Millions of devoted fans of the Bad Boys movie franchise have been waiting and praying that someone out there would wise up and make a video game version of the terrible twosome's police adventures. Oh, that was hard to type with a straight face. While no one has ever really asked for a game based on the over-hyped over-the-top movie franchise starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, developer Blitz Games decided one was still necessary for the masses. No one could possibly expect Bad Boys: Miami Takedown to be good, so no one should be disappointed to discover this game is pretty awful. The graphics, sound, and control are all deplorable.
And yet I love Bad Boy: Miami Takedown. I love it the way you love an ugly one-eyed dog with halitosis. This game is so offensive and unabashedly sub-par, it's actually enjoyable. Not in the "Game of the Year" type way, but this is the type of game you rent, play with a few friends watching, and laugh your ass off at the over-abundance of curse words, bad puns, and game glitches.
Taking place across fifteen stages, each level sees you swapping control between detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. One is Will Smith, the other Martin Lawrence, though I challenge even the most ardent fan to figure out which is supposed to be which. Blitz didn't get the actual actors to play the roles, but that's fine, because the vocally volatile performances in Miami Takedown are above and beyond the talents of Misters Smith and Lawrence.
Each level breaks down the same. You essentially move from room to room shooting everyone in sight before heading on. The mechanics are fairly simple. You can roll, hide behind walls and objects (when designated with a circle at the base) and reload. There's no taking hostages, no complex moves whatsoever. Enemies come out of the woodwork and pretty much are a constant annoyance, forcing you to hide behind cover to pop up (by moving the Left Thumbstick) and fire when enemies are reloading. However, if you are skilled (or simply get tired of the slow-pace of taking cover) you can walk out in the open, roll dodge repeatedly, and take down enemies quickly. This isn't really how the game was designed, but since there is a delay when you want to crouch back behind cover (which often leads to being shot), it's easier to simply move in the open and take the idiotic AI enemies down toe-to-toe.
The exaggerated violence and profanity of the movies is recreated to perfection in Miami Takedown. There's non-stop swearing, but it's a brilliant and beautiful thing. Bad Boys is so offensive and racist at times, that it's hard not to want to listen. It's all shock value, but it's also very funny. On the surface, the voice acting is crap, but the actors deliver vulgarity with such force, it's easy to tell they really do mean every last word they swear. Couple this with thugs weakly groaning as they bleed to death from a gutshot and the tinny sound of each gun and you've got a cornucopia of laughable audio pleasures.
If the game has one problem -- oh, who am I kidding, Miami Takedown is a trainwreck in so many ways. Visually it's unappealing and not even worthy of the PlayStation One. The sound is about as good as any average Joe could make with a mic and a few beers. The controls are robotic -- in fact the engine could easily double for the next Robocop game -- and the game a bit buggy. The bosses are ridiculously powerful, taking 20 shotgun blasts to the chest before finally falling down. It is a bad game that only bad boys would make. But I love it for being so terrible.
What can I say, sometimes bad games are fun to play. This is a B-game of a B-movie. Or is it a C-movie? In any case, it's not a good game. It's not good in any way other than that it's mindless and funny just because it is so stupid. I actually like playing Bad Boys, but in the same way that I love that one-eyed dog with the god-awful breath.
The Verdict
There's a lot of utterly stupid crap in Bad Boys: Miami Takedown, and yet it's kind of enjoyable in an "I love watching car wrecks" kind of way. This one is a definite rental for a rainy day when you just want to spend a few hours shooting stuff and laughing at some truly ridiculous dialogue.
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