Knight Rider 2 - Out Now! *OFFICIAL DISCUSSION THREAD*

Archive for discussions from 2005. Please post new discussions in the appropriate forum.

Moderators: neps, Matthew, Michael Pajaro

User avatar
imranbecks
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 858
Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2003 3:18 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Singapore, Asia
Contact:

Post by imranbecks » Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:38 pm

What a week I'm having... First, I got both the 1:18 KITT and KARR and just yesterday, I bought the PS2 Knight Rider 2 game!!!!

Ok, the game isn't that good.. but it is alright.. More action packed in my opinion than the first one..

Anyone noticed that KITT's reflections is actually what is in front of KITT? Really strange....

User avatar
Sith
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 601
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Korriban
Contact:

Post by Sith » Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:46 pm

Even it weren’t broken, Knight Rider 2 would be a disaster. The sheer poverty and lack of ideas on parade are more than enough to offend the most casual of gamers. Please let me explain.

Knight Industries Two Thousand (and Four)

As the title would lead you to expect, you are Michael Knight and you are Riding behind the H-shaped wheel of a shiny black Pontiac Trans-Am. This souped-up super-car, known to 80s retro fans as K.I.T.T., is equipped with a talking, sassy computer, and has gadgets and top-speeds enough to fill a few dozen half-hour TV episodes. What can you do with it here?

In the very first mission you must drive the car towards the screen, so you can’t see where you’re going. This is not too taxing because the route is on rails. Your task is to avoid a flock of flying missiles in hot, burning pursuit. They’ll smack into the ground in your wake, or on top of you at worst (and K.I.T.T will tell you off).

The opening sequence is a nigh-endless loop of road section after road section covered during the chase, and wave after wave after wave of mindless missiles all pathetically easy to dodge. Eventually normal driving perspective is resumed, in time for you to flip the car onto two wheels so you can squeeze through a narrow gap or jump over roadblocks using the Turbo Boost. All the while the unseen pack of rudimentary rockets lurks in the sky. If you prang the car or slow down they’ll slam into you and Mission Failed will flash across the screen.

With this first episode Knight Rider 2 sets out its stall and declares its intentions with complete clarity: to make up for a lack of variety in enemies, activities and scenery with relentless repetition of the same landscapes, game elements and bad guys. Things never improve.

Fire and Forget

K.I.T.T is, in essence, a moving gun platform. Unlike a third-person action character it can’t shoot anywhere other than where its nose is pointing. Think of a tank with a fixed turret, but one that can’t turn on the spot. We’ve seen this before in numerous car shooting games like Carmageddon and Twisted Metal Black.

Missiles will lock onto flying enemies or high-up, stationary targets like tower guns. The laser can also lock onto ground enemies, but only during boss battles. For the rest of the game you’ll need to drive and turn to bring your weapons to bear. As a result, in most brawls you will resemble a toddler lashed onto a flailing fire hose as you zoom and spiral around and among the packed enemies. Again it’s odd that laser locking is on for the big, climactic battles, making them shockingly easy - trivial, even – compared to rumbling with…

The Robots, the Robots!

“Where are all those robots coming from?” whines Michael Knight in an oft-repeated exchange with his computer friend. The answer is that the bots are coming from that magical game place known as “The player hasn’t done anything for a while, so let’s throw some drones at him. It will help pass the time.”

“Pawn rush” AI attacks are not necessarily bad, and can often entertain – Serious Sam is a shining example of that – but here the pawns in question are REALLY DUMB; pointless obstacles that irritate and never challenge.

The poor mechanical slaves spin about on their tracks as though malfunctioning; they’ll fire bullets and missiles at random; they’ll stand off for no reason. At times they’ll just bez off (yes, ‘bez’ is a word) and have a run-around before coming back to pepper you. During one heroically poor performance the tracked machines – survivors of the last of many attack waves – simply gave up. They would not react to any provocation: I lasered them; I plasma-bolted them; I knocked them over. No joy; they just refused to play any more.

“No, these are not the droids you’re looking for, either”

While their behaviour is both basic and baffling, their design is banal. The bots look like a hybrid derived from ED209 – the enforcer droid in Robocop – and No. 5 – the nerdy Army bot from Short Circuit. Both these films were near-contemporaries of the Knight Rider TV series, so the robots’ styling could kindly be thought of as an homage to the era. The greater problem is that there’s not much else to scrap with. Apart from a helicopter, a truck (once) and an evil K.I.T.T double (known as K.A.R.R), as well as a few stationary defences, that’s all you’ll get to fight. It’s a poor, simple army arrayed against you.

Twin Terror?

And to what end? What’s it all about? It turns out a moustachioed Michael Knight double (known as Garthe with an ‘e’) has plans to make barrels of money and harm humanity, so he simply must be thwarted. As it happens (and as we mentioned earlier) your nemesis is so eminently stoppable that he needs his hordes of house robots just to drag out the time before his inevitable collapse.

In the course of your investigations you’ll also get to – wait for it - look for keys to unlock doors. In KR2 this golden gaming gimmick is rendered by having you park in front of various consoles and micro-waving them until a far-off red light turns green; just for a bit of variety there may be several consoles you need to beam before all the red lights turn green and the gates open. Only on one occasion can you actually make use of K.I.T.T.’s unique powers and vault over a gate that can’t be unlocked. This one example highlights the wasted opportunity to really use the car as an interesting vehicle for innovative action adventuring.

Highway to Hell

As for the desert locales and industrial complexes, they serve to show off two things: first, how bland, bleak and boring a PS2 game can look, even now in its latter years, when the graphical tricks should be at every developers’ command; second, how horrific clipping problems shouldn’t be an obstacle to getting your driving game out of the door. Sometimes you can drive through trees; at other times you’ll motor right through bots, boulders and assorted bits of scenery.

