style driver/shooter game where you drive around and shoot stuff up. There
really isn’t much more to it, but the game manages to pack some fun into the
gameplay by offering several modes and a handful of kamikaze like stunts and
bonus power ups to collect. The game is full of fast paced action and control
is kept simple especially if you’ve got a gamepad.
Unfortunately I’m too young
to fully appreciate the level of detail and homage paid to the classic
television series. I can barely remember watching repeats when I was a kid.
However Empire Interactive made sure to add authentic amounts of seventies
style music full of funky bass lines, wah wah guitars and weird synth sounds.
There is extra jive-talking lingo pumped into the narrations performed by
Antonio Fargas and of course players get to drive the familiar Ford Gran
Torino also known as the striped tomato. Fans of the series, or even gamers
who dig violent shoot em up police car chase scenes in general will find
plenty of excitement, at first.
To play the game you must
drive around Bay City and complete a primary objective. In the story mode
each level is presented in the form of an episode. There is a quick narration
by Huggy Bear to set up the situation before you take control. You must
defeat each episode in order to unlock the next. These episodes are branched
into seasons. In order to unlock a new season you must achieve certain goals
within each episode. You are awarded different police badges that are based
on your final viewer rating.
There is no damage bar or
life meter present in Starsky & Hutch. The only way to lose is one of two
ways, if you don’t complete a primary objective or your viewer rating drops to
zero. The viewer rating is perhaps the coolest part to this game. The VR is
always dropping and it represents the level of interest the audience has
toward your driving performance. In order to boost the VR rating you must
speed off ramps and blow stuff up or smash into park benches and streetlamps.
There are also power up icons and bonus tokens located throughout each level.
Some icons provide better tire grip or enable the siren. Other power ups
automatically punch up the VR rating when you fly through them after rocketing
off some conveniently placed ramp. There are tokens which unlock different
cars and other items that give you heavier weaponry for a limited amount of
time.
I raced through Starsky &
Hutch switching between a keyboard, a Microsoft Sidewinder gamepad and a
Gravis Xterminator. The gamepads were pretty responsive and I was able to
remap the button configuration. The keyboard however just seemed too sluggish
for me when I tried to make all those wheel screeching turns. All in all
there isn’t a whole lot to do. You can go back and play through episodes
you’ve defeated already in order to find all the secret locations, stunts and
tokens. You can also drive around in free roam mode inside different cars as
they are unlocked. There is also a two player mode that allows one person to
drive while the other shoots. There are some good action qualities here, but
the game becomes difficult and repetitious quickly.
Gameplay: 7
There are plenty
of secret icons, tokens and power ups to find and the city is large enough
where it manages to stay interesting and generally look diverse. The loud
skids and crazy stunts keep the action coming, but the constant shooting just
becomes tiresome.
Graphics: 7
The visuals
resemble a sort of cartoonish approach that never really feels grounded in
reality. The environments are large and do a decent job with buildings and
store fronts. Some of the character models are week and blocky and pedestrian
cars look very plain..
Sound: 8
Antonio Fargas
does a good job as Huggy Bear and the other voiceovers are good. Some of the
dialogue gets a bit silly, but this is a seventies style arcade game after
all. The music has high quality and if you like seventies funk you’ll be in
heaven.
Difficulty: Hard
Control is easy
enough, but getting through the city and maintaining a high viewer rating is
quite difficult at times. I had to play through each episode many times
before I was able to unlock the next one and move on. For an arcade driver
that requires the player to unlock the cooler portions of the game the
difficulty should have been a little more forgiving. Or maybe I just suck.
Concept: 7
Based on the
television show, and it represents the funk-tified seventies well. Of course
the seventies were before my time and that’s probably the case with most
gamers out there so the amount of authenticity to the show may be lost on many
of us.
Overall: 7
This game has
decent graphics with fast paced action arcade gameplay that offers a bit of
flash and some cool stunt work, but it gets monotonous and runs thin in story
and character depth.
