Players
£2.99

In Los Angeles Police Department you're a special agent who's been attached to the LAPD by request of the commissioner of police. Gangs of armed thugs roam the streets and, although the ordinary coppers are powerless to slop them, you're armed with a 9mm Uzi to blow them away.

The game is viewed Operation Wolf style (ie, slow horizontally scrolling) with the thugs popping up from the bottom of the screen or running on from the sides. But wherever they appear from the bad guys take pot shots at you with a variety of weaponry, the result being a heavy dose of lead poisoning followed by death.

The only way to avoid going home in a body bag is to fire back. A floating cursor (your gunsight) can be guided across the screen and a press of the fire button turns the hoods into lead-filled swiss cheese. As the villains bite the concrete they sometimes leave behind handy bonuses, which include extra ammo, First Aid kits and body armour.

Even though LAPD is an Operation Wolf-style shoot-'em-up, it also bears more than a passing resemblance to Predator II: indeed, I half expected to see the nightmarish dreadlocked head appear at any moment! This game style is getting on now, but LAPD is tough to master and on a budget label is well worth the asking price.

Players
£2.99 cass
Reviewer: Linda Barker

This is a weirdie, Dierdre! Who remembers a Players game called a A Nightmare On Robinson Street on our covertape last February? it was a pretty straight Op Wolf clone of no incredible import, but what it did it did okay. And much the same could be said of Players' new Los Angeles Police Department. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, they could be the same game! And we think they probably are. (With just a bit of code mixed around.) Blimey!

And that's not the half of it. Because according to the loading screen you're actually playing a game called LA Drugs Bust! Confusing or what? (I think we should be told.)

Anyway, whatever the thing's called, you play a special agent with the unenviable task of tidying up the streets of LA. Armed with an Uzi 9mm you've got to kill loads (and loads) of very violent people. There are things to collect, grenades to dodge, crooked old women to avoid, and the usual stuff besides. Just aim your little cursor at people and fire. Then do it again and again and again and... anyway, you get the picture.

There's nothing new here, but that doesn't make it completely worthless. LA PD (now there's a better title for a start) is still an okay shoot-'em-up (if totally unnecessary). The graphics are clear the scrolling is smooth. There's nothing wrong with it apart from the fact that you can't see the cursor very well and it hasn't got any sparkle to it whatsoever. Oh, and it's a bit of a double rip-off of course. Op Wolf was a great game. Nightmare On Ramsay Street, while streets behind, wasn't too critical. But LA Police Dept is (what amounts to) a copy of a copy and do you really want the same thing again and again? Personally, I think the whole thing's a bit of a waste of time and 1 don't really want a game with an identity crisis.