Cyber-Cop Game Sample - Genesis/MD

Original Air Date: January 24th, 2010

Ah... one of the really strange games of my childhood... an obscure Genesis/MD First-Person shooter. While a lot of people credit Doom for putting FPS on the map, there were FPS before Doom... you just don't hear about them because most of them sucked.

Originally made in 1990 and titled "Corporation" (Titled Cybercop or Cyber-Cop in the U.S. for Genesis) for Amiga, DOS,etc., the game was actually quite promising and complex for a game of its time. You played with a preset character or customized one of six, outfitted them with weapons, then survived on items found. You hacked computers, could repair certain parts of your special body, used stealth to infiltrate areas and needed to increase you clearance level to get further in a facility. Later on, you can use PSI and float over areas and alter your character's dementia.

As the game puts it, the objective is simple enough; Grab an embryo and escape the facility with it. Doing so will expose the facility for the evil smut-peddling place that it is and shut it down (explained in the intro). The problems? If you don't have a manual, it can take ages figuring out what everything does. Even if you know what to do, the game's slow pace, shoddy controls, constant enemy threats (even in menus) and cryptic nature will have most people throwing in the towel in no time.

This slow, almost unforgiving game used to give me nightmares as a kid for its overall creepiness, and it still scares me a little now with its crappy gameplay and framerate which can seem like it drops to 3FPS at times. Its a shame too, as it had a lot going on otherwise. I'd imagine the other versions are far superior... I honestly don't know why this was made for Genesis.