"Party in the city where the heat is on
All night on the beach till the break of dawn"
Oh, Will Smith, if only we could believe you and your ridiculous ears. Slated for next February, Miami Nights: Singles in the City is the latest mobile-to-DS port from developer Gameloft (Asphalt Urban GT), advertising itself as a "social simulation game" in which you try to make it big in Magic City as a model, singer, or actor. To our surprise, the DS game's graphics actually look worse than the cellphone version, mostly due to the studio's move from 2D sprites to 3D figures.
Gameloft isn't the only company to blame for making Miami Nights less inviting -- Ubisoft, the title's publisher in both Europe and the states, also did its part to tone down the game's sex appeal, at least for the US. While Miami Nights' European cover features a blonde woman in a bikini, the North American boxart has the same model covered up, now in a low-cut dress.
Is Ubisoft worried about conservative parents revolting over the lubricious image were it to appear on game shelves, right in between Meteos: Disney Magic and My Horse & Me? Or maybe the publisher just doesn't think we're ready for that jelly? Shake your hips past the post break to see the original packaging art and an embedded video of Miami Sound Machine's "1-2-3."
