There has been many bad games released this year, but I think that Bad Boys: Miami Takedown “takes the cake” for being one of the worst ones. From the first boot up screen to trying to play though it I was fighting the urge to yank the power supply out from my PlayStation 2. What incentive is there for them to release such a bad game upon the world? If you haven’t already guessed, this game is not only a bad Movie to game translation, but a bad game in general, if you see it in the store avoid it!

The story for Bad Boys: Miami Takedown is pretty much the standard stuff. There is a new and powerful drug that has been given the nickname: Orchid. Like all drugs that are on the market, the effects are short lived, but it has long term devastating effects. Players will take control of two members of the TNT (Tactical Narcotic Team): Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett as they try to take down Tulio Medoza. He is the general of the Columbian cartels and has a strong alliance with the Russian Mafia. It is the player’s job to overcome all of these odds and bring him to justice before he can hurt any more humans.

This game is a third person action/shooting game that has you in the role of Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett throughout the game. Players will go into each level, shooting many different bad guys, go to the next “point of interest”, then repeat. So you see here that the game gets repetitive really quickly. The controls for this game are really “loose” and not very effective. The shooting is fine, but when you are taking cover and need to go out and shoot someone it can be a pain to do so. The controls for this section (and it is a big one since you will be doing this the majority of the game) really hamper any fun that could be had for this game.

There are many different weapons at your disposal in this game to help you take down the enemies. They range from pistols, shot guns, rifles, and submachine guns. I have to wonder why there is such a variety of weapons, because it seems like no matter what gun you use you can take out an enemy. What I mean is that it seems like no matter where you shoot a guy, from his foot to his head he will be taken out of commission.

Since you will be getting in to so many gun fights, you have the option to take cover behind dumpsters or any thing that will provide them protection against the hordes of bullets that come whizzing by their faces. The thing that really stinks about this is that all of the “cover” points are predefined by having an orange flashing circle. So if you see one of those while you are gong through the levels you will know that you are about to get into a gun fight.

First time I turned on this game I had to make sure that I wasn’t playing a Nintendo 64 game. The graphics have the same look as the last generation of games, but some of those look even better than this game. The character models are all blocky and just ugly. All of the environments that the players must go thorugh look very dull. The only good thing here is that in each level there are items that are destructible, but that doesn’t even come close to salvaging the looks of this game.

I have never heard a game’s dialog that was so horrendous that I wanted to turn off the PlayStation 2 to spare my speakers from having to say the words. Then you have to add in the fact about how horrid the voice acting is, it is laughable. The character models look similar to Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but the voices aren’t even close. The very first time I heard them speak in the game I burst into laughter about how bad it sounded. It really is that bad.

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown is rated M for Mature for drug references, strong language, sexual themes, violence, and blood. It will take up to 125KB on your memory card for saves.

Gameplay: 3.5
Do you like games that are no fun to play! If so this is your game!

Graphics: 2.9
Many Nintendo 64 games look better than this.

Sound: 2.8
If you can stand the horrid game controls, then you will want to mute the sound so you aren’t forced to listen to anything regarding this category. Also what is with all of the unnecessary cussing that has nothing to do with what is going on?

Difficulty: Easy
If you can stand to play it, the game will offer very little challenge to you.

Concept: 2.6
Nothing makes this game stand out other then how bad it is.

Overall: 3.1
Avoid Bad Boys II Miami Takedown if you value your money. This is one of the worst games I have played this year. Do yourself a favor and don’t even look at it if you see it at the store.