Reruns can be a beautiful thing.  They open an old world of golden plots, memorable characters, and theme songs that fill the deafening silence at night.  Such is the case with the popular 70’s cop show, STARSKY & HUTCH.  It’s easy to see why Mind’s Eye sees a money pot in creating a videogame based on the red-and-blue light adventures of two men and the Red Tomato (the name for their car, you kiddies).

You take on the dual role of the street-wise Detective Dave Starsky and the soft-spoken Detective Ken Hutchinson as they fight crime, one funky bullet at a time.  In the famous red Ford Torino, Starsky must race through Bay City with Hutch and his .357 magnum to keep him company doing what they do best, taking criminals down!

For those of you who want another GTA 3, you may want to look elsewhere.  STARSKY & HUTCH is all about inner-city getaway racing, staying on top of fleeing vehicles with a range of weapons, special items, and heart-racing stunts.  You drive through four large urban areas, picking up tips for larger crimes from those you arrest and the cool Huggy Bear.  The games schematics are fairly simplistic and very repetitious, driving and shooting as you progress through the levels, cleverly based on past episodes.

There are two game modes:  Story and Free Roam (with the possibilities of opening up some cool TV Specials including Racing, Shooting, and Stunt.  Though the main part of the game is the story, many will prefer driving around looking for trouble in Free Roam Mode.  One thing I enjoyed immensely was the 2-player action implemented in the game.  Player 1 is responsible for driving, making sure to give Player 2 good aim against bad guys.

An interesting addition is viewer rating, which is dependent on keeping your viewers interested with exceptional driving and shooting skills.  If you start running into public property, driving slow, or keeping a boring television program, you are off the air!  As far as aiming goes, automatic capabilities can be troublesome at times.  You lock on to enemies, power-up items, and shoot-em-up stuff based on distance and priority.  When the target turns yellow (casual hit) and red (direct hit), you will gain viewer ratings from shooting.  Likewise, if it displays a blue circle, you will lose viewer ratings if you take aim and fire.  But be careful, because like any other shooter-game, the suspect fires back.

I’m fairly lenient on most games when it comes to graphics.  But STARSKY & HUTCH is below even my expectations, especially the XBOX version.  Usually, cutscenes are made to look better than in-game play, but in this case it’s quite the opposite.  You should never feel tempted to stab yourself in the eye when viewing cutscenes, but I had my roommate hide the silverware for protection.  The car-wheel especially drove me nuts, you can see all the polygons that shouldn't be visible.  Voice-overs also needed a little work, though it was kind of cool that Huggy Bear himself did some voice acting.  However, the soundtrack all sounded the same!  I knew I shouldn't have watched that VH1 "I Love the 70's"!

STARSKY & HUTCH is average/below average across the board, with no real elements to keep gamers interested after a few levels.  The game goes for $19.99, which is a pretty good sell for what it brings.  But even fans of STARSKY & HUTCH (though few and far between) wont find this game as exciting as it could have been.

Gameplay: 6.4
A mediocre drive-n-shooter with simplistic control and repetitious play.

Graphics: 5.5
Its feels as if the license brought with it graphic capabilities of the 70's as well.

Sound: 7.0
Not too shabby in the voice-overs department, but nothing really wowed me.

Difficulty: Easy

Concept: 7
A good premise of bring the hit 70's TV show to life...but a failed attempt.

Multiplayer: 8.0
Play with a friend, the game gives both player independent control of vehicle and gun.

Overall: 6.3
Unfortunately, unlike the TV show, STARSKY & HUTCH let the quality get away.  I'll wait for KnightRider, assuming Gary Coleman wins the gubernatorial election.