ic-games Review - Knight Rider 2: The Game - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Knight Rider 2: The Game - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Knight Rider 2: The Game

Information
Reviewer: Andy Carmichael
Developer: Davilex
Publisher: Koch Media
Reviewed: Playstation 2
Genre: Action
UK Release: 20th Oct 2004
Article Date: 24th Nov 2004
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £19.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 35%

Discuss this review in the Forums

Pros

Nostalgia

Cons

Better to forget it

Screenshots

29 of 50

Zoom ice-lollies, Daisy Duke in cut off denim, John Barnes goal in the Maracana – there are some things from the Eighties that evoke waves of nostalgia and deserve to be seen again for their style and appeal. Then there are the ugly things from the period, things to make you glad those days are behind us – filofaxes, legwarmers, Margaret Thatcher. I’m not sure where to place Knight Rider – it was pure cheese, an entire series built around a slightly modified Trans-am and a man who would later go on to sell a lot of naff pop records in Germany, yet it was part of that boys own vehicle nonsense that proved so popular.

Knight Rider 2; The Game from Davilex accurately represents an episode of the television series on PS2 – someone tries to invoke a dastardly scheme, Michael (the shining) Knight rides to the rescue, villain subsequently tries to bump him and his pesky car off. At this point you realise that it was actually crap after all. Split into missions you must drive your vehicle buddy KITT (no marks for anyone who can remember what it stood for, this isn’t the TARDIS after all) through a variety of scenarios, all of them sadly lacking in any challenge or appeal. Ultimately they involve you reaching some checkpoint or performing some task from the comfort of your leather interior – it’s an entirely driving based action game. That’s not a problem if you’re talking about a title with a huge range of realistic cars for the petrolheads, or a programme with a tight plot, and real class, like say the first Driver game on Psone, but when it’s a plough through the American Midwest trying to avoid the odd missile and listening to a sarcastic Ferrari wannabe telling you to watch out for a fallen tree it’s just not Top Gear.

The action as is can be set to four levels of difficulty – two of them locked at the start. This doesn’t really prove a challenge as I’ll be stunned if you can play through it three times. Selecting the ‘normal’ option I was presented with an opening storyline of minding my own business driving home after a vacation – happily chatting away to my car as you do when you’ve been brought back to life by a philanthropic corporation. Out of nowhere I was informed there were some missiles homing in on my exhaust pipe and evasive action is required, now I take the wheel. The camera angle, that you can’t influence, is taken so that the car is driving towards you, and the missiles are overhead and steadily gaining. That’s fine for knowing when to move right and left so you don’t end up in a crater, but immediately you start to think ‘hang on’ that means I don’t know where I’m going – guess what, it doesn’t matter as you don’t have to bother doing anything – just keep your finger on accelerate and move left or right. As far as gaming challenges go it’s right up there with taking the cellophane off the box. Ostensibly the first level is a training mission so after this five minutes of nonsense the car rotates so you start to employ the turbo boost to leap over objects, the ‘go faster’ whilst under pursuit, the assorted weaponry and two wheeled stunt. There are only two possible outcomes however, either failing to react to these instructions (which even a sloth on vallium could do) or you press the button every twenty seconds and reach the end. KITT could be the coolest, most gadget ridden acerbic dude on the highway (which he’s not) and still this would induce slumber.

The subsequent missions don’t get nay better – locate four ‘power units’ to open a gate – amidst the stark backdrops and on board radar they might as well have said ‘find ten tap dancing rhinos in your back garden.’ Avoid more missiles, this time from a helicopter – and by the way your gadgets now don’t work – oh, that’s fun, shall I just shoot myself instead? The gameplay is of such a low level that I could only assume it’s been created with the very young in mind, and yet unless they’re avid fans of satellite T.V repeats the ‘world of the Knight Rider’ will mean bugger all. There could have been potential here for an over the top Starsky and Hutch style spoof, or an amusing dig at what we thought was ‘futuristic’ in those days encompassing the likes of Airwolf and Streethawk as well – all lost to produce a risible Spyhunter effort.

One of the most telling things of this game is the lack of original voice involvement – there’s no Hasselhoff, no ‘Dr Mark Craig from St Elsewhere (nil points to me in a pub quiz on actor’s names), no serious voiceover at the start. The tune is there, as is the Universal studios logo on the box, but you might as well release the A-Team without a big bloke covered in gold talking about ‘crazy fools’, why even bother with the franchise when so much of it revolved around two personalities who are not involved? Instead the voices are devoid of the rapport they tried to build into the series, the acidic comments of the car just sound stilted and annoy, and before long you think speeding head first into the nearest mountain will at least end it but no, you just get another ‘I don’t think you meant that’ comment. Power instead drains away from the car depending on how often you employ your gadgets, rather reflective of how life-force just drains from your body whilst playing.

In terms of the graphics it’s not much better. Locations are dull and uninspired, detail sadly absent, and the grainy quality makes you double check that it is a PS2 disk you’ve loaded up. Usually it’s a long shot to hope that a title delivers on great gameplay, excellent storyline and top notch graphics, unfortunately it’s easy to produce a shortfall that lacks any one of these three, it’s been managed here.

Knight Rider 2 The Game is like those ridiculously unamusing ‘deely boppers’ – one to leave in the cupboard marked Eighties items to forget.

Discuss the Knight Rider 2: The Game review in the Forums

IC-Games RSS Feed

IC-Games Reviews and Previews (c) 2002-2007

Designed by James Collins

To have your product featured contact The Editor
Found some news? contact The News Desk
PR Dept - Andrew St.Denis
Additional Coding by James Collins and Phil Douglas
Get credited, submit breaking news at The News Desk
Want to hire one of our journalists? Enquire here
Want to see your advert on site? Enquire here

Ic-games.co.uk banner Ciao.co.uk

Find the best console offers for the video game lover like Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and all types of PC games.

Xbox 360 Games

Internet bingo is played by large and a vast amount of gamers, so you’re sure to make a network and friends. Whatever age or gender.