My Favorite Video Games!
One of the very first video games I purchased with my own money as a kid was Vice: Project Doom. Let me tell you... it was one of the luckiest purchases I ever made. This game is an absolute diamond in the rough. Rarely heard of outside the retro gaming community, Vice: Project Doom is one of those fly under the radar sort of titles. American Sammy (Ninja Crusaders, Amagon) published this title in 1991 to little fanfare. It's like the mutated love child drawn from three other great NES games -- Ninja Gaiden, Contra and Batman. I found it for a mere $10 at a Roses Department Store (those of you whom didn't grow up in the Mid-Atlantic/Southeastern United States may not be familiar with the name). As most kids did back in the '80s and early '90s, I made my decision to purchase the game based upon the awesome box art. This same technique was used with VHS movie rentals in the '80s as well (typically horror and science fiction flicks). I was fortunate -- great box art is typically not an indicator for a quality game. In fact, the opposite usually holds true. I'm looking at you X-Men.
If Mel Gibson and Meg Foster ever posed for a video game cover, this is what it would look like.
The goal of Vice: Project Doom is simple, but challenging. You control Detective Quinn Hart, a bad-ass vice officer who must investigate the BEDA Corporation. It's suspected that BEDA is behind a street drug named Gel. Unfortunately for the abusers of Gel, it has a tendency to mutate them into monstrous freaks. You must use your wits and weapons to plow through eleven stages of terror. At your side are an electric whip, grenades and your trusty pistol.
A boss will challenge you every few stages, to which they grow increasingly more hideous and tougher to kill. By the end of the game, you've uncovered a global plot hatched by evil aliens intent to control everything. Not only that, but Hart might not be who.. or what... he thinks he is.
There's really nothing bad to say about this game. The graphics are superb. The music is ominous and catchy. The controls are very responsive and tight. If you make a mistake in this game, you can't blame the programming! Even the cut scenes between levels are intense. A few of the levels are from a top-down perspective and allow you to drive your high-powered sports car. Some levels even take a first-person perspective and allow you to shoot all over the screen. By the time you reach the very last boss, you've killed thousands of enemies, seen two friends die and have nothing left to lose.
Needless to say, I highly recommend Vice: Project Doom. No serious NES game collection is complete without it!
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