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Crockett and Tubbs Bust Gamers in 2004
by Mike Meikle

Miami Vice, popular 80''s undercover cop show, gets game for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC.

Phil Collins soundtrack, day-old beard stubble, no socks, Ferraris and busting drug lords'' heads, bring back the 80''s TV nostalgia in Generation X. Well, dream no more! Davilex Games has announced today that they will be releasing Miami Vice for Xbox, PC and PlayStation 2 in Q4 2004.

Davilex Games is a Dutch game publisher that has produced London Racer and games based on the Knight Rider TV series, with Knight Rider 2 to be released in Q4 2004.

With last year''s tremendous success and controversy of Rockstar''s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a game that took quite a few cues from the Miami Vice TV series, up to one of the actor''s voices, it was only a matter of time until someone went to the source. Of course, this will also lead to intense scrutiny and comparison to Rockstar''s top-selling title.

Similar to GTA: Vice City, gamers will have a 3rd person view of a virtual Miami, which they are free to roam at will. The gameplay will include a variety of missions that will include detective work, raids and gunfights in numerous Miami locales with the object of game being to destroy the narcotics ring of a drug lord named Calderon.

That''s not law enforcement. That''s an action show. Between GTA and True Crime, I doubt it will ofer anything new, unless you count the license.

whilst responding to calls and shooting perps and stuff would be fun, i''d like to see this kind of game encorporate some detective element. like talking to witness, sweeping crime scenes for evidence, following up leads etc. things like bringing down huge crime organisations by tracing the trial of crime back to them, rather than just chasing after petty traffic code violators seems more fun to me, although there would still be action involved, just not mindless action all the time.

for the advancement thing you could move up in rank, maybe eventually command a SWAT team or something

Well, it''s fairly uncommon for a detective to be promoted to SWAT commander. Those are two very different careers. Maybe you could put in for a transfer to SWAT and then work up the ranks, or else petition for a detective job in Homicide, but transferring between the higher branches of the tree is rare.

Detective work is a good idea, but tends to be monotonous. Even if it''s done well, you''re likely to wind up with the bastard child of "Myst" and "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" with a little Fallout-style dialogue thrown in. A detective won''t see a lot of gunfights, which will probably end up being a sizeable chunk of the game design, and an attempt to give them a lot of gunfights will seriously mess up the detection part of it.

I think that it would be a terrific game, especially with the different career types, but it would be a lot of work, and players would only see a little bit of it at a time.

I would really like to see a detective game, though. You''d do crime scene investigation, deal with forensic scientists, and have to make evaluations of motive, modus operandi and other critical elements of a crime. I''d probably simplify the report-writing end of it, since about 50% or more of detective work is done behind a desk.

What I''d really like to see is a game that has "routine" cases. Ninety-nine times you see a certain type of crime or scenario, and by the ninetieth one you can solve it on autopilot, but that hudredth case is a little different, and you wind up being that old cop who says, "Nah, that''s impossible. It must have been just like the other 99 times." A welcome change from the player always being the insightful youngster who sees what the jaded cops miss.

True Crime had such a high incidence of crazy crap that you expected it. Every fourth guy you frisk whips out a gun and tries to kill you, and every criminal drives like James Bond. So you start walking up to people with your virtual hand on your virtual holsters, and shooting out tires without even bothering with the siren. I''d rather see it be business as usual, so the player actually gets a little complacent, and has to really focus on staying in condition yellow when on patrol.

quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
Detective work is a good idea, but tends to be monotonous. Even if it''s done well, you''re likely to wind up with the bastard child of "Myst" and "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" with a little Fallout-style dialogue thrown in. A detective won''t see a lot of gunfights, which will probably end up being a sizeable chunk of the game design, and an attempt to give them a lot of gunfights will seriously mess up the detection part of it.

I think that it would be a terrific game, especially with the different career types, but it would be a lot of work, and players would only see a little bit of it at a time.

See the various LucasArts adventure games. Rather than trying to implement it as a direct action game of some sort, the detective game is probably best implemented as a deep, rich intellect game - lateral thinking, solid camera angles (no need for free-roaming cams), dry humor and wit, interesting and unique characters... Kind of like the bastard child of Full Throttle, Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, with a liberal sprinkling of Law and Order.

Wasn''t there an X-Files game a while back that did that? I never played it, but it looked clever.

quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
Wasn''t there an X-Files game a while back that did that? I never played it, but it looked clever.

Yes and I bought it. The game followed a completly linear storyline but it was fun looking around for what to do next.