Beverly Hills Cop

This review focuses on the Amiga version. Based on the movie of the same name, it was developed and published by British company Tynesoft and released in various formats for home computers in 1990. It is also the last game that Tynesoft ever made before going bankrupt in 1990. So you play as Axel Foley as he goes through four levels, each with a different style of gameplay (the first being a side-scroller, the second being a 3D driving level, the third takes place from an overhead perspective and the fourth is a first-person shooter). The whole game can be beaten in little over 20 minutes, and your only reward for beating the game is a single screen of Axel flashing the "A-OK" sign to the camera. As with Tynesoft's other titles, this game is somewhat known for earsplittingly terrible sounding music, however, it is actually user error caused by not having a sound card or not properly configuring one. In fact it has no music other the Axel F theme that plays on the title screen. In level 1, with its repetitive graphics, Axel moves very slowly, making it difficult to avoid enemy bullets. He can only shoot straight ahead or diagonally up/down. He also doesn't have a melee attack, meaning that he can't kill enemies that are right next to him because his sprite clips right through them. There's bombs on the ground that you have to aim down at and shoot because you as Axel can't jump. Due to a one button layout, sometimes Axel ducks instead of aiming his gun down. Hit detection is biased in favor of the enemy- Axel can't shoot through enemies during their death animation but enemies can. As for level 2, in which you have only two minutes to complete the level, because of the loose controls, it's very easy to crash into obstacles and traffic due to the lack of depth perception. The additional lack of targeting makes it difficult to know when you're actually hitting the enemy. Two of the three trucks you have to chase down and destroy drop boxes behind them which are difficult to avoid. You lose if you end up off-road for more than nine seconds and its difficult to drive back onto the road because of the limited perspective. You die in one hit and you can be killed from behind from being hit by traffic you can't see due to the lack of a rear-view mirror. In level 3 only you control Axel entirely with the mouse, but he moves constantly in the direction of where the cursor is placed onscreen and the only way to stop him is by firing your gun repeatedly. The hit detection is so bad that not only can the player and enemies shoot at each-other through hedges (despite the bullets not passing through it) but enemies are invincible if their sprite isn't fully on the screen. Despite the presence of a grenade in the HUD it's only there for decoration- you can't use it on any of the enemies and Axel only uses it to blow up a door at the end of the level. The isometric perspective makes it so enemies are often at times hidden behind level scenery. A part of the level where multiple enemies ambush you at the top of some stairs, due it being easy to get stuck on the stairs and Axel being unable to shoot through railings. The 4th level involves you going through four floors of a mansion, killing enemies and rescuing hostages then kill the boss and escape within the time limit- this makes it the longest and most tedious level in the game. It's very easy to get lost due to the lack of detail in the level design and the only difference between each floor is the palette. This level has no form of targeting either. The word "cartridges" in the HUD is only there for show- you can never see how many rounds you currently have left and you can't reload your shotgun manually, you have to use up all seven rounds for it to automatically reload and you have to wait for it to fully reload to start shooting again, which can take a few seconds. This means you can suddenly run out of rounds whilst fighting an enemy and be killed in the time it takes to reload. Overall, this is by far the glitchiest level in the game- not only do enemies sometimes sink into the floor making it impossible to shoot them but sometimes the game cuts to a black screen for seemingly no reason. Ha, Beverly Hills cop, how about you get a life cop...