Kikou Keisatsu Metal Jack / Metal Jack: Armored Police

Metal Jack: Armored Police was an unreleased game by Atlus. Thanks to ruiner9 and nooglide for some of the information in this article. Magazine scans courtesy of Retromags. By: Evan G Last updated: May 17, 2014

Metal Jack: Armored Police is a rather unremarkable side-scrolling beat-em-up. I always admit that this genre is not one of my favourites, but this game is bland even by the standards of the genre. The game was released in Japan, and it looks as though everything was set for the game to be released in the US in Fall 1992. The reason for cancellation is unknown. The ROM image of the US version was leaked on the Internet in 2012.

Metal Jack was released in Japan, and was advanced enough to have promotional material and box art made up for the US release. The game was originally intended to be released in December 1992, according to previews EGM and Gamepro. Promotional material given out at what I assume was either the 1992 Winter or Summer CES is available at Video Game Den. A prototype of this game was dumped by ruiner9 on The ISO Zone, courtesty of the cart owner, nooglide, in 2012. The stickers on the PCB indicate the prototype was likely made in late July 1992. A post on Nintendo Age shows the box art (taken from Ebay), and states that DreamTR previously owned the prototype. Thanks goes to nooglide for releasing this prototype.

One notable thing about the localization is that they changed the setting from Tokyo to Los Angeles. This game is brutally hard, because it is extremely difficult to get close enough to the enemies to hit them without taking a hit, and the gun you get has very limited ammo. After the first mini-boss, the enemies are a lot faster than you (so fast that you cannot shoot them before they kick you in the face, even if you are anticipating them). As a result, I did not bother to delve too far in the game. The internal header of the binary is consistent with a proper production-ready game, so in all likelihood this would have been identical to the final version of the game.

Prototype title screen	Japanese version title screen

Prototype	Japanese version. Note the text is approximately the same, though the setting is in Tokyo instead of L.A.

Prototype	Japanese version. Again, the text is approximately the same.

Prototype character select screen. Changes metric to imperial measurements, and "jack on" removed. The character name is also changed.	Japanese version select screen.

Prototype gameplay. Not noticeable changes to gameplay.	Japanese version gameplay.

Prototype, showing note after dying. Changes "player dead" to "player defeated".	Japanese version.

Box art, originally from Ebay

Listing in the April 1992 issue of Gamepro. Scan courtesy of Retromags.

Promotional flyer given out at a CES in 1992

Promotional flyer given out at a CES in 1992

Advertisement in the September 1992 issue of EGM

Preview in the October 1992 issue of Gamepro.

Preview in the November 1992 issue of Gamepro. Self plagiarism is fully evident.

Preview in the October 1992 issue of EGM. The preview is clearly based off the localized version of the game.

Scan of the PCB

Download the ROM image here.