I mean, it’s another NES action platformer. Surprise!
There are so many of these kinds of games, the developers no doubt had two key objectives in mind:
1. Polish it the fuck up.
2. Do something strange.
“Vice: Project Doom” at least understood the assignment. The graphical presentation is impressive, boasting scrolling backgrounds, lots of color, and “Ninja Gaiden”-style cinematics. The controls are solid, as is the hit detection. It really does get the basics right.
In terms of getting weird, the game presents a couple of shooting range levels and some “Spy Hunter” style drive and shoot stages.
That’s nothing to speak of the plot, which is delightfully absurd.
I think where this game suffers a little is that so much of what it does reminds you of other games. The examples noted above are the most blatant, but it also at varying points feels like about a dozen other games which have done all of this before (often better).
If you like this sort of thing (8-bit platformers), you’ll probably enjoy it. I’m a little less enthusiastic just based on how derivative it all feels. But it’s a solid time.