Total Vice (Arcade) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Konami's 1997 arcade light-gun shooter, Total Vice.
Played on the default difficulty level.
Total Vice is, in my opinion, one of Konami's best arcade games of the late 1990s. It's a light turn-based rail shooter that feels like it was the intended successor to the Lethal Enforcers name, and it's a game that would've served the series far better than what Lethal Enforcers 3 (a game that felt like a pseudo-sequel to Police 911) did.
Unfortunately, the game never garnered much in the way of buzz, and has been largely forgotten to time. It ran on an exotic bit of hardware (based on the M2 platform) that saw very little public exposure, and to this day, it has never been ported to any other platforms. What a shame that is, too - this would've posed an excellent bit of competition to Time Crisis had it been ported to the PlayStation.
It's a basic and pure as the genre gets: you point a light gun at the screen, shoot the baddies, and reload by shooting off-screen. That's it. No fancy bells-and-whistles, no gimmicks to complicate the carnage - it's a pure arcade shooter.
The move to 3D is successful here most likely due to how heavily it borrows from Virtua Cop, much like how Virtua Cop took many of its cues from Lethal Enforcers. Many of the scenes (the yard full of shipping containers, the elevator scene, the office building, and several others) highlight an endless number of elements "inspired" by Virtua Cop, but the game still feels a lot like Lethal Enforcers in its style and pace. It probably helps that many of the voice clips have been recycled from Lethal Enforcers - any self-respecting Konami fan will instantly recognize, "Eat lead, copper!"
It may not feature much in the way of originality, but it nails the basics, and it keeps things fun throughout. There are three main stages ("missions") to blast your way though, and like most arcade light gun shooters, it's quite difficult, but the 3D graphics and the heavy layer of cheese that coats the production make it a blast to play.
Unfortunately, it only ever saw a small production run so most people never got to experience this gem.
Though it runs fine through Mame, it struggles to run at full-speed on pretty much any PC at the moment. I had to use Mame's -aviwrite command to get a smooth recording - I was playing this on a i9 9980HK with 64GB of RAM and the game ran only at 60-70% of its original speed most of the time. Ouch.
But if you ever see this one out in the wild, feed it some coins. Total Vice could certainly use a bit of love.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocom...) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!

[@NintendoComplete]

*This* is the game that Konami should've released as Lethal Enforcers 3! I really wish Total Vice had gotten a home port at some point.

[@therealisticgamer5834]

Yeah i just noticed that it does look similar to lethal enforcers but 3d. It's too bad it never got a home port😕

[@therealisticgamer5834]

@Adam Demeter if only the n64 had a gun controller accessory like the nes zapper or snes super scope

[@danielsantana540]

This game should have been ported to saturn or PS1

[@Gexon1000]

Hold on a sec? You defeated a bosses brutally...... How can they be alive in the criminal measuring height at the end? lol

[@NintendoComplete]

@@Gexon1000 I had the same thought.

[@JustAnotherUser565]

I just love the fact that the Squad Cars of this game are Dodge Vipers

[@LPetal86]

"YOU IDIOT?!" There's always something that makes me smile about the horrible English/Engrish of arcade titles. My personal favorite is _The House of the Dead 2_ with Goldman.

[@veralu254]

SEE YOU LATER COP?!

[@veralu254]

SHOOT! SHOOT!

[@takafumiarisawa70]

Oh for defs. My go to for some cheap laughs (although it's not an Arcade game, just Engrish) is Michigan: Report From Hell. The first time I played that game I was so damn high, total mistake almost shit meself laughing at times.

[@Fargusno7930]

25:27 I'm gonna BOOCHER you

[@kadeemsiddon6770]

HEY MAN!

[@hipsterelephant2660]

It's interesting, for years the only known footage of this game shown publicly was in an Eddie Murphy comedy from 2002 since he was playing this game during the intro

[@NintendoComplete]

Haha such random trivia, I had no idea!

[@trevormarshall8553]

The movie was Showtime with Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro. @Hipster you beat me to it

[@hipsterelephant2660]

@@trevormarshall8553 Yeah I totally forgot the name of the movie, lol

[@rhhj4605]

It's how I ended up hear was curious if it was a real game lol

[@AchtungBaby77]

This game was extremely rare to find anywhere - I suppose that was due to the 90s being flooded with shooter arcades already (Virtua Cop, Time Crisis, Lethal Enforcers, Point Blanc, etc). I remember stumbling across this arcade by chance at a small bar in the late 90s and I threw in a few coins and enjoyed it. I forgot all about it, then for some strange reason it just popped into my head randomly and here we are, 20+ years later, watching the game again on KZbin! Crazy stuff. Somehow the game looked more realistic in my memories, funny how nostalgia does that to you! Cheers for the upload.

