Posted on February 25th, 2008 in Axel Night, Video Games by Axel Night
In 1982, David Hasselhoff climbed into a talking Firebird and made some people boat loads of money. After a four year run, the series hung up the turbo boost and called it a Knight. But like Dracula, this lord of the Knight rose from its grave again and again with a repeated series of failures longer than the line at a German Hasselhoff concert. (Seriously, they love that guy.) One such zombie came out in 1988 for the NES for a Knight of the Living Crap. (Honest, I’ll stop making that pun now.)
I picked this cart up amongst a collection of twenty-some titles that came with a sludged up NES I was picking up to refurbish or scrap for parts from the pawn shop. It was one of the first titles I managed to get working in the near-DOA unit, much to my dismay. When I got the system to stop flickering on and off, I was greeted with this screen.
It was an omen of crap to come. Truth be told, Knight Rider could’ve been a good game. Via shameless mechanic theft, the promise was there, and had they not made the attempt to make the game remotely unique, it might not have been the steaming pile that it was.
At its core, Knight Rider is a driving combat game, with inspiration from the likes of Rad Racer or Road Blaster. You drive down three lanes of highway, and like a gory slaughter between Bloods and Crips, you dodge blue cars and shoot red ones as you try to make it to the end before your time, gas, or shields run out. Each level lets you upgrade your speed, gas, or shields to accomodate which ever area you’re having the most trouble keeping full, but for most, that’ll obviously be shields. Occasional green vehicles will drop you refills, and you get a refresher on everything for the boss fight at the end.
The game plays in the first person point of view, and unless you figure out that that little cylon-light hump on the hood is your hit-detection spot, you’ll spend most of your time being the local bullet repository. It’s pretty disorienting, and the little radar on the right doesn’t really help. You can hit B to do the classic turbo boost and leap over obstacles, which is awesome, except that it guzzles gas like a frat boy on a kegerator.
What can I hate on most about this game? You press up to accelerate. Using the pad to go, stop, and steer blows bad seafood chunks. Thumb callus required.
Having to watching both time and gas is redundant. It smells bad. I don’t like it. Strangely, if you run out of time, your engine cuts off, but if you have the gas to ride the turbo boost to the boss, you can make it.
The famous opening theme from the show is not present. You get something wildly different for the title screen, a song for driving, and a spastic boss theme. All are basic, but not painful.
There is no learning curve on this game, just jagged edges best used for slitting your wrist to avoid having to play. The game begins impossibly difficult, until you figure out the unintuitive hit detection and controls, after which the game becomes incredibly easy for a while. Level 2 is even easier than level 1. And through out, you’ll get a few random challenges that seem impossible until you figure them out, such as the helicopters that you can only hit by jumping and firing (there isn’t enough fuel in Baghdad to do this for long) or powering up and using the missile weapons with perfect timing.
That’s really about it. Drive, shoot, boss, next. The story seems an after thought, as with most NES games. The first level has you chasing a tanker escaping with a powerful bomb, which you masterfully attempt to stop with several rounds of high-powered artillery. Don’t over-think it. It’s not the worst thing Acclaim ever found in a toilet and attempted to pass off as a game, but it’s not fun either. If you must have it, it tends to go in droves on eBay, and if you’re even remotely patient, you can get one for a penny plus shipping. I don’t really think it’s worth it, though.