Lethal Enforcers is a 1992 Light Gun Game series by Konami in which you are a police officer trying to take out criminals and terrorists. Shooting the bad guys will increase your rank, which is needed to get through the stages, but killing any innocent bystanders or police officers in the process will reduce your rank instead. There are five missions to complete in the game, each ending with a Boss Battle. The Bank Robbery, in which you must stop bank robbers from escaping and stealing the money, Chinatown Assault, in which you must battle The Triads and the Tongs as well as Chinese knife-wielding triads that have overrun Chinatown, The Hijack, in which you must prevent a general and his group of terrorists from taking a plane and escaping, The Drug Dealers, where you must stop a shipment of drugs at the dock, and The Chemical Plant, where you must stop terrorists from sabotaging a chemical plant to poison the water supply.
Among the light gun games that filled the arcades, Lethal Enforcers stood out as the first to use Digitized Sprites, specifically based on photographs of live actors and locales, giving the game a photorealistic (if pixelated) appearance. Combined with violent gameplay, like the similar use in Mortal Kombat (1992) (albeit without the famous blood and gore), this resulted in controversy.
In 1994, Konami released a sequel, Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters (called Lethal Enforcers II: The Western in Japan). While the previous game was set in modern times, this game changes the setting to The Wild West. The gameplay is the same, only now you fight outlaws in Old West settings such as a saloon and a stagecoach holdup.
Home ports of both games were released for the Sega Genesis, Sega CD and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (first game only) bundled with the Justifier light gun. These were followed by a Compilation Re-release for the PlayStation.
Lethal Enforcers 3 was released in 2005 for arcades only, and plays completely different from its predecessors (but similar to the Police 911 spinoff). This is because it is actually the localization of Seigi no Hero ("Heroes of Justice"), the Spiritual Successor to the Police 911 spinoff. The game plays like a mix between a gun game and a racing game; you and an opponent race through each stage, clearing out enemies in order to reach the goal before the other player, while using a Time Crisis-style cover system to avoid enemy gunfire.
There is also a spin-off series called Police 911 (The Keisatsukan in Japan/Asia), also a sequel to the first game and is set in Japan. In these games, you race through each stage, clearing out enemies in the High-Speed Battle in order to reach the Cat-and-Mouse Boss stage, while using a motion tracker as you can physically move your body to dodge enemy gunfire. You are tasked to tracking down an international Yakuza group named Gokudou-kai.
Titles:
- Lethal Enforcers 1 (Arcade Game, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Playstation)
- Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters (Arcade Game, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Playstation)
- Lethal Enforcers 3 (Arcade Game)
The series as a whole contains examples of:
- Bloodless Carnage: A slash mark appears on the screen when a blade hits you, but otherwise no blood is shed.
- Compilation Re-release: Lethal Enforcers I & II for the PlayStation.
- Every 10,000 Points: Downplayed as extra lives are earned for every 1,000 points.
- Instant Death Bullet: Every shot fired by the player will kill a mook instantly. In the third game, this applies to bosses as well.
- Police Are Useless: Every cop except you. While other officers will show up to provide "backup", they don't actually help you at all and really do nothing except provide more innocent targets that player has to avoid shooting by mistake.
- Railing Kill: Many times, an enemy on high ground will tumble forward and fall off when shot.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The cover art of the first
◊ two◊ games. - X Meets Y:
- Lethal Enforcers is what you might get if Dirty Harry and Beverly Hills Cop gets crossed with a Light Gun Game. The classic sedans featured — similar to vehicle era of The Dead Pool — help reinforce this, the vehicle pursuit song "Shoot Into the Street" has a rough feel to Glenn Frey's "The Heat is On" during the chorus and you even deal with a plane hijacking like in Magnum Force. Yoshiaki Hatano, the creator of the game, said the game was inspired by the Dirty Harry series as it is his personal favorite film series and he liked all five of them.
- Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters has nods to the Dollars Trilogy, such as similar music, and has the feel of the Spaghetti Western genre in general, but riding the coattails of the original game, you're playing as law enforcement rather than as an bounty hunter.
- Lethal Enforcers 3 is a great Time Crisis racing game.
- Lethal Enforcers is what you might get if Dirty Harry and Beverly Hills Cop gets crossed with a Light Gun Game. The classic sedans featured — similar to vehicle era of The Dead Pool — help reinforce this, the vehicle pursuit song "Shoot Into the Street
