Editing Vice: Project Doom

{{Short description|1991 video game}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox video game
| title = Vice: Project Doom
| image = ViceProjectDoomBox.png
| caption = North American box art
| developer = [[Aicom]]
| publisher = [[Sammy Corporation]]
| composer = Kiyoshi Yokoyama
| platforms = [[Nintendo Entertainment System]]
| released = {{Video game release|JP|April 26, 1991|NA|November 1991}}
| genre = [[Platform game|Platformer]], [[Racing video game|driving]], [[Shooter game|shooter]]
| modes = [[Single-player video game|Single-player]]
}}

'''''Vice: Project Doom''''', known in [[Japan]] as {{nihongo|'''''Gun-Dec'''''|ガンデック}}, is a 1991 [[action game|action]] [[video game]] developed by [[Aicom]] and published by [[Sammy Corporation]] for the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]]. The game was released in Japan on April 26, 1991, and in North America in November 1991. ''Vice: Project Doom'' is a side-scrolling [[Platform game|platformer]] with noticeable similarities to the ''[[Ninja Gaiden]]'' series for the NES, with the addition of [[light gun game|gun shooting]] and [[racing game|driving]] segments as well. The player assumes the role of a secret agent who must uncover a conspiracy involving a new kind of alien substance.<ref name=npvol024>{{cite magazine|title=Feature - Vice: Project Doom|magazine=Nintendo Power |volume=24|date=May 1991|pages=8–19}}</ref> A [[Sega Mega Drive]] conversion titled ''Deep Scanner'' was in development, but never released.<ref name="Jpad38a1">{{cite magazine|url=http://download.abandonware.org/magazines/Joypad/joypad_numero018/Joypad%20018%20-%20Page%20014%20%281993-03%29.jpg|title=News Previews: Deep Scanner (Megadrive - Sammy)|magazine={{ill|Joypad (magazine)|lt=Joypad|fr|Joypad (magazine)}}|issue=18|publisher={{ill|Yellow Media|lt=Yellow Media|fr|Yellow Media}}|date=March 1993|page=14|lang=fr}}</ref><ref>{{cite tweet|number=1379782663658086400|user=view001sp1|title=ディープスキャン好きでした。アレンジされたザ・ディープを良く遊びました。 元ガンディックの移植でスーパーヴァイスのタイトル予定でしたけど…。某少女アクションと被るとの事で…。変更になりました。|date=2021-04-07|access-date=2021-04-07|lang=ja|archive-date=2021-04-07|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210407224614/https://twitter.com/view001sp1/status/1379782663658086400|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> It was released on the [[Nintendo Classics]] service in August 2019 by [[Sega]], as Sammy had retained the rights to the game prior to merging with Sega.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2019-08-09 |title=The next NES game for Nintendo Switch Online is a proper deep cut |language=en-gb |work=Eurogamer.net |url=https://www.eurogamer.net/the-next-nes-game-for-nintendo-switch-online-is-a-proper-deep-cut |access-date=2022-10-16}}</ref>

== Gameplay ==
[[File:Vice Project Doom gameplay.png|thumb|256px|left|Stage 2-1 of ''Vice: Project Doom'', the Waterfront & Construction Site]]

''Vice: Project Doom'' consists of 11 stages. The very first level, as well as Stage 10, are driving stages, while Stage 4-2 and 11-1 are shooting stages; the rest are standard side-scrolling/[[parallax]]-scrolling stages. Each begins with a movie-style sequence which provides the game's narrative. As usual of the genre, the player has a health gauge and a limited number of lives. Unlimited continues are provided as well.<ref name=vicemanualp10>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 10}}</ref>

In the main stages, Hart can switch between one of three weapons: a Laser whip, a .44 Magnum revolver, and a supply of M-24 Stick grenades. The laser whip is a short-range weapon that can be used infinitely, while bullets and grenades are limited and must be replenished by picking additional supplies dropped by defeated enemies. Other power-ups include Meat and other health-restoring aids, and as well as coins that will give the player one extra life for every 100 collected.<ref name=vicemanualp7>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 7}}</ref> In the main segments, Hart can jump, attack, crouch, and climb ladders like in most other action games. He can also run while crouching.<ref name=vicemanualp3>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 3}}</ref><ref name=vicemanualp4>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 4}}</ref>

In the vehicle stages, the action is viewed from an overhead perspective. Hart drives a Ferrari F-40 red; the player maneuvers the car through the road while shifting between three gears and shooting at enemy vehicles with the car's equipped gun.<ref name=vicemanualp5>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 5}}</ref> In the shooting segments, the action is viewed from Hart's perspective. The player moves the target indicator around the moving scenery, shooting the gun with one button and tossing grenades with the other.<ref name=vicemanualp6>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 6}}</ref> The game's stages are Route 246, Waterfront (Construction Site), Chinatown, Port, Ricardo Range, Warehouse 0001, Train and Sewers, Power Plant, Bio-Tech Laboratory, Harbor, and finally the BEDA Corporate Headquarters.

