63. Police Trainer

(Arcade, P&P, 1996)
Whenever I sit at my computer and check the list to see whats next on the agenda, the result often leaves me perplexed. I see a game like Dragon's Lair and think "How do I sum up the history of laserdisc games in such a short space?" I come across WCW Backstage Assault and think "Do I deserve to live and have sexual relations after having contact with that game?" I try to summarise, in just a few blocks of text, the concept of the game and what it means to me in my own personal gaming history.
So usually, I find it tricky to put my feelings, whether good or bad, into words..

..but not today.

Police Trainer is a lightgun game from the mid-90s by P&P Marketing. The player takes part in a simulation of a simulation, aiming their gun at targets and figures that move toward them, with points given for speed and accuracy.

Just one problem, it's REALLY boring. Police Trainer is a slow moving, almost soundless game which produces no excitement whatsoever. The cheap feeling guns are inaccurate despite it being the key concept of the game. The figures, which look like those artist's drawing dolls, slide toward you, waving baseball bats in a comical manner. To it's credit the game features lots of different tests, but none of them get the pulse beating any faster than rigor mortis. Alongside ANY other game that puts a lightgun in your hand and sends you up against waves of zombies, gangsters, ninjas or bad FMV actors, Police Trainer is just slow, quiet, uninteresting and unsatisfying. The graphics are basic, dated and pull no response from the player. Shoot the targets, check your score, repeat.

Take a good look at the screenshot above, does it even remotely interest you or make you want to play? Now imagine you also have to pay for the privilege, NOW imagine House of the Dead is on its left and Time Crisis is on its right.
Police Trainer is simply dull, even if you're interested in accurate shooting there are far more entertaining games to test your sniper skills on. I walked away from Police Trainer with credits left in the machine, to date it's still the first and only time Ive ever done that.

I can't even get any bad comedy out of this write up. The game isn't even unintentionally funny. It only invokes the worst feeling any videogame can: apathy.