotone. Sounds like you are reading an essay to a school classroom

[@Bazookatone1]

This was the grearest game ever released on the PS1. Every game i ever saw on the console afterwards had worse graphics. The designers managed to create a world that felt totally real, 6 or 7 years before GTA3. The fact that the franchise petered out after 2 games and nwver ce to the PS2 ornits successors is massive missed opportunity.