[@MrSuperspeedsonic]

I didn't know about this Konami jewel!! I am glad to have met it, I love it!. Also just like Lethal Enforcers this game shows us that in the world of this game, criminals always wears black glasses.

[@veralu254]

I love lethal enforcers 3

[@HereForAStorm]

Very cool, never even heard of this. I was a huge fan of Time Crisis and Lethal Enforcers. 👍

[@DasNordlicht91]

a bit odd that this wasn't a Lethal Enforcers sequel, especially because the game is quite similar to the first two LE games with the digitized actors swapped out for polygonal crooks.

[@Fargusno7930]

Total Vice bosses in a shellnut: Boss 1: Heavy Weapons Guy Boss 2: MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Boss 3: Totally not Sherudo Garo from TC

[@ManiacalForeigner]

Holy FUCK, this soundtrack is so awesome. The composer, Yasuhisa Ito, also worked on Soul of the Samurai a.k.a. Ronin Blade, and Cy Girls, and he did the awesome arrangement of Ruined Castle Corridor for Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. Sadly, I cannot find a lossless version of this soundtrack anywhere online. Man, this guy deserves SO much more recognition.

[@kennethjefferson880]

Just thought of this game Total Vice today. I remember playing this in various arcades back in the day. It was definitely one of the best games

[@jeremyriley1238]

Now this should have been Lethal Enforcers 3 instead of that competitive game.

[@firecoroner]

Accuracy 115%. Were killing 1.15 bad guys with each bullet.

[@Kaitos11]

The violence looks cartoonish now but as a 10 year old, I was shocked at how violent it was when I first played it in the arcade. I also remember this game looking amazing but it turns out that's my memory playing tricks on me haha

[@Fargusno7930]

The real Lethal Enforcers 3 The other one looks more like Police 911 3

[@SegGel2009]

Thank god finally footage of this game is on KZbin. I remember playing this at one of my local movie theaters several years ago before the cab broke down. Really fun game. Though, I don't recall there ever being this much blood in the game, or the fact that civilians were present. Are there options in the game's Test Menu to disable these features?

[@NintendoComplete]

Yeah, there's a setting for violence level and blood color iirc. I set it to the most "explicit" settings.

[@TwesomE]

Why to remove those from the game? Those was the reason to attract more attention to it!

[@MultiBoxingKid]

I gotta say, the voice acting is pretty good.

[@user-qh6eg6mj6c]

Perfectly (thanks) !!!

[@boynextdoorman]

This game is epileptic's worst nightmare. Seriously, did they really have to add that flash effect for every gunfire?

[@NintendoComplete]

That's pretty much every game that worked with a traditional light gun. The Zapper on the NES had the same exact effect - it's how the game detects where you're shooting.

[@AnimatedAndrew]

So I know Konami made a knock-off House of the Dead with Evil Night, but I had no idea about them also making their own Virtua Cop game!!! Though to be fair they did make Lethal Enforcers 2 years before the first VC came out... plus they also made that Police 911 game. I do like how the magnum round can go through 2 enemies at once. That's a really neat touch!

[@JuanMendoza-qd5lm]

To be fair- I believe Evil Night was released 1yr before House of The Dead.

[@AnimatedAndrew]

@@JuanMendoza-qd5lm nope, just checked and Evil Night was released in 1998. The first House of the Dead was released in Japan in 1996.

[@JuanMendoza-qd5lm]

@@AnimatedAndrew Shoot i must be thinking of another zombie shooter.

[@veralu254]

merry christmas!

[@davidlittlejohn1093]

I barely remember the time I played this game years ago. I didn't know of its name at the time, I was a kid when I played this. It's rare to stumble upon an arcade game like this, I wonder if I’ll play this game again?

[@NintendoComplete]

Hopefully at some point Mame will be able to run it a bit more efficiently than it does now!

[@marcguerra1854]

Was watching the movie “Showtime” and saw Eddie Murphy’s character playing an arcade machine of this game. Thought it was a fake till I found this video.

