With officers like these, who needs crooks?

Back in 1988, an arcade game by the name of NARC hit the market and caused a big stir; the side-scrolling two-player shoot 'em up was based around taking down any form of drug dealer or drug user, with brutal and relentless violence. Some say it paved the way for future games (one being, of course, Mortal Kombat) and at the time it was quite something. It has been some time since then and Midway has unveiled their newest "remake", also titled Narc.

You alternate between two narcotics officers (who play absolutely identically to each other) with the aim of taking down the city's biggest drug lords and drug users, while walking the thin line between good cop and bad cop. These two characters are as clichéd as you could possibly imagine: two cops who don't play by the rules, who do things their way with bad attitudes and can somehow withstand a storm of bullets in their street clothes while other armoured officers are killed instantly. The main attraction of Narc is supposed to be the ability to play good or play bad, but the game so obviously wants you to play bad it isn't even funny.

As a good cop you can protect the innocent, bust the crooked and deposit loads of evidence into the police station (such as guns, cash and the mighty hash.) Again, though, the game pushes for you to play on the other side of the law and this is apparent when a fat cop starts calling you words usually are reserved for a part of the female anatomy if you don't hit up on drugs. They pressure you to explore the effects of all the drugs in the game and then they almost require you to sell them to civilians (and it's not some sort of undercover police bust, you simply sell them the drugs and that's it.)

NARC is based all around the drugs and you can use them at any time you want to give your character an added boost at the price of addiction, which is quite sick. The drugs are treated like power-ups, unfortunately, allowing you to do a variety of completely unoriginal things like slow down time (with the use of marijuana, complete with classic stoner music by The Stranglers and Cypress Hill, plus a very hazy effect and rotating camera), speed everything up and run incredibly fast, make your attacks more powerful, or even give all the enemies devil heads and civilians weird bobble heads with the use of LSD. A fictional drug, Liquid Soul, makes you invincible, as well as enhancing all of your attacks. An actual line from the game says, "Use crack to enhance your aiming." As touted as the drug use in Narc is, it's surprising that the menu system to find and use them is incredibly poorly designed and almost impossible to quickly do in the middle of a gunfight. Using the d-pad navigates through weapons, drugs and cash, but you have to scroll through long lists to find each one and you can only do one thing at a time, so you'll find yourself stopping in the midst of a huge gunfight to take a hit, then get your gun back out. [I've always wondered why players on Xbox Live sometimes just stop moving for a minute or two! The "my phone's ringing again" excuse only works so many times… Ed]

Playing good or playing bad has a direct influence on what is called your badge rating, but playing good has little rewards. If you play bad too often, you'll eventually get suspended and have to get back on the chief's good side; nothing busting a couple of drug dealers or hookers can't handle. They're easy as hell to find as well, because every dealer has a big icon above their head that basically says "ARREST ME!" [If only it worked that way in real life… Ed] To do so, you have to beat them down a bit, grapple with them, then complete a silly slider-based mini game that's ripped straight from a golf game. If the feeling of being an actual cop taking down crooks isn't gone already, this will easily decimate it. Getting your badge rating really low takes quite a bit of work, too: blowing up a big crowd of people only takes it down a few notches, or maybe a few more if you're stoned at the time.

If your badge rating is too low, you can't do any main missions, so you have to navigate your way around the "sprawling" city looking for something to do. Midway obviously had Grand Theft Auto in mind with this game, but there is almost nothing to do outside of arresting people or taking random drugs (which the game shoves down your throat almost from the beginning - if you're unfamiliar with various drugs and what they look like, then you'll have no idea what does what for awhile.) The city itself feels more like a giant indoor stage for some big movie production; the sky is completely pitch black at all times, throughout the entire game, you can't see the top of most buildings, there are very few cars and a hell of a lot of clones walking around. Uninspiring, boring, lifeless, ugly - I could go on.

The same words work well for describing the gameplay! The aiming system is only slightly good fun while in the over the shoulder view but it has been done much better before. The animations for all the characters are, put simply, crap (except when being hit by a speeding police car trying to "do good") and civilians/non-playable-characters do a lot of bizarre things if you just randomly watch them. I'm not talking about intentional, funny mannerisms either, I mean they'll stand around talking, then all at once jerk in a single direction for some reason and then gather back up. Oh, and no, their lips don't move whilst talking either. Similarly, when people hand another person anything like cash, guns, or drugs their hands are completely empty. Narc lacks polish in every respect.

The actual missions aren't that great, either, nor are they very long. Shoot a lot of people, don't shoot this guy, trail this guy before killing/arresting some people, do this drug, sell that drug - occasionally the odd "special" mission pops in and have you take out a bunch of snipers single handedly with a grenade launcher. Just when I thought third person shooters were coming back into their own with great, unique ideas...

Narc utilises the State of Emergency engine, which allows a lot of civilians to run around constantly but reduces the visual appeal of almost everything else in the game. Without constant riots and scurrying people, the game looks quite dreadful - perhaps the only redeeming thing I can come up with visually are the effects for the various power-ups (oops, I mean DRUGS) you activate and a couple of good lighting effects on your character.

The sound is even worse! For instance, a fellow officer said he was going to teach me a move he learned in the Marines, then proceeded to teach me how to do the Stone Cold Stunner and it lacked ANY sound effects at all. I would usually say that the fact he taught me the Stone Cold Stunner deserves a moment of deafening silence, but the game already included that feature! It was completely silent! The voice acting by the entire cast, which includes Bill Bellamy (Any Given Sunday), Michael Madsen (Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, numerous video games), and the great Ron Perlman (Hellboy) is all uninspiring and nothing special - though Michael Madsen certainly has a good voice, it just doesn't fit his character at all. However, I must say that the use of music in the game is quite good... I was expecting nothing but drab rap tracks, however some older drug-themed R&B and rock tracks occasionally show up to help give the game some credit and authenticity.

But not much - Narc is quite simply a short and boring third person shooter that tries too hard to be edgy and just comes off as more sick and disgusting than anything else I've played. If what you're looking for is a very basic point and shoot game with now-cliché abilities such as slowing down time and a horrible story, then Narc can offer some simple amusement for a very short period of time. An open-ended city allowing you to arrest enemies or civilians at any time is not a bad idea, but even the mediocre True Crime: Streets of LA did it much, much better than this. That game even allowed you to slow down time as well without the offensive use of drugs, as well as drive vehicles. The sudden reduction in price seems like a new marketing strategy to offer a full budget game for a low price (similar to the successful ESPN technique) but it is now clear that this is the sort of tripe that makes the average budget game look good. Suddenly True Crime seems like a masterpiece... just stick with that, because this game not only manages to have very few redeeming qualities but also is both offensive and depressing. Just remember kids, drugs aren't cool and Narc does more to prove it than just about anything else I've come across.

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).