PC Gamegun and Crime Patrol

PC GAMEGUN SHOT DOWN

A Review of PC Gamegun and Crime Patrol

by Trey Murff

I have the dubious honor of reviewing the PC Gamegun and Crime Patrol

hardware/software, but first, a little background information so you will

know where I am coming from. I’ll admit up front that I enjoy hunting and

own a number of fire arms. I have also been through the Texas Parks and

Wildlife gun safety program and treat firearms very seriously. I also

understand that “quick draw and blast the bad guy” games can be a lot of

fun. However, I found this hardware and software combination less than

fun and slightly disturbing.

I’ll begin by reviewing the PC Gamegun from it’s technical standpoints.

The gun is quite large (and orange) and requires that you disconnect both

your joystick and parallel port. The joystick connector also doesn’t have

thumb screws, and with only four pins, tends to pull out very easily.

The configuration software is simple and over in a matter of seconds, so

you can quickly get to playing Crime Patrol. However, once you are in

Crime Patrol you will find that the accuracy of the gun leaves a lot to be

desired. In fact, if you are into this type of game, I would suggest

purchasing a similar product that is available for the Sega Genesis. I played

this at my sister-in-laws house and the accuracy was incredible.

Crime Patrol is very similar to games you saw in arcades a number of years

ago. Basically, you are a cop and go from situation to situation where you

have to shoot bad guy after bad guy. I didn’t keep count but I think that

after each section, you may have killed upwards of 20 people. This is not

bad in itself (Ok…Maybe it is), but the attitude of the supporting cast

really

turned me off.

As an example, in the first mission your partner gets a radio call and turns

to you and says “…Lets go kick some *&^.” Throughout the game, Crime

Patrol either portrays police officers as trigger happy gun wielding maniacs

or donut eating buffoons. The game could have been much more subtle and

the player would have just as much fun. Hopefully, some of the other

games that are available for the PC Gamegun are more entertaining and

less offensive.

So, if you were to ask my advice, save your money. The gun lacks the

accuracy to really get into Crime Patrol and the premise just didn’t do

anything for me. However, some of the other games may be much better.

The back of the box list Mad Dog II, Drug Wars, Who Shot Johnny Rock,

Mad Dog McCree and Space Pirates as being compatible with the PC

Gamegun and I will probably keep the game gun around just in case I get

the opportunity to review one of them.

Gamer’s Zone Scorecard

Product:	PC Gamegun and Crime Patrol
Company:	American Laser Games 4801 Lincoln Road NE Albuquerque, NM 87109 (505) 880-1718

Cost:

$39

IBM PC 486 DX2-66, MSDOS 5.0 or higher,
Parallel and Gameport.