Vice: Project Doom's cover looks like something you'd see on a bootleg GI Joe box, and you'd be forgiven for dismissing it on sight as some cheap 8-bit crap not worth your time. I first came across it while watching Jeff Gertmann blow through some retro games on Giant Bomb dot com, a website that was, at one point, about video games. This is a good case of not judging something by its cover, because Project Doom has great presentation in-game, and backs it up with excellent gameplay and a surprising amount of variety.
Vice: Project Doom is broken into three distinct gameplay types: Overhead driving, shooting gallery, and Ninja Gaiden. The comparison gets brought up a lot because it's incredibly appropriate. If it weren't for these being countless other Ninja Gaiden derivatives on the system, I'd question how they got away with it. But what sets this game apart from the other knock offs is the developer's keen understanding of what makes Ninja Gaiden fun, while smartly ditching other elements that held those games back. None of the bosses feel like slowly punching down a brick wall like they do in the Gaiden games, for example, and the level design doesn't feel as punishing to go through after a game over.
The other two gameplay modes feel pretty fleshed out in their own right. The overhead driving segments are a lot of fun, and opening the game on one is a great way of immediately throwing the player into the action. It sets the tone and the pace of the game immediately. The shooting gallery sections might be my least favorite of the three types, but they're still solid for what they are (and probably a lot more fun with a light gun, assuming one works with the game, I have no idea.)
The story is presented exactly like it is in Ninja Gaiden, and it's every bit as insane. Aliens have been pulling the strings in our society for decades, but their food source, Gel, has begun to spread through the underworld as a street drug. Detective Hart, a vice cop, has to investigate the corporation the aliens use as a front. And by "investigate" I mean "shoot aliens indiscriminately" and also "commit untold amounts of vehicular manslaughter."
This was a very late era NES game, releasing in 1991 both in Japan and America. It definitely shows as the game really pushes the NES hardware, but I have to wonder how much more they could've gotten up to by making this a 16-bit game instead. Perhaps it's for the best that they didn't, as it's trying to emulate a very specific game. If NES action-platformers are your kind of game, then good news, you can play this on the Switch. Or pirate it! Detective Hart would probably shoot you dead if you so much as thought about it, but he lives in the video game and can't hurt you.
Vice: Project Doom is broken into three distinct gameplay types: Overhead driving, shooting gallery, and Ninja Gaiden. The comparison gets brought up a lot because it's incredibly appropriate. If it weren't for these being countless other Ninja Gaiden derivatives on the system, I'd question how they got away with it. But what sets this game apart from the other knock offs is the developer's keen understanding of what makes Ninja Gaiden fun, while smartly ditching other elements that held those games back. None of the bosses feel like slowly punching down a brick wall like they do in the Gaiden games, for example, and the level design doesn't feel as punishing to go through after a game over.
The other two gameplay modes feel pretty fleshed out in their own right. The overhead driving segments are a lot of fun, and opening the game on one is a great way of immediately throwing the player into the action. It sets the tone and the pace of the game immediately. The shooting gallery sections might be my least favorite of the three types, but they're still solid for what they are (and probably a lot more fun with a light gun, assuming one works with the game, I have no idea.)
The story is presented exactly like it is in Ninja Gaiden, and it's every bit as insane. Aliens have been pulling the strings in our society for decades, but their food source, Gel, has begun to spread through the underworld as a street drug. Detective Hart, a vice cop, has to investigate the corporation the aliens use as a front. And by "investigate" I mean "shoot aliens indiscriminately" and also "commit untold amounts of vehicular manslaughter."
This was a very late era NES game, releasing in 1991 both in Japan and America. It definitely shows as the game really pushes the NES hardware, but I have to wonder how much more they could've gotten up to by making this a 16-bit game instead. Perhaps it's for the best that they didn't, as it's trying to emulate a very specific game. If NES action-platformers are your kind of game, then good news, you can play this on the Switch. Or pirate it! Detective Hart would probably shoot you dead if you so much as thought about it, but he lives in the video game and can't hurt you.
FallenGrace
1 year ago
You aren't lying, that game cover is so very bad....like so very very bad.