Miami Vice: The Game brings new meaning to the phrase "short but sweet". With great graphics, fun, visceral gameplay, and good music. Miami Vice's only real offense is it's brevity.
Miami Vice put you in the shoes of either Tubbs or Crockett (based on the actors in the movie of course) doing cop-like missions, like destroying a Meth plant, or another Meth plant. This repetition of objectives doesn't really matter, however, because all of the different areas for each mission try hard to make the game seem less repetative, and the attempt is very sucessful.Despite the fact that the game is short, the story wraps itself up in a satisfying way. Combined with the game's high quality cutscenes make you feel as if, well, as if you've just watched a movie! Look out Metal Gear Solid! (just kidding)
The game plays alot like Resident Evil, but faster, you have a very speed run move at your disposal, this is a cool feature because it's reliable for running to cover and it never runs out. The run move is visceral because when you run the camera shakes as if it's trying to keep up with you, and depending on how much health you have, your run animation will look different. In another visceral touch, you cannot move and shoot in Miami Vice, as a result, the shooting is cover-based. The enemies' weapons are as powerful as yours, however, your enemies will somtimes just wait for you to shoot them after they've wasted their clips on missed shots.
Miami Vice also has a drug trading mechanic. It works simply like this, once you've found drugs in a level and beaten the level, on your map there are multiple drug dealers, you try to find who will give you the most money for your drugs. You may also use the drugs to sell them to a baron, the game has three barons, a Weed Baron, a Meth Baron, and a Coke Baron. When clicking on one of the three on your map, you choose how many units you want to sell to the baron, and a cutscene starts. The guards come up to you for a body check, while they check you, you try to keep a swervy dot from getting out of the blue area, and after that it's basically the same thing but you're discussing the trade with the baron. You may also use the drugs to receive information about item locations and receive codes to disable cameras.
Miami Vice's sound is mostly great. The music is very good, you won't have much time to admire it in the middle of a mission, however. The game's guns sound very realistic, and the sound of a machine gun blasting through a thug's stomach sounds nice and meaty, overall, the game's gun sound effects somehow make it more satisfying to kill an enemy. The voice acting used in the game's cutscenes is nice and corny, on the other hand, the in game voice acting is grating, your enemies will constantly yell obscene things like 'I'll fuck yo shit up!!!" or "I'll kill you!" over and over again.
If you can ignore the game's brevity, Miami Vice is just the game for you. You will enjoy every minute of the 6 hours (more if you try to find all the drugs and FlashRAMS, codes used to unlock weapon upgrades) that the game lasts. Just make sure you find the game for $15 or less.
