There were some bad cats in town, making trouble for the citizens of Bay City. Fortunately for us law-abiding folks, two of the coolest cops ever to wear a badge were on the scene and they don't know the meaning of the word "quit." Yeah, with Starsky & Hutch around there's no question that these bad cats' days are numbered.

I have a confession to make - I haven't watched much Starsky & Hutch. Sorry, I know an S&H fan should be reviewing this, but I know enough of my popular culture to say that this game not only captures the spirit of the TV series, but also provides some enjoyable, if short-lived, entertainment.

S&H takes elements of Burnout, Stuntman, Crazy Taxi and mostly Super Runabout (an awesome Dreamcast game and the precursor to Wreckless), mixing them together and creating a game that is almost as much fun as the aforementioned Dreamcast classic. You play the roles of both Dave Starsky and Ken Hutchinson, our unbeatable seventies cop duo. The main action sees you pursuing foes and shooting them until their vehicle breaks down and you make the collar. You steer the car as Starsky, whilst a very good auto-targeting system allows you to control where Hutch shoots, hanging out of the window as I guess he did in the TV show.

The presentation and style of the game is excellent, with Antonio Fargas (the actor who played Huggy Bear in the show) providing a voiceover for the story. Each episode is introduced by comic book style illustrations and a voiceover from the Hugster, which gets you into the vibe, baby. Rather than trying to translate the TV show into a realistic interpretation, the developers have gone for something more original and it works very well - you are making the TV show and so the most important thing is to keep the Viewer Rating (VR) as high as possible. There are a large number of factors that determine whether your VR is going up or down and a fair number of power ups to collect along the way.

The car chases in each episode last for a good 5-10 minutes, but your VR is constantly falling and you must do things to boost it back up. For starters, there are many VR icons you can either shoot or drive through, which increase the VR. If you shoot a siren power-up, your car siren is activated, which stops the VR falling temporarily and keeps traffic out of your way. You can get speed boosts and extra grip tyres, plus there are power-ups that double your VR gains and losses or double the damage you do when shooting the crook you are chasing. One of the handiest is the gun jam, which prevents the criminals shooting at you. Getting shot, near misses with pedestrians, hitting civilian vehicles and smashing into walls are all not cool and will reduce your VR. However, smashing through fire hydrants, telegraph poles, trashcans, shop windows and so forth is cool, as are near misses with civilian vehicles and these all increase your VR, as does every shot that hits the villains ahead of you.

Although this might sound complicated, it couldn't be simpler and it's just great fun to charge through the city, dodging cars, running up pavements and knocking hydrants and parking meters flying, shooting at the bad guys who are causing all manner of chaos up ahead. There are also a number of set piece stunts that you can carry out to increase the VR - if you see a star icon you must drive through it (or occasionally shoot it) to activate a special event. These often involve speeding up ramps and doing wild, over-the-top jumps, narrowly avoiding a collision with busy traffic or speeding through an area as barrels explode all around you! Again, pulling off these stunts is very satisfying and there is some great camera work as the action unfolds in a movie style slow motion, viewed from stylish angles. There are ramps, secret power-ups and shortcuts all over the place in the huge playground that is Bay City. The map is absolutely massive and will take hours and hours of play to explore thoroughly. Each episode takes you through a different route and different areas of the city and in the later levels there are some quite unusual settings to drive through.

Although the action is pretty repetitive, the changing settings, stunts and secrets serve to keep things interesting and there is some variety in your primary objectives too - the majority do involve stopping a crook, but some also require you to follow and protect a car from other cars and gunmen that attack it. These missions are a lot trickier and tenser than the regular ones, as you must stop the friendly car from becoming too badly damaged and also make sure not to shoot it, as it will be auto-targeted if it is in your sights.

Longevity is a definite problem with S&H, as there are only 18 episodes, split into 3 seasons, to complete in the main story mode. However, the developers have added in a range of extras to keep you coming back for more. There is the Free Roam mode, where you can explore Bay City at relative leisure and you can collect 15 police badges scattered around the area, as an extra mini-game. There are also three TV Specials - Racing, Stunt and Shooting. Racing pits you against three other cars in a checkpoint race around Bay City, with one catch; the other racers are armed and if you can destroy them before the end of the race you'll get a big VR bonus! The Stunt Special takes twenty of the best stunts from story mode and throws in some extras so you can recreate set pieces, in the style of Chase and Stuntman. Finally, the Shooting Special is a checkpoint race where you must shoot as many targets as possible in the time available. These extra modes won't last that long, but they do add to the lifespan of the game.

There are also a host of extras and unlockables in Story Mode. You can get a Gold, Silver, Bronze or Doughnut rating for each episode, depending upon the VR when you complete the primary objective and bring the bad guys down. The Gold rating is very tough to get on some of the levels and will keep you busy for a while and you need to accumulate gold ratings to unlock the four areas of Bay City in the Free Roam mode. There are also two Huggy Bear cards and a key hidden in each level - you will come across them whilst following the set route of the bad guys, but they won't always be in plain sight and could be tucked away in a short-cut or high up, requiring a jump or stunt to reach them. The Huggy Bear cards unlock a series of behind the scenes extras, including stills from the TV series, a Huggy Biography, a soundtrack player and an interview with Antonio Fargas about the making of the TV series and of this game. The keys unlock extra cars (there are 22 cars in all) and these can be used in the Free Roam mode or when returning to redo an episode. Finally, there are secondary objectives in each episode, such as performing a number of jumps over car transporters, destroying a number of cardboard boxes or fuel barrels, keeping your shooting accuracy above a certain level or avoiding collisions with civilian vehicles. The completion of the secondary objectives is needed to unlock the TV Specials.

The graphics are detailed, with good explosion effects, plenty of variety in scenery, traffic and pedestrians and a host of imaginative and varied areas to Bay City. The sound effects are solid but unremarkable and the soundtrack is awesome - jangly seventies stuff all the way and it really puts you in the mood. The banter between Starsky & Hutch is good fun and can be turned off if it becomes annoying, whilst Antonio Fargas' narration is superb. However, whilst the game is a lot of fun and the developers have thrown in a host of incentives and extras to boost the longevity, the novelty may wear off quite quickly and it doesn't take long to finish the Story Mode if you don't bother with all the extra objectives.

One extra (and very thoughtful addition) that has been included is a two-player co-operative mode where one player drives and the other one shoots. Not only this, but the shooter can use a light gun instead of a controller if they wish. At first it is quite tricky to get to grips with using a light gun, as there is no on-screen cursor and it is quite sensitive to your movements, but after some practice you'll be shooting everything in sight. Using a controller is easy to get to grips with but ultimately you cannot react as fast as when you're using the light gun. However you do it, this is a fun co-operative mode and a good addition to the game.

Starsky & Hutch is an admirable TV tie-in that does the show justice and is a lot of fun to play. The presentation, graphical style and music all capture the feel of the show very well and the main game, although a little repetitive in nature, is full of extras, fast-paced and highly entertaining. However, the novelty might wear off quickly for some, so this could be one to rent before you buy. Regardless of how long you play it for though, this is a must-have for all Starsky & Hutch fans!

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).