 Snatch drunk! Quick shout out to Dubious Gaming Online who sent me this game. Vice Project Doom for NES. It's something I've never played before, but I knew of the game because it was on the cover of Nintendo Power once before, back in May of 1991. That's when the game came out in Japan as gun deck. But for whatever reason, it didn't get a US release until November of that year, and by then the Super Nintendo was in full swing, so this game kind of got lost in the shuffle. And that's disappointing because this game is a fantastic blend of like five different games, taking its influences from games like Ninja Gaiden, Power Blade, Spy Hunter, Xanaac, and the adventures of Bayou Billy. You start out with a couple cutscenes that are stylistically similar to Ninja Gaiden. The story is deceptively simple though, in the future a weapons factory is run by aliens in disguise, and they've developed a food source that doubles as an addictive drug for humans, and it's up to you, Detective Kwan Hart, to stop them. The cutscenes do a great job sprucing up what's otherwise a pretty basic story. After that, you're suddenly playing Spy Hunter, but with a much more shoot-em-up feel to it. You beat the boss pretty easy, but next is a side-scrolling level. You get three weapons, a plasma whip for short-range attacks, a gun, and grenades if the situation calls for projectiles. The game does a great job matching the capabilities of these weapons with both the level design and the enemy patterns, so you're always switching between the three items. If there's one word to describe this game, it's variety. Vice Project Doom has something for everyone, and it does each of those things really well. The level design is diverse with some scrolling levels, and some fixed view levels that remind me of Power Blade. There's two overhead levels that look like Spy Hunter, but play more like Xanaac, and there's two sniper shooter levels, like something out of the adventures of Bayou Billy, but executed much much better. That's 11 stages overall with a ton of variety. The game's bread and butter, though, is the platforming. Each level really stands out as unique, both aesthetically and in design, and that goes a long way from keeping the platforming from getting stale. The train level here with the lightning flashing is memorable. Vice Project Doom kind of reminds me of certain Super Nintendo games like Sparkster, Run Saber, or even Mega Man X, where your character is really overpowered with all sorts of abilities and weapons. And yeah, the difficulty does kind of suffer because of that, but it's just so much fun to power through this game, using all of your abilities to annihilate everything in your path. It's a really satisfying game to play through, even if it's a bit on the easy side. Don't get me wrong, some of the bosses are pretty hard, but this isn't in the same category as Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania. I'd comment on the music, but to be honest, most of the music in Vice Project Doom just isn't that memorable. Every track has kind of a sameness to it, with the same tempo, so everything kind of blends together. I'm not sure I'd call that a flaw, just maybe I missed opportunity. Otherwise, Vice Project Doom is totally worth tracking down. It's a surprisingly strong third-party NES game that I never hear anyone talking about. It's one of the most ambitious 8-bit titles I've ever played, with lots of big ideas and a wide spectrum of variety in the gameplay, and it fulfills its ambition in spades.