== Plot ==
The game has a large number of cut-scenes for its time, in which a full-fledged plot in the genres of anime, noir and biopunk is revealed.

In the distant future, the B.E.D.A. Corporation, a company involved in the development of electronic equipment and military weapons,<ref name=vicemanualp9>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 9}}</ref> is actually a front operated by a race of alien beings who have been living on the Earth for centuries in secrecy. The aliens have developed a substance named "Gel", which was initially intended to be used as food for their species, but also functions as an addictive substance to humans that results in terrible side-effects and is now being sold as an illegal drug within the underworld. The player takes the role of Detective Hart, a member of the Vice unit who is assigned to investigate the B.E.D.A. Corporation following the disappearance of his partner Reese during a previous case.<ref name=vicemanualp2>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 2}}</ref> During his mission, Hart is assisted by his lover and fellow Vice agent Christy, and Sophia, an acquaintance of the two.<ref name=vicemanualp8>{{cite video game|title=Vice: Project Doom|developer=Aicom|publisher=Sammy|platform=Nintendo Entertainment System|level=Instruction manual, page 8}}</ref>

Inspector Hart is ordered to stop a maniac on a road. After battling a high-tech, heavily armed truck, Hart discovers a monster, not a man, behind the wheel. His cargo is an unknown substance. Hart asks Christy and Sophia to find out its nature, and they report that the substance (probably a drug) leads to mafia and sorcerer Kim Long (in other translation – Kim Ron). Hart goes to China in search of him, and after breaking through mafia and monsters, he defeats Kim in battle. Christy determines that his clothes had soil particles from city of Ricardo (probably fictitious) in Central America. The information received leads Hart to a secret research base in the jungle, where he fights a certain flying cyborg. Defeating him, Hart recognizes his former friend, Captain Reese, whom he believed to be dead. He repents that he was once considered a war hero, because "there are no heroes in war." He tries to tell that a man with the face of Hart himself is behind the vice project, but at that moment he receives a bullet from an unknown sniper, but manages to say that Chris was kidnapped. The hero pursues the mercenaries on a train, fights the cyborgs in sewers and at the power plant, and finally Sofia says that Chris needs to be looked for in the biolaboratory. There he witnesses experiments on humans and animals and fights with a certain slimy mutant, but after defeating it, he realizes this is Chris, she confesses her love to him and dies in his arms, having managed to report that B.E.D.A. Corporation is behind everything (in Russian "beda" means "trouble", "doom"). Hart also sees his own clones in the flasks. To avenge his girlfriend, Hart breaks through an ambush on the road and enters the corporate headquarters, where director is waiting for him behind the security lines, and he looks like an aged Hart. He explains that he considers all of humanity to be pigs, and himself to be the one who can give them everything they deserve, the hero is a clone of the villain, and the corporation should be controlled by a dynasty of such clones, replacing each other. Hart refuses the offer to take over the board. A fight ensues between them, and Hart defeats the director of the corporation, first as a human, then as a monster. Dying, he says that fate cannot be avoided. Hart leaves, but another clone comes to life in the flask.

== Reception ==
[[Allgame]] gave ''Vice: Project Doom'' an overall rating of 2.5 stars out of a possible 5 stars.<ref>[http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=1345 Rating of ''Vice: Project Doom''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141115035734/http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=1345 |date=2014-11-15 }} at [[allgame]]</ref> The May 1991 issue of the North American gaming magazine ''[[Nintendo Power]]'' gave this game an overall rating of 3.8 out of 5.

== References ==
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== External links ==
* {{MobyGames|id=/vice-project-doom|name=''Vice: Project Doom''}}

{{Portal bar|Video games|1990s}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vice: Project Doom}}
[[Category:1991 video games]]
[[Category:Aicom games]]
[[Category:Cancelled Sega Genesis games]]
[[Category:Detective video games]]
[[Category:Nintendo Entertainment System games]]
[[Category:Nintendo Classics games]]
[[Category:Platformers]]
[[Category:Science fiction video games]]
[[Category:Side-scrolling video games]]
[[Category:Single-player video games]]
[[Category:Vehicular combat games]]
[[Category:Video games about police officers]]
[[Category:Video games developed in Japan]]