Download Beverly Hills Cop

Oh no, it’s the Crazy Frog mania! Let’s shoot the frog. Actually it’s the original Harold Faltermeyer’s tune Axel F. And all who know which song I’m talking about will surely remember the great movie it was made for - Beverly Hills Cop, the movie that make Eddie Murphy the famous actor he is today. 

And in this computer game is featuring Eddie (with your computer being the co-star), at least that’s what the game credits say. 

This was an OK game I used to play on C64 and it was also made for Amiga, yet I never knew it was made for the PC as well. It’s still in the upper range of average, with quite nice graphics, a screeching sound and somewhat questionable interface. The game consists of 4 levels and you can play them all (one after the other) or you can select the one you want (the option screen explains this). 

Level one: you need to make it out of the warehouse and into your Mercedes convertible. On the way there are baddies trying to stop you. You can kick or punch them, but you’re not really good at fighting, so it’s best to avoid them. Every time you hear the ringing sound you’ll know it’s a rolling landmine (you need to jump over it). 

Level two: you need to chase down the van that got away from the warehouse. You need to steer the car, but the controls are really terrible. When you turn the wheel it will keep going in that direction, so you’ll need to start pressing the opposite direction if you wish to go strait again (not pleasant at higher speeds) and if you go off the road, you’ll see a spectacular crash. 

Level three: you need to get in the mansion. There are guards all over the place and you need to shoot your way through them. If you look carefully, you’ll see them jumping in the air before hitting their own blood-puddle on the ground (when you shoot them off course). 

Level four: this is a 3D level. You’ll only see white lines on the black background. The ones that look like wrapped-up candy that moves are the guards. You need to avoid or shoot them. Were it not for the final level, the game wouldn’t even be worth mentioning (it’s a true 3D FPS, but with very basic graphics). 

All in all the game is OK, but the animation is far from smooth. You’ll have problems reading the text, because it will shake too much and the animation (especially on level one) is very choppy. 

I had to set the DOSBox to around 850 cycles and frame skip to 6 in order to get the best (but still not perfect) results. The graphics still were choppy and the text still shook (but only slightly).