This review originally appeared on this site in April of 2005 and was one of the first reviews on this site. The game wasn’t that good.
Sometimes you’ll walk into a store and get an ominous feeling. Like there’s a game so bad that its aura permeates the air in the building. Carving a pathway through the miasma reveals a rack surrounded by signs that you should not seek to acquire anything on it.
But I did anyway.
Bad Boys: Miami Takedown is supposedly based on a couple of movies you perhaps have seen. Seeing the movies is certainly not a prerequisite for extracting the maximum amount of fun out of this game.
The game starts out like a generic cop-action movie: you’re treated to a cutscene of some “bad guys” making allusions to some vague crime. I was unable to play the game long enough to actually figure out who the Generic Criminals were or what exactly they had to do with anything.
It was about at this point that I was introduced to the… um… revolutionary control scheme. If you’ve ever held a Gamecube controller, try to follow along:
1. The control stick is used to move forward/back and to strafe left and right.
2. The C-Stick is used to aim your weapon, and by extension turn your character to the left and right.
3. You press the B button to hide behind something. The game is centered around this. Once you are behind something, you use the left stick to peek out and the right stick to aim.
4. The A button is your All Purpose Action Button(TM). This is the button you will be hitting the most to do just about everything, EXCEPT fire your weapon.
5. You fire by pressing the R button.
6. The other buttons aren’t all that important.
In the portion of the game that I could stomach to play, it was a nearly unending sequence of: duck behind something and kill everyone in the area, run ahead a few steps, repeat”. Now to fully understand the genius of the controls, picture yourself in the following: You are ducking behind, let’s say, a lawn mower and you want to kill the 10 identical twins that are shooting at you. You have to press and hold Up on the left stick, aim with the C-Stick, and press R to infuse the criminals with Hot Leaded Justice(TM).
This game also allegedly has objectives to complete, but gives you no real feedback if you’ve managed to satisfy the requirements or not. The only cue I was able to find was that when you’ve successfully killed enough people, the music will stop and you have to leave the area to trigger the next cut scene.
Oh, and let’s not forget about the audio. Throughout your adventures the main characters will say things to each other that are probably supposed to be funny. There’s only two minor problems: one is that they are the polar opposite of funny, and the other is that they are triggered all the time. Phrases like: “I didn’t give you permission to shoot me!” and “Shoulda stayed in school… PUNK!”
There really isn’t much good about this game. The theme song on the opening screen sounded OK, I guess.
Realistically, this is not a game you should endeavor to purchase. Even the $9.99 price tag isn’t nearly enough to justify the putting of this abomination in your Gamecube.
Game Name: Bad Boys: Miami Takedown
Platform: Game Cube
Purchased from: Target
Amount of money I wasted on it: $9.99
One word summary: Abominable
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