Knight Rider

Crash

Overall (Mike Dunn) 19%

Overall (Dominic Handy) 28%

Dominic Handy 28%

Mike Dunn 19%

Run it again and again and again - there's nothing like a good race game. You can always beat that world record just once more, as DOMINIC HANDY and MIKE DUNN discover when they go into... Knight Rider Ocean 39% Issue 33 MIKE: Haven't you ever wanted to become Michael Knight? I know I haven't, though his car always looks pretty decent. Pity about the game, though. Ocean's vey long-awaited tie-in with the TV programme puts you in control of the mighty vehicle and gives you the task of stopping the evil terrorists who are trying to start World War III. Poor graphics accentuate a distinct lack of playability in this insipid shoot-'em-up. 19% DOMINIC: I think the less I say about this the more Ocean will like the comment. If you're going to make people wait for a hyped game, you'd better make sure it's better than just 'average'. 28%

MORE WHEELS THAN ISIAH! BMX Simulator Endurance Enduro Racer Glider Rider Knight Rider Miami Vice Milk Race Nightmare Rally Paperboy Pole Position Scalextric Speed King II Street Hawk Super Cycle TT Racer Turbo Esprit

Sinclair User

Overall 4/5

Jim Douglas 4/5

Label: Ocean Price: £7.95 Joystick: various Memory: 48K/128K Reviewer: Jim Douglas In the latest in a line of irritatingly mediocre TV licencing deals from Ocean, you take the role of Michael Knight, owner of the astounding K.I.T.T. car in his fight against injustice across America. Knight Rider has a strong strategy element, as you will discover as soon as the instructions appear on the screen. First choose your mission, ranging from 'Democratic Convention' to 'Presidential Dinner'. All of the plots are really very similar, involving lots of racing around in K.I.T.T. and very little else. Once the plot's been chosen, you can get on with the game. There are three different screen layouts, which appear depending on which part of the game you are currently playing - the map, driving and operation nase screens. The Map Screen is very straightforward. The upper portion of the screen depicts a map of the country, and all the interconnecting freeways which are available for K.I.T.T. to travel along. You program your destination in the computer and begin your journey. If there is a building nearby, you enter it and have a look around. The Map also gives you an idea of how tough your journey is likely to be, as the larger curves in the road are shown in detail. Next up is the 3D driving screen (whoopee!) which is really the main part of the game. Here, you guide your car along the freeway towards the destination of your choice. It all looks very similar to Zzoom, the Imagine oldie of a few years back, in which you had to shoot down some thoroughly unconvincing objects in semi-3D. In Knight Rider, though, the foes are a little more menacing. Helicopters loom up out of the desert with frightening regularity weaving their way left and right in front of you. They fire rockets at K.I.T.T. for which there is no logical explanation that I can think of. But they seem to know what they are doing, so who am I to argue...? it's all just like the TV series really. Now, as anyone who has tried it will indubitably testify, trying to steer a doctored Toyota Supra at 240mph while picking off murderous helicopters is no mean feat. Luckily, you are in the possession of such an amazingly talented motor (John) that you can simply hand over one of these operations to K.I.T.T. The graphics at this stage aren't very impressive, consisting of a wide yellow road with an occasional black line shooting down the middle, and the aforementioned helicopters doing their level best to look menacing on the horizon. Other information on screen tells you how fast you are going, the time left before something ghastly happens, how much damage you have sustained, your laser temperature and skuds. A skud is the rather unfortunate name given to the units of distance left before you reach your target (Standard Kitt Unit of Distance. Geddit?) Should you manage to get to your destination before your time runs out and something ghastly happens, you go back to the map screen. YOu either begin another journey - often you will not be able to drive directly to the desired location - or enter a building and have a look around inside. Should you choose the latter, the screen will change for the final time, and the operation base will be depicted in plan form. The aim of this part - as K.I.T.T. will inform you by means of an incomprehensibly irritating scrolling message - is to reach the room on the other side of the building. Walk past guards and packing cases, both of which seem to have a similar IQ. Once you reach the room, there is a delivery not, or a packing slip. This is your clue as to where your next location lies. So, it's back into the car and off on another road-race to the next city. And the whole thing starts over. It's not all that inspiring is it?

HINTS AND TIPS Always wait and see what K.I.T.T. has to say, and then move quickly, as the clock continues to tick, no matter what you are doing. While on the race screen, put the car in control of the lasers, and drive the thing yourself. Put the speed up to 240mph, as it's still possible to control the car at this rate. In the operational bases, wait and see what the guards do, and then rush past them, using your knowledge of their movement patterns.

