You won’t catch me saying many unkind things about
Vice: Project Doom. It’s one of the best side-scrolling action games on the NES, and boy howdy, there are a lot of side-scrolling action games on the NES. Programmed by Aicom at the top of their talents,
Vice is highly impressive in its crafty level designs, its slick controls, and its steadily scaling sense of trepidation and difficulty. It helps that the story, following officer Quinn Hart’s investigation of mutants and conspiracies, is an entertaining little ride despite the restrictions of old NES cutscenes—and that it refuses to give you a happy ending of any kind.
I also enjoy
Vice: Project Doom’s tiny details, like a red herring computer chip or the way Quinn’s girlfriend/assistant Christy changes her hair color and sprite look so much that you might even think she’s a completely different character.
I have mentioned my fondness of
Vice: Project Doom before, and this time I want to focus on a neat little point of its gameplay: the laser whip.
Quinn carries a .44 magnum and grenades, but his stock unlimited weapon is an energy flail. Though short of range, it's quick and can damage enemies for every frame that Quinn has it drawn, which means that you can strike foes above and behind you.
At a glance you might assume this is just poor hit detection, but Vice: Project Doom is assembled too well elsewhere for that. Look closely, and you'll see that the whip arcs behind and above Quinn for just a frame or two, so you can whack enemies like that possibly biomechanical four-winged toucan without even turning around.
It’s not a feature that immediately jumps out, yet it sets up a lot of interesting strategies in the game, especially when it comes to boss fights and thick enemy swarms. Vice: Project Doom is a fast-paced game where perfect timing is often necessary and always rewarding. It’s never as tough as a Ninja Gaiden, but it’s just as satisfying when you pull off a pixel-precise jump and slash down both a swooping falcon and a vaulting assassin all in one motion.
The laser whip is a key part of that. Games like Strider and Shinobi III give the player contrails for their sword strikes, but I rather like how the Vice whip even watches Quinn’s back. The chains wielded by Castlevania’s Belmonts somewhat realistically don’t damage foes until they’re fully extended (at least not on the NES) but Vice: Project Doom isn’t having that. It’s having a flexible lightsaber.
I’d also like to know just how much of
Vice: Project Doom grew from
The Mafat Conspiracy, the Golgo 13 outing that Aicom developed for the NES. There’s not a lot of specific staff overlap, but
Vice really feels like an improved version of
Mafat’s genre-straddling attempts.
Vice gives its side-view levels smoother controls and smaller, more manageable characters, and its driving stages and first-person shooting galleries are far less awkward. Quinn shows too much emotion to be a Golgo-grade assassin, of course.
Vice: Project Doom didn’t really get its due back in 1991. It had a nice Nintendo Power cover, but the release battled for attention amid everything from Sonic to the Battletoads, and its shelf date was possibly delayed atop all that. In fact, Aicom was even competing against themselves, since Jaleco released
Totally Rad and its bodacious surfer lingo around the same time. Bummer.
That’s okay, because Vice: Project Doom is enjoying itself these days. It hasn’t seen a fancy re-issue, but it’s easily available on the Switch Online’s NES selection—a nice alternative to paying a relatively hefty chunk for an old cartridge. I can only hope that Vice: Project Doom’s reputation deservedly grows until someone attempts a speedrun where they defeat every boss with the back end of Quinn’s laser whip.
