Vice: Project Doom Game Review

Now that my NES collection is steadily building, I'm finally finding the time to knock out a few games. A couple weeks ago, I successfully beat the Capcom title The Little Mermaid, which is a fairly solid game. This week, I decided to dedicate a little time to the game Vice: Project Doom. This game is pretty fantastic. 

This cover is stupid. These people look like hypnotized mannequins. 

The plot is incredibly silly, and I genuinely had a hard time understanding everything that was going on. There are some pretty funny plot twists and some pretty cheesy dialogue, both are which are par for the course for 1991.

Graphically, the game is fairly impressive by NES standards. You can tell that a great deal of effort went into this title, as it pushes the system farther than most other titles. The gameplay is divided into three segments: a Ninja Gaiden-like 2D action platformer with Spy Hunter-esque driving sequences and an on-rails shooter that is similar to Operation Wolf.



Honestly, I like the side scrolling segments better than Ninja Gaiden, as they are not cheap! In the future, I'll review Ninja Gaiden, but for now, I'll just go ahead and mention that Ninja Gaiden has some of the cheapest video game deaths out there. In this game, there is platforming and also "knock back" from enemies, but you actually have the opportunity to correct yourself after being knocked back from some of the hits you take mid-air. There are a few times in this game where the platforming is kind of a hassle, but it is much, much nicer than the overwhelming majority of NES titles where taking a single hit means death.

The control in this game is excellent. There are small, yet important touches to the gameplay that make the game really solid. You have the ability to run as you duck, and although that may sound silly, just think back to the number of games where you can easily duck and run around; there are very few. Also, you can attack while on a ladder with multiple weapons and in more than one direction.

Yeah, this pretty much looks like Spy Hunter.

The on-rails shooting stages are pretty fun.

Before I started playing the game over the weekend, I probably Gonly played it for around five minutes. It took me only a couple hours to beat, and I'll admit that it could have gone faster if I had figured out some boss patterns a little faster. After beating it once, I'm fairly positive that I could beat the game in half that time, as it is not long. Continues are unlimited, and you likely won't feel any real challenge until the final level of the game.

I give this game a very solid 8 out of 10 stars. It is a very common game and can be found at a very low price, so check it out!

In Japan, the game is known as Gun Dec. This cover art is way more intense and would have likely been to scary for the US!