Who can forget Knight Rider, the story of the love between a man and his talking car in the midst of solving crimes together? Not only did the show propel David Hasslehoff to near god-like superstar status in Germany, but his talking car KITT, who we all know as the real star, opened the gates for other talking vehicles to follow like that boat from Thunder in Paradise and Turbo Teen to a lesser extent. Two years after the show was off the air, Acclaim saw fit to release Knight Rider for the NES. While the idea may sound kind of hokey now, the game isn’t really as bad as you may think.

The gameplay is reminiscent of games like Road Blasters where you drive down a highway and shoot down enemy vehicles with guns that protrude from your hood. Personally, I don’t remember KITT having guns, but whatever works. The game places you in a series of missions that involve chases on very similar looking highways from one city to another in pursuit of some sort of boss vehicle which is either a semi truck, jet copter, or some combination of the two. Each level has you driving along the highway while dodging pedestrian traffic and taking out evil red cars that shoot bullets and throw dynamite at you. Your progress is gauged by a meter in the lower right corner of your screen that will fill as you progress. Every stage is timed and you’re goaded to keep moving and drive recklessly. While this may not be a problem in the early stages of the game, it becomes more of an issue later on when traffic will start switching lanes or you’re caught on an icy road. In addition to the timer you also have a fuel gauge that is constantly depleting. The game definitely gives you a sense of urgency and keeps you under stress at all times thanks to the time limit and fuel limitations. After completing a few stages, you’ll get an opportunity to get a password to continue later on. While this helps a bit, it’s the matter of beating a string of two or three levels in order to get it. The game doesn’t scrimp on difficulty and in some later stages will start you off with just under two minutes to complete a level. Luckily, you can pick up extra time, weapons, and fuel by destroying special yellow cars or driving behind Knight Industry vans. Getting these power-ups are a chore in themselves since the yellow cars will shoot at you and deplete your shields or you may drive right by them in your eternal scramble to get to the end of the level. Once a car is off the screen, it’s lost forever much like childhood.

Fortunately for you, KITT is equipped to help even out the difficulty of the game with a few gadgets of his own. By default, you have guns with unlimited ammo equipped. You also have the ability to pick up missiles and lasers by collecting power-ups or purchasing them in between levels, though it wouldn’t be recommended until later levels since Knight Industries doesn’t believe in giving you a full tank of gas and you’ll find yourself opting to upgrade that or your shields just to have a chance at getting to the later parts of the game. Missiles act as a more powerful version of your default guns while the laser will actually lock onto certain enemies and send a powerful blast their way. You’ll also be able to perform a dodge maneuver that will launch you over anything in your way or reach those hard to reach enemies like those pesky helicopters and planes.

Boss battles are pretty cut and dry and since you’ll be fighting two types of bosses for most of the game, once you’ve beaten them once, you don’t really have to change up your strategies when you fight them again.

The game’s visuals were pretty good for the NES. The entire game takes place in a cockpit view with all of yourgauges for speed, distance, ammo, displayed where you’d expect them to be. You’ll even have the voice lights for KITT going, though he never really says anything. It must have been for those kids with active imaginations. Your hood also looks a little funny since itappears right above your dashboard As stated before, every highway pretty much looks the same which tends to be bland save for a few trees, road signs, and the traffic you’ll be fighting through in one way or another. One good perk to the visuals is that the city graphics change on the horizon and correspond to the city you’re traveling to, like you’ll see the space needle when on the Seattle level. Aside from that, you’ve pretty much seen everything by the end of the game except for the last boss which you’ll have to fight 2 semi trucks and 2 jet copters just to catch a glimpse. Traffic is repeated frequently which would be the one case where I would have loved some sort of palette swapping to take place.

The sound was about as good as the NES could get as far as cars and driving are concerned. If you’re going too fast around corners you’ll hear yourself skid as you slide out of control and when you brake. Unfortunately explosions are really quiet and lack any real punch, the same goes for gunshots. You’ll get music during game play and at the title screen, but it’s all a far cry from the ultra cool Knight Rider theme song from the show.

Sure, a game based off of Knight Rider may seem a little lame, but once you get past the almost ridiculous difficulty, it turns out to be a mildly enjoyable experience. Sure, the story is a little thin and contains at least one not-so-interesting plot twist and Michael Knight is nowhere to be found outside of a crude representation on the title screen, but anyone who owns an NES and likes games like Road Blasters might get a little enjoyment out of this one. Like a half hour tops. Even though the game fetures a free roam mode, it's really no exciting and really doesn't make any sense other than let you dodge pedestrian traffic. Even if you’re not a fan of the show, this game does little to represent it. If this review seems a little lean to you, the fact is there isn’t really much to this game, but then again, what else can you do with a TV show about a talking car anyways?

- Brad Hicks (Dr. Swank), SwankWorld Media