Play Vice - Project Doom Online

Vice: Project Doom came out on the NES in 1991 from American Sammy, a company better known for arcade cabinets than home console games. It arrived late in the system's life, a time when developers were really pushing the hardware's limits, and it shows in the detailed sprites and fast-paced action that feels more at home with the 16-bit era knocking on the door.

You control detective Quinn Hart, moving screen by screen through urban environments, slashing mutants with a katana and tossing grenades into groups of enemies. The main objective is to uncover a sinister conspiracy, which involves standard platforming, driving stages where you shoot pursuing vehicles, and first-person rail shooter segments. The pacing is relentless, shifting between these styles without warning, and the difficulty is consistently tough but fair. It feels like a compilation of everything that made action games from that period so immediate and engaging.