E3 2001 Hands-onPolice 911

Just days before E3, Konami announced that it would be bringing its acclaimed arcade shooter Police 911 to the PlayStation 2. In the arcade, the game features a light gun and overhead sensors that lets you duck, shift, and strafe to adjust your view onscreen while you dodge bullets and return fire. It's a step up the ladder from Time Crisis in the evolution of the genre and perhaps does the best job yet of immersing the player in the game environment.

This would seem to be one of those magic titles, offering a unique experience only possible in the arcade, but Konami is doing its best to let players bust up the Yakuza in the comfort of their homes. A small motion sensor is fixed into position and tracks the movement of the player's head. Rather than using a light gun like in the arcade, a track-ball controller is used to position the onscreen cursor. While the track ball takes away from the perceived realism (as well as the overall coolness, sadly), the motion sensor worked very well. Actually ducking behind the riot-shield of a squad mate for cover before popping out in whatever direction you choose is quite cool and totally unprecedented on a console. Graphics are currently identical to its arcade counterpart, but the company representative stressed that everything was in a prototype stage.

The version playable at E3 is by no means final, but this early look does hold some promise for the final product and opens up the possibility of motion-sensitive games for the PS2 in the future. Look for more announcements regarding this exciting arcade conversion in the future.