Producer: Ocean Software
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: James Cornelius

Once again those cool trendsetters, Crockett and Tubbs, try to find time in their hectic schedule for a spot of police work. Armed with revolvers and a shiny new lotus (no tacky Granada with a flashing beacon on top for these trans-Atlantic coppers), they set out to put the world to rights and clean up those mean and dirty streets. In fact Crockett and Tubbs don't seem to rough it at all and probably while away the time at stake-outs comparing their designer clothing.

Anyway, it looks like Crockett and Tubbs are going to actually have to get down to some real work. The ignominious Mr J., a gangland smuggler, is expecting another shipment of illegal substances any day now. This is no paltry shipment, its street value is estimated at around one million dollars. Crockett and Tubbs must race around Miami and try to shatter the smuggling network while bringing the baddies to justice.

In order to put the squeeze on this network, you start at the bottom by intimidating the minions; those men who are so hard up they'll croak on the others for a paltry 10 dolllars. If you manage to bribe the right information out of these guys you may be able to seek out the suppliers and hassle them until you work your way through the entire organisation and eventually break it.

Once you have picked up the car you can proceed to explore the town, keeping an eye open for any suspicious goings on. Control of the car takes some getting used to, the acceleration is very quick but the brakes are not quite so enthusiastic. The inhabitants of Miami are predictably reckless on the road. They seem to have absolutely no regard for anyone else and persistently drive their cars into yours, even though they must be able to see you coming. When this happens a large amount of Crockett and Tubb's energy is lost. Walls are not very friendly either, and if you hit them or stray off the road onto the grass verge, then your car goes "puff" and some more energy is lost.

Because the city is full of buildings, the ones where you're most likely to interrupt a meeting between the crooks are named. If you want to explore one of these meetings then stop the car outside, press fire and push left on the joystick. You are now free to roam around inside. Timing in quite essential in this game, as you should only visit one of these buildings while a meetings is in progress. If you're too early then the crooks will see your car outside and scarper. If you're too late then they will have gone.

When a crook is captured you must take him to City Hall where he is interrogated. If the interrogation is successful then you will earn lots of extras points.

The game is over when Crockett and Tubbs capture the crooks and successfully bust Mr J.'s network.

COMMENTS

Control keys: X-left, C=right, M-down, L-up, V-P-fire, CAPS-pause, CAPS and E=abort
Joystick: Kempston, Interface II, Cursor
Keyboard play: spongy
Use of colour dire, particularly on interiors
Graphics: basic
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling play area

I don't ever watch the TV series so I can't compare the two, but if they are similar, then Central TV can't be doing very well. This game is bad. The graphics of the cars are totally unrealistic (unless cars have started altering dimensions while they turn comers, that is). The game is very quiet, but the background scenes are reasonable; they contain lots of colour, and are nice to look at; exactly the opposite of the rest of the game. Miami Vice is the Skoda of the games world - no, that's a bit strong...

My goodness. OCEAN haven't half turned out a load of unplayable twaddle here. Miami Vice must be one of the most unplayable games of the year. The way that you control your car is ludicrous and takes at least half an hour to get used to. The stage where you look for the baddies is not done very well at all. Miami Vice just doesn't contain enough to be called addictive - bad try OCEAN.

I thought that the Zzap team were being unduly harsh on Miami Vice, however, after seeing it on the Spectrum I could only laugh. If you liked the series, then don't play this game as it may put you off it forever. The game is exceedingly annoying to play as your car is very difficult to control. The graphics are dodgy and the backgrounds are drab. The sound is also useless, there are no tunes and effects are rarely used. On the whole I haven't seen a game as dire as this in a long time.

Ocean
£7.95

Way back in the September issue of YS, roving (raving?) reporter Tommy Nash dug the dirt in Florida and brought us the low-down on this game in his mega preview. Strangely enough for YS, most of what he said was correct, which doesn't exactly leave me a lot to say.

