Play The Taking of Beverly Hills Online

I first ran into The Taking of Beverly Hills on a friend's MS-DOS machine back in the early '90s. It was a 1991 release from Capstone Software, one of those games that tried to cash in on a movie license, though the film itself was hardly memorable. At the time, DOS was full of these kinds of experiments, games that felt ambitious but often ended up rough around the edges. This one fit right in with that era's mix of big ideas and awkward execution.

You control either a cop or a football player, navigating a looted Beverly Hills to rescue hostages and stop criminals. The game plays from a top-down perspective, moving screen by screen through the city's streets and buildings. Combat involves shooting enemies with a limited arsenal, but the controls feel stiff and aiming is imprecise. You also drive vehicles at certain points, though handling is clumsy and adds to the challenge. The main goal is straightforward, but the difficulty spikes quickly due to aggressive enemies and limited resources. Playing it now feels like wrestling with a relic that never quite figured out what it wanted to be.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".