GDC09: Miami Law hands-on
Our dirty, dirty love for oddball DS games isn't something we talk about nearly enough. In short: Give us tons of dialog and mini-games that have nothing to do with each other besides playing to the strengths of Nintendo's portable, and we're set. Yes, we're looking at you, Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Touch Detective.
So, with that said, let us welcome our brand-new DS darling: Miami Law.
As hot-headed detective Law Martin and analytical partner Sara Starling, you'll keep the peace in Miami with gunplay and some detective work, both represented with really disparate mini-games.
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The shooting is clearly the focus and it works pretty well. As enemies pop up on the screen you tap them to shoot, pressing down on the d-pad reloads and the "L" button takes cover. If there's a problem, it's that our meaty hands often blocked our view of the enemies.
When the action switches to Starling, things are a bit more cerebral. In one game, we had to match two different molecular structures by shape and color. In another, we had to manipulate a crate to find a clue hidden somewhere within. It's hard to create puzzle gameplay that doesn't feel like something we've played something 100 times before, but Miami Law manages it.
The game's real strength seems to be in its variety. Don't like the gunplay? Go do a puzzle. Not digging the puzzle? Go play sudoku. Or poker. It's all in there, and it's pretty attractive to us with tragically short attention spans.
There's a lot of replayability, too. You'll often be asked to choose between playing as Starling or Law, and either presents a significantly different experience, both in terms of gameplay and story. So if you want to see everything, you're going to want to play through twice.
Is it different than what you're used to? Sure. But in a sea of paper thin portable titles, that couldn't sound more appealing.