Your Sinclair

Graphics 5/10

Playability 4/10

Value For Money 3/10

Addictiveness 4/10

Overall 4/10

Phil South 4/10

Ocean £7.95 Reviewer: Phil South (Da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum-da-dum). After a long, long, long time in the making, and a huge amount of pre-publicity, Knight Rider has finally driven onto our screens. Why did it take so long? Well, one of two things happens with a licensed game. Either you have a really good idea for a game and use a recognisable character to give it credibility and then seek the license, or you seek a license and then try your darndest to think of a winning game. Actually what happens in most cases is that you don't bother to think of a winning game, and just hope that the name on it will sell it. Ahem. So where does Knight Rider fit in this picture? Let's see now. There are three basic game elements to the game - the map screen, the room screen and the driving screen. The first part is a map of North America, where you plan your routes to different cities in the US to search for clues. When you get there, you see a room. a plan view like Gauntlet (and I use the comparison loosely) where you must hide from guards to make your way to the clues. Finally, the screen where you spend the most time, the driving screen, is a 3D view out of KITT's windscreen as you speed along the road towards your destination, with a lot of digital displays on your dashboard. The primary gameplay consists of controlling the driving, leaving KITT to shoot at the hundreds of helicopters that are flying at you, or shooting at the chopper hordes while KITT burns rubber. Because this is based on a TV show where the car is the star the strength of this game should be the driving part of the scenario. It's not. A boring yellow road, whose only sign of movement is the little horizontal lines that zip down across the triangle of the road. The helicopters (I assume they're helicopters, but they could be giant locusts) are cheap and very tacky UDG style sprites, whose only real concession to 3D-hood is increasing in size and zooming off the screen before they get too scuzzy looking. The most disturbing thing about this game is the level at which it can play itself. As KITT is virtually impervious to any damage, you can quite happily play the game (letting KITT drive you to the next location) and do something else. I am 'playing' the game now as I'm writing this, which I guess is a sure enough sign of how involved the gameplay is. This would have been a fair effort for a budget game, but for a full price, licensed game from a major software house, it hasn't got a hope!

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Crash

Use of Computer 56%

Graphics 60%

Playability 44%

Getting Started 58%

Addictive Qualities 39%

Value For Money 38%

Overall 39%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Ocean Retail Price: £7.95 It's here at last! Knight Rider has finally been released by OCEAN. Michael, his co-ordinator Deven and the super car Kitt are once again on the trail of baddies. At their Atlanta HQ the duo receive a message from Deven, informing them that a bunch of terrorists are up to no good - Deven also hints that the terrorists may have designs on world domination... Michael and Kitt set off on a perilous mission to try and stop those darn terrorists from starting World War Three. The only trouble is, nobody actually knows where all this terrorist activity is taking place, so Kitt and Michael have to drive like mad things all over America at insane speeds, collecting clues before the time limit on the mission runs out. At the beginning of the game you are presented with a map of the United States and a menu of cities which can be visited. Kitt passes on a message from Deven suggesting a city in which there is terrorist activity. Now it's up to you and Kitt to zoom down to that partitular city as fast as possible to see what's going on. Kitt is a pretty unusual car and unstoppable. Once on the road, enemy helicopters rise up from the horizon trying to inflict serious damage. A meter on Kitt's dashboard clocks up the damage and when the level gets too high you have to get Kitt repaired at the next town - which is rather time consuming. Mike can drive with Kitt firing the lasers, or Kitt can drive (more slowly) and let Mike do the shooting. A digital speedometer reveals the rate of travel, and another milometer ticks down as the destination city gets closer. Lasers, of course, overheat and too much shooting leaves the car defenceless while the lasers cool. On arrival in a city the view automatically changes. Mike enters a building patrolled by guards. The action is viewed from above, and as Mike never carries a gun, he must avoid the enemy by sheer skill and some speedy footwork as he picks a route to the other side of the maze. Contact with a guard sends Mike back to the beginning of the current location - very time consuming. New orders scroll across the bottom of the screen once a maze has been negotiated and it's off to the next city, on the trail of those power-crazed terrorists. The opening menu allows you to select a plot to the game, or the scenario can be allocated at random. A time limit, monitored by a clock on Kitt's instrument panel, is set and the mission fails if the time expires before all the locations have been visited and maze problems solved. Then it's back to Atlanta, and time to start yet another mission to save the world. COMMENTS Control keys: W up, S down, N left, M right, Q fire, P pause, CAPS SHIFT and SYM SHIFT quit and restart Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2 Keyboard play: responsive Use of colour: a bit plain, but no clashes Graphics: dodgy on the driving screen, okay on the mazes and map Sound: neat tune, adequate spot effects Skill levels: one Screens: map screen, scrolling road and maze section

Zooming along the yellow brick road to the next city with Kitt looking after the lasers and Mike in the driving seat pulling 240 mph. Blow the choppers out of the sky...