Knight Rider - The Game Review

KITT in the scrap yard.

Words by Peter Brant. Platform: Sony PlayStation 2

3 ^{out of} 10

A typical Saturday afternoon in the Eighties. Wait for World of Sport to finish, then it was onto the good stuff. McGuyver, The A-Team, Manimal, Airwolf and of course, Knight Rider- "A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Knight, A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law." Great stuff it was too, well at the time anyway, yes, Knight Rider belongs to a bygone era, so, one has to ask, why resurrect it now? As far as I am aware, there is no sudden resurgence in the popularity of the programme, there is no "big screen" interpretation of the series forthcoming (thank the lord for small mercies), so why drag it out for a video game? I mean the developers, Davilex, must have had to pay a licensing fee to someone to use the name and various characters, money better spent elsewhere? Judging by the game, almost definitely.

Knight Rider - The Game, does have some redeeming features. It looks nice, a sort of cross between Gran Turismo 3 (though not that good) and Headhunter, and draw distance is impressive. In-between the various habitated areas, which are a replica of the typical mid-west towns found in the all of the 80's American TV shows, i.e. Grid based road system, a Bank, a Courthouse, a nuclear powerplant etc, the landscape is made up primarily of rock formations and boulders. It all feels very Knight Rider, oh no, no complaints on the graphics front here. Nothing mind-blowing, but a faithful reproduction, and KITT? well, it looks, well, just like KITT. Action is presented in an outside chase view, but this can be changed to "in-Car" and "bumper" settings. Sound is pretty spot on too, the synthesised soundtrack with its distinctive baseline, and the "whhhoo whhhooo" (you try wording it!) of KITT's scanning device (remember? The red lights we all wanted on our parent's cars') all faithfully re-created. Voices? well, you didn't expect Mr Hasslehoff himself to provide the speech did you? Very busy man don't you know, as are, obviously, the actors responsible Devon, Bonnie and KITT - none of them lend their respective talents to the game. Instead we have an impressions of each character, which, to be fair, are not too bad.

So, not too bad so far, graphics are pretty good, sound is by no means terrible, onto the important bit; how does it play? Well, things take a downward turn here, and it just keeps spiralling. Starting with the Campaign mode then, (you can go back and play individual missions once you have completed them) an initial training mission, introduces you to KITT's "ski-mode" (flipping the car onto two wheels, left or right), "Boost mode" (the bit where KITT can jump over things) and "Scan mode" (the "whoo whoo" noise put to use in scanning building etc). Right from the start, you just know that these three features are going to be the staple diet of this game, and sure enough, they are. On to the first mission then, you are treated to a cutscene of a bank raid, and it’s into the action by going off to the bank to scan surveillance tapes for clues. Your destination is indicated by an arrow, Crazy Taxi style, and a small 3D map that shows the target. Simple enough, but then there is hardly a lot to complicate it with. That complete, it’s off to the power station, to scan..... and so on, and so on and so on. You see Knight Rider, basically, has you going from point A to point B, within a time limit, to either, scan, chase, or occasionally "battle" other vehicles (by ramming them repeatedly, no visual damage though, just a gauge). There is very little variation in gameplay and it really does not take long before you have had enough...

But is it fun driving KITT? Well, KITT is obviously based on a computer, they like digital things, 1's and 0's, no in-betweens. Seems that the steering and accelerator is digital too, because despite allowing you to use the analogue stick, you may as well use the d-pad for all the sensitivity it has, you are either understeering terribly, or facing the wrong way down the road due to oversteer. And of course the "Turbo" and "Ski" modes are constantly in use to jump over the odd stray tanker, squeeze down the odd alley, which may sound like fun, but believe me, after the 10th time of using either feature it becomes very boring. There are upgrades to be had as you progress through the story, which is a good job, because initially at least, KITT can't go over 124mph. Hardly what you expect. Still at least you get "Super Pursuit" Mode, to speed things up, ooh, about 3 minutes before the game ends (which incidentally you have to avoid using if you want to "Turbo Jump" as bizarrely, you can't use it if you are going at top speed). The default camera view works well enough, but it does get confusing when reversing, it seems to get itself into a bit of a tizzy and it is often difficult to see where you are going. A bit like GTA in that respect, except GTA is great, so you forgive it.

There are some good ideas in this game, somewhere, but they are hidden so deep beneath the mundane missions, that you really cannot be bothered to find them. It is not only the subject matter of this game that is straight out of the 80's, it is also of the same quality as the average licensed game from that era. Not only does this game share its name with the TV show, it also shares similarities with KITT itself; both are soulless. Avoid.

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