For the benefit of those who missed Tom's pearls, the plot is based roughly around the exploits of one Mr 'J', an old-time gangster who's smartened up his image and gained some influential friends. Mr 'J' has got himself involved in a $1M contraband deal which is due to hit town on Thursday morning. Well, the play starts at midnight on Sunday and your only clues come from the dealers in the various bars and hotels around the city who need to be squeezed ever-so-gently at gunpoint. If you can get enough information together without being shot, smashed up or caught without a decent tailor then you must find Mr 'J' before midday Thursday and bust the contraband operation.

Most of the action happens on the road, and being close to the original TV series you'll notice that your car doesn't tend to last more than two minutes at a time before it crashes into a fire hydrant, collides with another car or flies into the foyer of the Grand Metro Hotel. However, if you can manage to get to grips with the ins and outs of the driving game then you'll be able to progress to the 'Frankie goes to Florida' mode inside the buildings. Within the bars and flea pits of Miami you'll find those $10 wrap men who lead you to the bigger fish and better information. You can take the crooks in for questioning at City Hall if you want to pound info from a suspect while still on the road - the result of the interrogation is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

An all-important factor in this game is timing. Your captain has supplied you with a probable list of all Monday's meetings between the hoods of Florida. If you want to get the crook to flee, leaving the drugs behind, then you must arrive just as the meeting is scheduled to begin. If you want to disturb a meeting and pull the crook in for questioning then you have to arrive about five minutes after it's started. If you're after a little violence on the strees with the crook's car then turning up in the vicinity anything between eight and twelve minutes after the start could get you your goal.

The only complaint I can find with the whole game is the terrible attribute problems in Frankie mode. The whole picture goes to pieces simply by walking next to a vase of flowers. Other than that Miami Vice is everthing you could want in a game. Gratuitous violence, fast moving graphics and not too much of a plot to get in the way. Now that I've seen it I've been gripped by Miami Vice, and I've even made an appointment at the tailors!

MACHINE: Commodore 64/Spectrum/Amstrad
SUPPLIER: Ocean
PRICE: £8.95/£7.95/£8.95

Bringing the slick, black Ferrari to a screeching halt, I drew my .45 and kicked down the door. Dammit. The punks had obviously been wise to my subtle entrance and had blown out of the place. Back in the car, wise-ass Tubbs gave me a quizzical look. I donned my Ray Bans for the umpteenth time - and drove off, looking as moody as possible.

The game has arrived. The ultimate game for would-be-dudes, Miami Vice is about the hippest game to appear for a long, long time. Set - amazingly enough -in the blistering heat of Florida, the game features you (as Crockett or Tubbs) on the trail of a big, bad drug smuggler.

The screen has two main modes, the first is a bird's-eye-view of the streets and buildings of Miami, showing your amazingly cool jet-black convertible and the other cars "cruisin' the high streets" (man!). This is probably the most important part of the game to get to grips with. I mean, you can hardly catch the bad guys in a high-speed chase if you continually bash your car into any palm tree or building in sight.

Driving the car is very difficult indeed. Travelling in straight lines is easy enough, but those flashy turns which Sonny manages to perform wit such ease on TV are devilishly difficult.

You accelerate by pushing forward with the stick, and decelerate by pulling back. Right and left turns are achieved by moving the stick right and left respectively.

These movements remain the same no matter which way you are facing. This makes life more than somewhat complicated.

For example, if you are travelling down the screen, moving the stick right will cause you to turn and head left. It's all very sensible if you can imagine being inside the car all the time, but at high speeds, this isn't always possible.

Music is really quite good. The original theme plays when you are in the car (available in a record store near you!) and even plinks moodily away when you enter a building.

When you have decided to check out a particular building, you must drive to it, park and then decide if you want Sonny or Ricardo to enter. Once you've done this, the screen changes to reveal the inside of the joint. Subtlety goes straight out of the window, and you pace around the various rooms with your gun aloft and at arms length. Any evidence which is left lying around will be displayed as a sack on the floor. Thankfully, Ocean has refrained from writing "Swag" on it.

To help you get started, Ocean has included a schedule for Monday (it's played against the clock - one second real time equals one minute game time) showing where possible deals may be going down. On your trail to Mr J you will probably come across numerous punks who will need to spend sometime in City Hall, in cuffs to "chill out".

Miami Vice isn't a mega-game. It will probably sell more on its name than its addictiveness, but it is a good program, professionally put together and fun to play.