Did you ever see the classic action comedy Beverly Hills Cop? When it was first released it became an instant hit, largely due to Eddie Murphy's sidesplitting performance as sassy, streetwise cop Axel Foley. Now budget publisher Blast! Entertainment have plundered the depths of the movie archives and brought out an action adventure game based upon the film - and you really have to wonder why...

We all know that using movie licenses in games more often then not result in a miss rather then a hit, and an old license used in a budget game sounds like a recipe for disaster. As I slipped the disk into my PS2, I have to admit that I was very sceptical about what was coming, especially as I had recently played another Blast! game based on an old license - and I had every right to be doubtful.

The first thing that will probably strike you as odd is that the game's cover has a picture of a car on it, yet you never actually get to drive one. I'm sure this will come as a disappointment, especially to the younger audience who might be expecting the cover to somehow reflect the gameplay, and considering the great car chases from the film this would have been very welcome. Taking the role of Axel Foley, the eight missions on offer see you shooting and sneaking your way through various levels that are based loosely around the story of the original film, which sees wise-cracking, fast-talking Detroit cop Axel pursuing the criminal who murdered his friend to Beverly Hills, which is a world apart from the streets of Detroit.

No sooner have you begun the opening level than problems present themselves; for starters, the first person view is unwieldy and makes the stealth sections incredibly difficult to navigate, as enemies can spot you really easily and your field of view is limited - a third person view would have suited the gameplay much better. Furthermore, taking the first person shooter route puts the game up against such strong competition on the PS2 that it's laughable in comparison. Throwing you in at the deep end, it's hard to get through the opening level due to enemies spotting you all the time, resulting in restarts with load times that take up to four minutes, which will probably mean that only conscientious game reviewers persevere further into the game!

The combat itself couldn't be more stilted and mediocre if it tried - there's no run button, so you plod through each level, either trying to avoid the attention of enemies or shooting and strafing to avoid enemy fire. The weapons range is very limited too, with only the shotgun standing out as fun to use, although that's hampered by a low ammo capacity and slow reload times, whereas the other weapons at least reload fast so you can pump more lead into your foes without delay. At least the game does acknowledge area-specific hits though, so going for headshots is a great time and bullet saver. The cut scenes in each mission show you what you need to do, but this handholding isn't much use when the gameplay is so fundamentally poor.

Things aren't any better when it comes to the presentation either - the graphics are basic in the extreme, with poor animations and unimpressive weapons effects and explosions. Sure, there are a couple of nice touches like bullet clips ejecting out of your gun and smoke rising when you shoot objects, but these features are expected in this day and age of gaming. The sound effects do their job, but they never stand out and there's little in the way of music to create much of an atmosphere as you sneak and blast your way through the tedium. Probably the game's lifespan is its biggest plus point - with only eight missions to slog through it's mercifully short and while usually you might feel short-changed to reach the end so fast, in this case you'll breathe a sigh of relief.

Beverly Hills Cop is an utter failure in every respect and its existence is as puzzling as it is pointless; shoddy, stilted gameplay in a poorly rendered game environment set across a pitifully small number of levels is what you're getting here, and blatantly using the film's license for no good reason (unlike Scarface and The Godfather, where a real effort was made to create an engaging game world to explore, with plenty to see and do) just adds insult to injury. Indeed, this game is so bad that I doubt even Axel himself could sweet-talk you into buying it!

Reviewed by Jessica Roberts for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).