GameCube

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown

I had some high hopes for this game. It's a license I like, published by a company that I like. But a $19.99 price tag can't save this game from being anything more than mediocre. You might want to rent it for the Bad Boys mistique, but you're not going to play it for any more than a day or two. There's just too many things wrong with it to make it the game I was hoping for. Maybe next time.

Let’s play a game of "Imagine." I’ll start! Imagine someone made a game based on the horrid buddy cop movie Bad Boys II. But, imagine they did it without the likeness or voice of either Martin Lawrence or Will Smith. Then imagine they made a game that basically played like the Driv3r, minus the vehicles, variety, open environments, and visual polish. If you imagine that this game would suck, well I imagine that you’re right. Bad Boys plays like Max Payne, merging a third-person display and an FPS control scheme. The levels are linear and dull, and for some reason you can only take cover in specified circles in the environment, which takes away any sense of reality or spontaneity. The targeting, unsurprisingly, is pretty erratic, and on the PS2 your field of view moves far too slowly.

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown is a release that I will surely remember for the majority of my life, so profound, in fact, that I am sure to recall it during the Alzheimer's-induced flashbacks I will be experiencing due to storing my food in aluminum foil, or whichever normal household habit will supposedly set off the disease in my late forties. I will remember the "hilarious black dude" sound bites, I will remember the abrasive graphics, and I will remember the complete absence of stars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith beyond the game's box cover. Most of all, I will remember our ill-fated little friend Willtin, who tried his best but always ended up with 6,000 invisible bullets in his chest.

Nach der Reihe guter Filmumsetzungen der letzten Zeit bin ich von einem Lizenz-Titel dieses Niveaus beinahe überrascht. Ich fühle mich zehn Jahre zurückgesetzt, in eine Zeit, als so gut wie kein Lizenz-Titel den Sprung über das Spielspaßmittelmaß geschafft hat. Genau die gleichen Fehler der Spiele von damals hat auch Bad Boys II. Eine gute Lizenz, die nur genutzt wird, um ein hingeschludertes Spiel vielleicht doch noch an den ein oder anderen Fan loszuwerden. Es wäre schön gewesen, wenn die Entwickler sich die Kritiken an der Xbox- und PlayStation-2-Fassung zu Herzen genommen hätten. Neben dem durchschnittlichen Gameplay können auch Grafik und Sound keinen Spieler begeistern. Für Filmfreunde gibt es bessere Lizenzspiele, wie Spider-Man 2 oder Herr der Ringe. Also bleibt nur ein Fazit: Finger weg!

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.

Le couperet tombe sur Bad Boys 2. Des défauts en pagaille et pas vraiment de qualités pour compenser, le titre n'a même pas de quoi séduire les fans absolus du film à moins que ces derniers adorent se prendre la tête sur un jeu bas de gamme...

Perhaps the saddest--and funniest--thing about Bad Boys: Miami Takedown is that it couldn't even serve its original purpose. This game was initially announced as a marketing tie-in to the DVD release of Bad Boys II last year. And here it is--a year later--and the game is just now on store shelves. When a game manages to fail even as a cheap marketing ploy, you know you've got a stinker on your hands, and this is most certainly what this offering is. Even for the budget price tag that Miami Takedown is retailing for, this bomb of a game is a horrible choice for anyone, and it should absolutely be avoided.

There is no point in buying, renting or playing this game. It isn’t the worst game ever made, but that just means that it fails to achieve distinction even by its badness. It isn’t fun, it makes me want to see the movie it is based on less, and I am even considering selling my GameCube now. All right, I’ll keep the 'Cube after all but I’m taking the disk with me the next time I go skeet shooting. Pulling the trigger and watching this disk disintegrate will be the first pleasure I receive from this poor excuse for a game.