14 DAY TRIAL // 
We're facing a challenge here. Rebellion acted according to their name and challenged the market of videogames by creating something that has a "The Game" attached to its title. You call that taking chances? Yes, because they did it before the new version of the film appeared. Under the magic hands of Michael Mann, the original author of the Miami Vice series, the famous undercover agent story comes to the little console with big expectations.
Story You must have watched at least an episode from the original series. The eighties style was so fascinating that the movie had to be remade for the 2006. Ricardo Tubbs and Sony Crocket are two Narcotic agents infiltrating a drug cartel ruled by a South American boss. Collin Farell and Jamie Foxx were used as models for the design of the two main characters.
Welcome to the land where badges don't count any more. Grab a gun and a bag of weed! You make the law now! You are the law! The term undercover is very sensitive when the large amount of cash and dope you'll have to deal with is a temptation for the cleanest of cops, but not Tubbs or Crocket. This time it's typical: it begins with saving a "mole" from the mobsters. After that it's climb, climb, climb mister to the highest ranking of the criminal organization.
Concept What to do in Miami? You can hack and cruise around in boats. Did I say cruise? I meant chase! Who has time for cruising when tons of coke await to meet the drug baron? The hacking mini-game is pretty difficult if not frustrating, because you'll have to navigate a triangle that detonates itself to destroy some cubes that shoot little stars at you. It's all about drugs, let's not forget that.
Between missions you can sell or buy drugs and you'll have to be quite cunning when watching the market. You might buy cheap today and sell huge tomorrow. Good evening gentlemen! Here is our menu for tonight: MDMA, weed, LSD, meth, PCP, coke. That's what you can sell in order to infiltrate the organization becoming some sort of little drug lord yourself. The game tends to be linear sometimes considering it's all about shooting, getting drugs, shooting, bribing, selling drugs, shooting etc. The action will take you to a sleazy night club, Miami Beach or a trailer park where the meth is being prepared. Poor, poor AI.
The foes seem to take more bullets than 50 Cent or JFK in one shooting session. They might be limping in a very realistic way, but they die easily and without putting up much of a resistance. The game has a reputation system that can go in two ways: you can either be a bad cop and please the drug barons or become their sworn enemy having a hard time with the infiltration part. It's a pretty original idea to bribe your "moles" with some weed or coke adding more feeling to the whole gaming experience.
Gameplay This game is quite short. If it's a rainy day and you skipped classes, you have just about the right amount of time to finish this game. About six hours should do it, bonuses included. It doesn't get a proper introduction; you'll just witness a bust and some gun fires and then "Wham!" you're in the game baby! Didn't you mom tell you to take cover when you operate with criminals? She must have, because fans of the series Miami Vice witnessed hundreds of times when Sonny needed to take cover and shoot his way through. Walls, statues, tables, wardrobes, you can use anything to take cover from the shots of your foes. You'll stick to the wall by pressing L1 and when you reach their edges you'll be able to peak around corners and shoot the criminals. You can create cover if you won't find it by pushing statues or moving other objects and hiding behind them. You'll be able to climb them and start gunning and running if you're in the mood for some close quarter shooting.
The control system is borrowed from Resident Evil 4 making this game part of a genre that named itself modern shooter. Action is very immediate and you won't be so annoyed by the aiming and firing system. Every weapon has a laser sight by default and you'll use the red dot to aim. It becomes white when pointing towards some body part of your enemy and you know what to do next, I suppose. When your health is at 10 percent you'll start to limp and slow down, because of your wounds, some realistic effect I'll say. However the game is not so difficult to bring you to 10 percent health.
Each level is filled with health packs and checkpoints. Few will be frustrated by the AI, and you'll find the game amusing finishing it in less than 6 hours. In the first missions you'll acquire some Flash Rams, that can unlock upgrades for your weapons or locations of the drug barons, only if hacked. The hacking part takes place at the police station, available between missions as the place to save or load a game or upgrade your weapons. Apart from the feeling of a drug tycoon at some points the game will show Miami from above between levels and you'll have 16 days to deal or get dealt with.
Video The game handles pretty well the limited possibilities of the portable console. There are however problems when taking corners and changing camera views. Most of the time in-action graphics have been given a very realistic approach and the camera shakes when you run towards the enemy like you were part of an action film. Also there is a little problem with aiming in the darkest environments of this game, when you won't be able to see the red laser dot of your weapon. The pretty graphics has its downsides: big loading times. Crocket and Tubbs are very well drawn after their real counterparts: Collin Farell and Jamie Foxx and the over the shoulder camera offers the gamer the possibility to grasp the inside view on the agent's life.
Sound "I'm gonna kill you!" heard once is ok. But when you hear it for the eleventh time from the same guy that you can't kill from behind a wall you really start to get angry. The sound can be repetitive at times as you might have guessed. The producers kept the original score from the movie and we would have liked to hear Foxx and Farell but we've been given some bad voice acting instead. The guns shoot just about right, excepting for the ones with big calibers. It's all sci-fi in there as they seem toys if you listen to the sounds they make. Other than that the music is very adrenaline-pumping and suited to this sort of game. A gamer needs to be in a certain mood to play and the sound will bring you that though its arrangement of keyboards and blues guitars may seem a little bit gentle.
Multiplayer If you feel alone and you miss the cover of your partner you'll have the multiplayer mode available, for 2 players. Cooperation mode here we come! Grab a buddy and tell him there is a drugs bust in the building. Grab a PSP and tell Sonny that. He'll be there faster than you can say "meth". When playing this, both of the players will need the game as you can't use the Umd sharing system.
Conclusion Tell me about a film that has a silver Ferrari and tons of beautiful women in it. Tell me about the eighties and Don Johnson. Tell me about the vice division of the Miami Police Department. I'll tell you that we have an OK game, but there's one thing that bothers me: you can't shoot while running. Aside from that, there are few bugs and repetitive sound issues that leave a sour taste, but that doesn't take the cool feeling of detective action away. This really got me curious to see the movie, considering I rarely watched an episode of Miami Vice.
