Virtua Cop

Players assume the role of police officers - either Michael Hardy, or his partner, James Cools. Played in a first-person perspective, players must use a light gun (or a joypad in the Sega Saturn version) to shoot criminals and advance through the game. Players begin the game with a reloadable chamber of six bullets and a set number of lives. Taking enemy fire causes the player to lose a life; power-ups can be shot to grant the player a special weapon or even an extra life.

There are also civilians that the player must not harm during the stage. If the player hits a civilian, the player loses a life. The special weapon will be lost if the player takes damage, but not if they shoot a civilian. Players can score extra points for "justice shots" (disarming an enemy without killing them, done by shooting their hand) and "bullseyes" (shooting the center of the target circle).

A detective in the player's department uncovers an illegal gunrunning operation and traces it back to a powerful crime syndicate named E.V.I.L. Inc. He compiles a large amount of evidence and is ready to take them down, but he is discovered and assassinated. Some of the evidence manages to make its way back to headquarters and a special task force is put on the case. The policemen Michael "Rage" Hardy and James "Smarty" Cools must face that organization led by Joe Fang and his followers Kong, the King, and the Boss.

Katsunori Itai and Akihito Hiroyoshi served as the lead developers on Virtua Cop, with Yu Suzuki serving as supervisor. The game's targeting reticles and zooming camera were inspired by a commercial for Pokka Kilimanjaro coffee. Kenneth Ibrahim, who voiced the navigator in Sega Rally Championship, voiced the civilians.

A division of Sega AM2 began work on the Saturn version in April 1995. Along with the Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 2, it was one of the first games to make use of the Sega Graphics Library operating system. In June 1995, Sega Saturn Magazine reported that the Saturn conversion was approximately 20 percent complete. The first stage's environments had been recreated and enemy characters were already animated, although their textures had not yet been implemented.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Virtua Cop as the second most successful upright/cockpit arcade cabinet of October 1994. In North America, RePlay reported Virtua Cop to be the fifth most popular arcade game of April 1995. It went on to become the highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1995 in Japan, and one of the top ten best-selling arcade video games of the year in the US.

The arcade game received generally positive reviews from critics. Tim Davis of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it a positive review, praising the polygon graphics, the zooming camera "that takes you all over" the place, the "automatic target sighting which pinpoints" enemies, and the weapon power-ups. Computer and Video Games also gave it a positive review, calling it "a classy title" and praising the 3D graphics, "excellent" animation, weapon power-ups, and the gameplay in both single-player and multiplayer modes. Games World magazine called it an "excellent fun" game, comparing it favorably with the shooters Operation Wolf (1987) and Lethal Enforcers (1992) as well as the film Reservoir Dogs (1992), while Dave Perry said the Virtua Fighter like 3D targets made it a "more challenging and satisfying" shooter.

Virtua Cop was a major influence on both light gun shooters as well as first-person shooters. When it was released in 1994, the game broke new ground by introducing the use of 3D polygons to the shooter genre. Some of the popular light gun rail shooters influenced by Virtua Cop include the Time Crisis series, The House of the Dead series, various Resident Evil spin-offs, and Dead Space: Extraction.

Virtua Cop was also the primary influence on the seminal first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, which was originally envisioned as an on-rails light gun shooter akin to Virtua Cop before it ended up as an off-rails first-person shooter. According to creator Martin Hollis: "We ended up with innovative gameplay, in part because we had Virtua Cop features in a FPS: A gun that only holds 7 bullets and a reload button, lots of position-dependent hit animations, innocents you shouldn’t kill, and an aiming mode. When you press R in GoldenEye, the game basically switches to a Virtua Cop mode. Perhaps more importantly following the lead from Virtua Cop, the game was filled with action. There was lots to do, with very few pauses".