Vice: Project Doom

About Vice: Project Doom

Vice: Project Doom (1991) is Aicom's cinematic NES action game, mixing Ninja Gaiden-style platforming with driving and shooting stages as a detective uncovers an alien drug conspiracy.

Vice: Project Doom in Depth

In the distant future the B.E.D.A. Corporation, a maker of electronics and military weapons, is secretly a front for aliens who have lived hidden on Earth for centuries. Their substance Gel, meant as food for their species, is addictive to humans, with terrible side effects, and is being sold as an illegal drug. Detective Hart of the Vice unit is assigned to investigate B.E.D.A. after his partner Reese vanished on an earlier case, helped by his lover and fellow agent Christy and their acquaintance Sophia. Told through an unusually large number of cut-scenes for its time, the story blends anime, noir and biopunk, and opens with Hart chasing a maniac on the road only to find a monster behind the wheel.

The 11 stages run from Route 246 and Chinatown to a train, sewers, a power plant, a bio-tech laboratory and B.E.D.A.'s headquarters, each introduced by a movie-style sequence. The first and tenth stages are overhead driving sections in which Hart steers a red Ferrari F40 through three gears while shooting enemy cars, and two stages are first-person shooting galleries using a gun and grenades. The rest are side-scrolling platform levels with parallax scrolling, where Hart switches between an unlimited laser whip, a .44 Magnum and M-24 stick grenades, the latter two needing ammunition dropped by enemies. He can jump, crouch, climb ladders and run while crouching; meat restores health, every 100 coins earns a life, and continues are unlimited.

Making Vice: Project Doom

Aicom developed it and Sammy Corporation published it for the NES, adding gun-shooting and driving segments to a side-scrolling action game in the Ninja Gaiden mould and telling its story through extensive cinematic scenes. Contemporary and later reviews were moderate: Nintendo Power gave it 3.8 out of 5 in 1991, and AllGame later awarded two and a half stars out of five. A planned Mega Drive version, Deep Scanner, was abandoned. Because Sammy retained the rights before merging with Sega, it was Sega that published the game's re-release on the Nintendo Switch's classic NES service on 21 August 2019.