Miami Vice: The Game commits a few crimes against the action genre. by Patrick Evans

Now I am not old enough to have remembered the old Miami Vice in its original run, but I have seen a couple reruns on cable, and I must say that its quite funny to watch. Another thing that is funny to watch is Colin Ferrell attempt to act. What does this all have to do with Miami Vice The Game? As goofy as Don Johnson looked in the original and as badly as Colin Ferrell acts in the new film, nothing is nearly as bad as trying to bring down criminals in the PSP iteration, sporting some of the worst controls seen in the past three or four years.

We all know Miami Vice. Partners Tubbs and Crocket run around the city of Miami busting dealers and looking cool doing it. The recent movie itself was more or less inspired by a specific episode of the TV series, but the game's plot apparently leads into the film's. I'm not sure, because I honestly don't remember after playing it to completion. The story cut-scenes are negligible and set far apart from one another, leaving the player scratching their heads, trying to remember exactly what's going on and where they will be heading next. To sum it up, Tubbs and Crocket run around Miami with info from an informant, but something shady is going on behind the scenes.

A majority of the game is invested in 3rd-person action stages that take place in nightclubs, docks, and more warehouses than you can shake a stick at. You even get to storm a drug mansion or two, and who wouldn't love shooting it out with Columbian drug dealers in luxury?

Well, I, for one, wouldn't if I have to go through Miami Vice's control scheme. Player's control their agent of choice with the analog nub and aim their weapon with the R shoulder button. When aiming, however, you cannot move since the nub for movement becomes the nub for aiming. Rebellion, the developers behind Miami Vice, really dropped the ball on this one. Forcing players to come to a complete stop in order to exchange fire with criminals nearly kills the entire game. Players can make good use of the environment for cover instead of sitting in the wide-open, but this takes a backseat to the inept movement controls. Would it have been so terrible to use auto-aim instead?

Every level boils down to the following: head into a room, find a place for cover that gives you a shot on the rest of the room, shoot the enemies in the room, search for drugs and health, and repeat in the next room. Slow and methodical, the action here nearly put me to sleep. I can understand the developers trying to build an experience that forces players to keep tabs of their environments instead of running around like a maniac, but this is too much. Instead of crippling players as they have, the developers could have instead developed the enemy AI past running into the wide-open for shots. Without fail, nine out of ten enemies in a given level would offer themselves as an easy target instead of making adequate use of the cover provided. What a surprise; dumb enemies make a game with terrible controls incredibly easy to dominate.

Not all is terrible in the city of Miami, however. There are a few distractions that help alleviate the headache from the main game, mostly in selling the confiscated drugs for cash. Providing a system where a law enforcement officer sells the entire stash of confiscated drugs to street dealers seems ludicrous, but "playing the market" can net crafty players with serious increases in capital. Players are given a dozen or more "days" between missions to raise money by buying low and selling high on the open drug market. A stash of meth from the previous mission can buy a sizable supply of coke at a cheap price, which can then be turned around and sold when coke gets back to a higher value. Again, having cops serving as drug dealers isn't the most logical thing to put into a game, but it serves as a little bonus to players that are willing to put in the time.

Hacking confiscated disks for upgrades is another diversion that seems more fun than it should be. Every mission has a disk that can be taken to the police station and hacked by playing a goofy mini-game that has absolutely nothing to do with computer hacking. Taking control of a little triangle that looks like the ship from Asteroids, the "hacker" has to maneuver his "ship" and set off charges to destroy little cubes that float around the stage shooting little plus signs at him. It's not original, nor challenging until very late in the game, but its ten times better than the actual gameplay. Besides, when you complete every three-stage disk, you can purchase upgrades for your weapons, making your crippled narcotics agent just a little more dangerous.

Miami Heat puts an emphasis on style over protection or function, especially with what weapons you select. Every weapon comes with a multiplier for reputation, with the simple pistol or shotgun carrying the best rep. The same goes for wardrobe as well. Selecting the pastel suit and sunglasses will net much more rep per stage than the bullet-proof vest. By earning enough rep, players can unlock the best dealers to unload their confiscated drugs. Making players choose between safety and style is an interesting dynamic that would fit in a better-developed title. In reviewing the title, I went with maximum style the entire time, choosing only to go with the SMG or Carbine for the very last couple stages. The AI here is simply too stupid to warrant the big guns.

Everything else about this title screams mediocrity. The so-called "interactive" dialog scenes have you keep a little bar inside a moving meter to keep the dealers happy instead of breaking your legs. It's not great, but it's better than the control scheme. Graphically the game looks fine with Tubbs and Crocket modeled after the movie actors and not the TV actors. That is, the game would look good if you could see anything with the claustrophobic camera angle over the PC's shoulder. Instead of playing like a full-priced action title, Miami Vice feels like a budget title. I only hope that these new schools that are offering game developing classes makes use of this game as a "what-not to do" for control development so that someone in this world can get something from this game.

By Patrick Evans
CCC Staff Writer

Rating out of 5 Miami Vice: The Game (PSP) 4.0 Graphics Character models look and move well enough, though there isn't anything worth going nuts about either. 2.0 Control You can't shoot on the move. Enough said. 2.7 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting Listen to the dealers and gunmen you blast through say the same three things over and over again. At least the sound-effects are decent. 3.3 Play Value Reselling drugs on the open market after confiscating them sounds ridiculous, but playing anything outside of the main game is somewhat satisfying. 2.8 Overall Rating - Average Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.