VIDEO GAMES REVIEW : Metal Head Loses Its Cool, but Crime Patrol Cleans Up : Both put players in battles of good versus evil, but only the latter stands up to pressure. A third offering gives Trekkers a treat.

Metal Head is on the cusp of being cool, but falls short in the end, which sort of sums up the general problem with Sega’s 32X system. Despite its potential, the 32X so far does not have the library of really cool games it needs to truly catch on.

To wit, Metal Head, a first-person combat game with a lot of nice features and amazing sequences that, when taken together, just don’t seem to add up the way they should.

The story is your generic tale of the future. World leaders build an army of bipedal armored tanks to keep peace. But a few of the so-called “Metal Heads” fall into the wrong hands and terrorists use them to lay waste to urban centers around the world.

So players, each armed with their own Metal Head, must fight their way through mechanized armies of bad guys to wipe out the headquarters of the terrorists. Along the way, players pick up more powerful weapons and rely on a well-designed screen to show what lies ahead.

Controls are smooth and the soundtrack includes digitized voices giving mission commands. The playing environment is a bunch of well-rendered city streets, although the scenes tend to get repetitive after a few missions. Enemy tanks are smarter than average computerized foes and actually require some degree of strategy to waste.

Despite all this, Metal Head got old fast. It seemed almost as if it was rushed onto the market. In my humble opinion, that has been the problem with many of the 32X games I have played. So far, only three 32X games have really turned me on: Doom, Virtua Racing Deluxe and Star Wars Arcade.

Most of the rest are like Metal Head, cool at first glance, but not so much after a few hours in front of the tube. Too bad.

Platform: Sega 32X

Rating: Mediocre, though fun for a while

*

A friend who is absolutely nuts about “Star Trek” and all its generations recommended I take a look at Star Trek Star Fleet Academy: Starship Bridge Simulator, which includes some very cool arcade-style play as well as some very dull stuff that only a die-hard fan would love.

Players assume the role of a cadet on his or her way through the Starfleet Academy. Along the way, players can sit in class and read lectures on Starfleet tactics or review files on the differences between Klingons and Romulans.

While these features might be of interest to some, I found them curious at best. The best parts of this game are the various simulations in which players assume command of a variety of ships for some pretty cool dogfights and missions.

Combat training was particularly fun. Players can choose either the classic Constitution-class cruiser or a range of smaller or enemy ships. Although the forward viewing screen is the same in all, the bridge changes to match the ships. Romulan and Klingon vessels also feature the dreaded cloaking device, which makes them almost impossible to detect.

Play itself in combat training is fast and smooth. Opposing ships are beautifully rendered and they are surprisingly squirmy, making it even tougher to lock on the photon torpedoes.

For “Star Trek” fans, this game is an essential part of your library. For everyone else, borrow a copy from your friend--and everybody knows at least one--who can explain the theoretical science behind how dilithium crystals power the Enterprise.

Platform: Super Nintendo

Rating: Cool for “Star Trek” fans, mediocre for everyone else

*

As much as we publicly decry vigilantism, there is a Dirty Harry hiding in all of us. Even the most liberal among us has at one time or another longed to squint menacingly at some punk down the barrel of a .44 and ask him how lucky he feels.

Crime Patrol provides the opportunity.

Translated from the arcades for home machines, Crime Patrol is a full-screen, full-motion video trip into a world where cops shoot first and ask questions later. On a series of calls that range from an electronics store robbery to a strip-joint shootout, players move up the ranks by shooting bad guys before they can get a shot off.

Although the game can be played with the 3DO joypad or mouse, the best way is with a game gun that allows players to shoot directly at the television screen. Some of the levels are predictable after a few tries, but others include random video sequences that make them different each time.

One gripe I have with the game is that some of the levels include targets way too small to hit on a standard television screen. While these may work on an arcade screen, they don’t play too well on smaller sets.

And after playing a few times, I started to get sick of my partners. A beefy undercover detective spent more time nursing his Yoo Hoo and ogling the strippers than backing me up in a pinch, and my female training officer had a tendency to sneak up behind me with her gun drawn.

Unfortunately, the game does not let you shoot your partner. Or, for that matter, civilians who get in the way. It does, however, let you empty your gun into a variety of creeps who think taking shots at cops is a lot of fun.

Lest anyone think Crime Patrol is a precursor to violence in real life, remember, it’s just a game, folks. If you think shooting real people is an all right thing to do, you have a lot more wrong with you than you can ever possibly blame on a video game.

Platforms: 3DO, Sega CD

Rating: Insane

Ratings: Insane, the very best; cool, are, of course, cool; mediocre, games better borrowed than bought; suck, games at the bottom of the barrel.