[@gulyasdavid6170]

awesome arcade shooter

[@joesheha6580]

Lethal Enforcers in glorious 3D, and with blood, to boot. IMHO, the real LE3. Shame it never got a home port unlike LE1 & LE2: Gun Fighters/The Western, but hey, there’s always MAME.

[@youisiaint]

I'm just now finding out about all these rail-shooting gallery type games Konami made. I had only ever played Lethal Enforcers and Crypt Killer

[@LightStreak567]

In my eyes, this is Lethal Enforcers 3. The other one should have been Lethal Enforcers 4.

[@Fargusno7930]

Nah, the other one should've been Police 911 3

[@danielsantana540]

Great game

[@ensarblackbird3347]

Why minigun man(first boss) rotating himself to shooting you?

[@xavierpaul49]

They need to bring Lethal Enforcer back. I used to like the The Guy and Girl cop on the arcade cabinet picture

[@KarlSturmgewher]

Digitized actors were a classic in the 80s and 90s. Too bad they don't use those anymore.

[@PierceCheng]

It reminds me "Virtua Cop" series.

[@user-ikusa1996]

あれだけダメージ食らって三人とも生きてたのか・・・

[@RGMfighter]

I hope you can play Evil Night/Hell Night, another rare M2 light gun arcade game made by Konami.

[@NintendoComplete]

Seems like you read my mind :) Here you go: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fHSyananZdmMgMk

[@RGMfighter]

@@NintendoComplete Thanks!

[@jodyposey9558]

@@NintendoComplete I hope you can do a playthrough with two more rare games also on the M2 hardware, which is Battle Tryst, and Tobe Polystars, both made by Konami.

[@danielferstendig]

Lethal enforcers Lethal enforcers 2 gun fighters Total vice Police 911 Police 911 2 Lethal enforcers 3

[@_Majoras]

the graphics look like a mix of ps1 and ps2

[@NintendoComplete]

Yeah, the hardware it's running was actually derived from what was meant to be a successor to the 3DO.

[@danielsantana540]

Agreed

[@Nickdoyle56]

I also want to play the game with the gun sounds in the game.

[@juanchomacaraeg8646]

I got a request: Can you maybe try to play Operation Thunder Hurricane or even Teraburst next? I've been searching RIGOROUSLY only to find a FEW videos. Can't wait to hear from you. Thanks! JM

[@NintendoComplete]

I've been looking into those since you suggested. No promises, but I might. Thunder Hurricane is so bad but I love it :)

[@JuanMendoza-qd5lm]

@@NintendoComplete If I could 2nd Terraburst as a possible next option for an upload! Nobody has a decent playthrough of that game due to issues with emulation.

[@siriusunknowncicerone6590]

This game appear in the movie Showtime.

[@TwesomE]

The logo of the title screen shares allot of simmilarities with the vendeta classic beat em up from konami's behalf! I wonder if also have some kind of relation those games as a sequel or spinoff! 🤔

[@KarlSturmgewher]

I want this and every Konami light gun game on Switch, maybe the next Nintendo console so I can use my Pro Controller as a light gun.

[@matrixlone]

"Yooou idiot!!" 🤣

[@oscarestivencarabalyherrer1279]

It sound like Virtua Cop series

[@dracosamm]

Do Terraburst for arcade please

[@Nickdoyle56]

What will I need in order to play Total Vice on MAME where it's not so slow or choppy? I'm using a Win10 laptop with a NVIDIA GeForce video card. Do I need something else as well? Thanks.

[@heardofrvb]

Anyone know the difference between your regular gun and the magnum?

[@figment1988]

Magnum Rounds inflict more damage than the standard rounds

[@potatortheomnipotentspud]

20:30 Are those supposed to be potatoes?

[@retroroy8720]

I think the only reasons why Total Vice wasn't billed as Lethal Enforcers 3 or why Evil Night wasn't billed as Crypt Killer 2 was because Konami wanted a pair of new IP's to compete with Virtua Cop and House of the Dead.

[@VSSEDragon3]

More like Virtua Cop meets Lethal Enforcement

[@VSSEDragon3]

@nemo pouncey action video games come together ^^

[@VSSEDragon3]

@nemo pouncey Awesome 👍👍👍👍👍

[@karlhans6678]

How do you play this on MAME? i get the red message that it doesnt work.

[@oat.1991]

15:32 Helicopter

[@Lauren_Tyler]

I've played this once or twice. A shame it never got a home port.

