Starsky & Hutch

Starsky & Hutch delivers the dirt. And by dirt, I mean a messy driving-shooting game. It��s a combination of repetitive car chases, set to an endless click mash. If this is a flashback to the ��70s, I��m glad I wasn��t born yet.

Two types of missions are offered across the 18 levels of sunny Bay City: protect the witness or chase down the fugitive. Deep down, it��s all the same: heavily scripted rounds of catch up. Protecting a witness just means you have to maintain the witness�� easily depletable health while chasing down that angry fugitive.

Just how scripted are the car chases? If you overtake the enemy car, it keeps on trucking behind, locked to invisible tracks. Ramming and shoving feel hopelessly weak. Like a retarded horses with blinders, the fugitive blithely keeps going towards the Point B carrot.

The other face of the game is the click-happy crappy, shootfest. At least, compared to the console versions, mouse control has been implemented. That��s a small plus, because there��s no excitement or skill to the shooting. You simply shoot tirelessly at nigh-invincible cars.

I didn��t know ��70s muscle cars were that strong��hundreds of bullets must be emptied into these road tanks before they finally stop. There��s no extra damage for accuracy, i.e. shooting the tires��it��s just endless mashing, while the enemy��s super-guns quickly make short order of the hapless witness.

The scoring system, dubbed Viewer Ratings, works on an ever-dwindling countdown timer. The system is supposed to reward skill moves, such as jumping off a flatbed truck. Instead, all Viewer Ratings come down to is collecting every token littered on the road and in the sky.

I know this is a budget game, but the cartoony cut-scenes have all the glamour of paper cutouts being paraded back and forth. In-game graphics fare slightly better with appropriately shiny cars but noticeably average quality environments. At least there��s some jive music with that unmistakable, old-school "wokka-chika" bounce.

Ultimately, Starsky & Hutch simply comes off as a poor man��s Vice City. A very poor man living off sub-grade, government cheese.

Verdict: 2 Stars

The bad rep of the ��70s continues in this crappy game from a crappy license.

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.