I am referring to it as a ‘game’, but I don’t think that Miami Vice deserves such a title. You see, in all my years of writing, gaming and writing about gaming, I’ve learnt a couple of things – like, for example, that a game is something you play for enjoyment. If you can get even a smidgen of enjoyment out of Miami Vice, then you are either a huge optimist or criminally insane. Miami Vice doesn’t deserve to be called a game. It’s a lazy, irritating, frustrating slog from A to B, fighting against not only the brainless enemies you encounter, but the irksome controls as well.

The uninspiring title screen allows you to quickly enter the ‘action’ without too much hassle. What will first strike you about this game is the quality of the visuals. Ah, but once again I use an incorrect term. The visuals are anything but quality. If someone blindfolded me, placed this game into my Xbox, handed me an Nintendo 64 controller instead, removed the blindfold and told me that this was an N64 game, I’d say something along the lines of ‘graphics are a bit crap, aren’t they?’

I mean, come on. We’ve seen the likes of Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2 and Splinter Cell on our Xboxes. We know what it’s capable of, if the developers put the effort in. But that’s the thing – they didn’t. The graphics genuinely resemble a last-generation game – and a shoddy one at that. Even the cutscenes are dull, lacklustre, and grey. The first level, which is meant to be the one that inspires gamers to invest their time in the rest of the game, is dark, grey, and very badly designed. This improves as the game goes on – marginally – but still, it’s complete and utter cack.

This poor design isn’t helped by a fixed camera which gives you little or no freedom to explore your surroundings, making you re-think which direction you’re being forced down every time you enter a new area. Not only this, but the controls make the game virtually unplayable – they’re unresponsive, awkward and fiddly. In comparison to a precise, delicate control system like Pandora Tomorrow or even games like Enter the Matrix or Hitman, this kind of shoddiness is unacceptable. Your character stumbles around everywhere, with a foolish, useless lock-on system that gives you no versatility when it comes to aiming your weapon, the B button has to be hammered in order to get a couple of weak, accurate shots at the enemy, the context-sensitive A button means you’re doing all kinds of things you don’t want to be doing when you have three or four goons taking pot-shots at you. And they really are goons – the enemy AI is absolutely rubbish. They follow blatantly predetermined paths and aren’t clever enough to dodge your fire beyond running back and forth between a few crates. Also, some genius at the creative department of Davilex (though given the quality of this game, I doubt such a department exists) thought that having a health bar that recharges if you stay out of shooting range for long enough would be a good idea. However, coupled with the useless AI which can’t be bothered to go after you if you hide, all this means is that if you’re patient enough you can play through the game hiding behind a wall and picking off your enemies one at a time using the lock-on. The game doesn’t want you to play through the game with any sense of risk, danger, or (dare I say it) excitement, so if you try to be a little more gung-ho you’ll just be killed by your badly rendered foes who attack you while you figure out how to stay low and shoot at the same time – and then be treated to a pathetic ‘death’ animation where your character kneels and utters some feeble remark.

If you pick up this game in a store and read the back of the box, you’ll discover that what the developer has decided are the game’s main selling points besides its television roots are that you can ‘kick down doors, collect evidence, solve puzzles and arrest suspects’ Not only that, but you can switch between either of these ‘badass’ cops at any time. Is any of this practical in game? Is any of it original? Is any of it fun? I’ll give you a clue – the answer is the same for all three questions, and only has two letters. Instead, it’s boring and tedious – just like the entire game. After the first ten minutes of playing Miami Vice you’ll probably do what I did – turn off your Xbox in disgust. But as I had to review this game, I forced myself to continue playing so you could read this now. You, dear reader, have no such obligation.

James Hamilton