[@user-tc1em2oe5y]

LETHAL ENFORCERS 3D

[@outlawcrossing312]

9:54 lol

[@nottrash9034]

Dae a similar game but it involves bikers and I think one grocery store scene

[@reubenguttenberg7405]

Disney's Hercules was released the same year

[@VideoGameEsoterica]

Nice video. I have a playthrough on my channel on the original pcb if you ever want to check it out. Plus some history too :) such a fun game

[@maddestmike5791]

Wow. The acting in this game is terrible. "Eat lead, copper!!" Is that a reference to Lethal Enforcers?

[@algisji2281]

Classic Campaing Counter Strike Condition Zero Best.

[@Wesley_C]

This game looked like Dreamcast, it's competitive silent scope games and Lethal enforcers 3.

[@HsienKoMeiLingFormerYANG]

Two of this are misguided. Based on short-live M2 architecture.

[@Loader2K1]

@@HsienKoMeiLingFormerYANG: Wasn't the M2 hardware basically a slightly upgraded version of the hardware used in the 3DO?

[@Loader2K1]

@Lobster Scrappy Doo: I agree. I honestly would have thought Total Vice was some Japan-exclusive PlayStation game if NintendoComplete didn't indicate otherwise. I think this game would truly have shined if it got a Dreamcast port, though.

[@HsienKoMeiLingFormerYANG]

@Loader2K1 Initially released as upgrade chip add on.

[@JuanMendoza-qd5lm]

@@Loader2K1 I loved the 3DO as a child man lol.

[@danielferstendig]

Konami should reissue le le 2 gf tv all in one arcade.

[@jerrycuff013]

AH KEEL YEW ALL!! So hilarious!! 🤣🤣🤣

[@ivanorozco9673]

oh and on a side note its strange that there's no wikipedia article on this game which to me tv tropes dont really count as a insightful database website its more about rambling cliche stuff then anything else in my own mindset at least i just hate rambling stuff which i can't explain why

[@ivanorozco9673]

i guess in a nutshell you can say that total vice looks,feel and plays like a spiritual sucessor to the leathel enforcers games the first two at least kinda like carrier air wing a.k.a u.s navy in japan looks,feels and plays like a spiritual sucessor to u.n squadron a.k.a area 88 if anyone has ever heard of carrier air wing which insted of being a manga licensed game it has a sean connery rip off looking guy during the text dialogue sequences of the game even more so a sean connery look alike rip off in the japanese version which capcom usa made him less sean connery look alike in the american release which i guess to prevent getting sued by sean connery himself for capcom japan ripping off his likeness not unlike how m bison from the japanese version of street fighter 2 had his name swapped to balrog in capcom usa's english localization job to avoid getting sued by mike tyson for so called ripping off his name and there both african american boxers at least this is my personal theory of why capcom usa altered the avatar of the sean connery look alike in the american release of carrier air wing back in 1990 but im getting off topic here lol

[@chaiyapattraiyarach2662]

[@danielferstendig]

This shoulve been called lethal enforcers total vice

[@illuminatidad]

This game looks like fun but some of the death animations are weird.

[@okaru353]

17:12

[@okaru353]

17:17

[@ivanorozco9673]

you know for a konami game like total vice that has a typically good soundtrack its a shame that no one on the internet had ever ripped this game's soundtrack which i thought this game has a solid soundtrack that is rocken and at times funky just typical old-school catchy konami music goodness that tragically got forgotten and no one ripped the soundtrack and posted on youtube kingdom hearts insider and youtubers where your at and its also a shame that the game doesn't have in game credits which might be hard to find the acurate information of who really composed the total vice soundtrack due to the game's lack of a wikipedia article or any other database websites that doesn't have alot of information about this game unfortunately

[@NintendoComplete]

I really liked the soundtrack too, but I wonder if it would actually be good to listen to outside of the game. The quality of the recordings is pretty low, probably because of the limited transfer rate of the CD drive. It would need to stream the music and game data at the same time, so there's not going to be a lot of bandwidth for sound data there, especially if the M2 hardware lacked hardware accelerated support for decoding compressed samples (like the Saturn did). I wouldn't be surprised if many of the in-game tracks were only 16khz or 22khz mono given how often the music gets buried beneath the sound effects. It disguises the low sample rate fairly well most of the time.

[@ivanorozco9673]

i see well you have a legit point

[@paulmitchell179]

Attack of antifa

[@TyRiders2]

The death animation is so Awkward