On the plus side – and hence the score - I enjoyed the bundled video clips from the TV series, which are unlocked as you go along, and feature K.I.T.T. in full 80s TV glory burning rubber and nearly getting blown up on firing ranges. There’s an excellent Knight Rider quiz, too, which gives you a fan-rating based on trivia questions. Here’s a helping hand: the answer to “Which actress made an appearance on an episode of KR?” is “Geena Davis”. If you already knew that, we’re impressed.

Tonight on LoadedInc: When Play-Testing Goes Bad

Imagine a battle between you (in your car) and a laser turret up on a control tower. Its brutal beam burns everything it touches, including your vehicle, so you find a sweet spot of cover from which to fling missiles without being hurt yourself. Sounds good so far. You watch as the laser turret’s health bar is chipped away, drops into red until finally the thing explodes. “Hoorah!” you think.

Don’t start polishing K.I.T.T.’s dashboard yet; it seems that, although the laser turret isn’t there anymore, and you saw it explode into dust, the game doesn’t agree. Because you didn’t let your missiles lock but instead aimed them manually, Knight Rider 2 never realises that the mission objective is complete. This means you can’t get past this stage (despite defeating the boss) without killing yourself and starting over. Sure enough, when you kill the laser turret properly, using the beloved auto-lock on the missiles, you’ll see an end-battle animation and you’re through to the next stage.

Roll Credits…

In any other game that incident would have stuck out like a broken bone. Not here. The game slowly wears down your expectations and endurance until, when the strings and pulleys are revealed, you have to laugh. It almost seems right that Knight Rider 2 should be so botched.

P.S.

We nearly didn’t have room to mention the many exploding barrels – always a hallmark of inventive games; or the missed opportunity to let you drive into or out of the trademark Knight Industries black truck; or the fact that the first Knight Rider game was just as much of a debacle as this, its sequel, and how much of a shame it is that the mistakes of the original weren’t learnt from. Never mind; we’ll just have to wait for Knight Rider 3.


1/10



http://www.loadedinc.com/review.php?tem ... tion=part1

User avatar
jacktherattle
Volunteer
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:37 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Tampere, Finland
Contact:

Post by jacktherattle » Fri Dec 03, 2004 2:41 pm

Hello I'm a new rider and I'm curious about the new game.

How are the controls?
What kind of world of Knight Rider we have on this time?
What is KITT's top speed in this new game? Is it 225mph with pursuit and 300mph with super pursuit?
Can we drive through the walls or do we still stop because bushes and trees.
Is the game 2 more loayal to tv-series than the first one?

The graphic looked a lot better than in game one.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/driving/kni ... index.html

Here's a super pursuit mode. In visual, it's fine with me.
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/driving/kni ... ml?page=38

User avatar
sarfraz
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 657
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: London, UK

Post by sarfraz » Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:22 am

You know Sith, I have to totally agree with that review. I HAD the game over the weekend and returned it on the sunday....it was that bad. Graphics were hopless. I really didn't like the limited variation in enemies, oh look its another rolling robot :? Some of the ideas seemed good enough but the execution was simply dire. The movie sequence where Garth has Micheal captured, yet you see numerous shots of the outside of the building was just really really bad. Scanning the numerous consoles took too long and became a tedious excercise.....and don't get me started on the AI. I could happily run into another area and they wouldn't follow me, just waited at the end of where they first appeared and sat idle.

I'm going back to the Transformers game.....how an 80's icon should be replicated.

Sarfraz
"I would not sell yourself short Michael, you are much more than a horse"

User avatar
neilp9
Volunteer
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 9:41 am

Post by neilp9 » Mon Jan 03, 2005 5:07 pm

Im in need of some assistance im afraid on the game. Sorry to sound a bit thick but im on the level near the end, ive just saved Michael, is it Missile Entrance or something, and im in the compound, i cant get out, theres one energy replenishment thing and one thing to scan. These robots keep coming out all the time, I dont get time to back up my power when it runs down and these robots keep coming out and killing me. Am I doing something worng by keep trying to get the robots or does it take loads of practice? Is it better to use my shield? This uses power!?! Me and my girlfiriend have been at this level all day now and it stressing us both soooooo much. Any help would do thanks.

User avatar
KARR 2000
Rookie
Posts: 55
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2003 3:09 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Slovenia (not Slovakia)

Post by KARR 2000 » Tue Jan 04, 2005 12:53 pm

There are three types of robots.
- The big ones that fire big missiles.
- Smaller ones - powerful
- Smaller ones - weak (come through the door first then as you progress more powerful robots come.
Example:
1. 3 weak robots
2. 2 weak robots 1 powerful
3. 1 weak robot 2 powerful robots
(sorry, I can't find a way to describe it better)

When the robots come. destroy the ones that do a lot of damage first (use shield). When you destroy them turn off the shield and destroy the weak ones.

Hope this helps.
So...... I have no idea what to write here.

User avatar
rhdaussiekitt
FLAG Recruit
Posts: 271
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:55 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: australia
Contact:

Post by rhdaussiekitt » Sun Jan 09, 2005 3:19 am

how would the game be if it was like the dukes of hazzard retun of the
general lee, which im playing on xbox since i cant get the knight rider game
down under
--knightman--

User avatar
knightendo
FLAG Recruit
Posts: 258
Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2003 9:06 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Post by knightendo » Sun Jan 09, 2005 9:18 pm

guys i haven't been following this thread, but while i was online looking for juicy Nintendo DS news, i came across this review... now talk about a LLLOOOWWW score! iv never heard of a game getting anything a low as THAT before!!!: http://www.totalgames.net/pma/21188
"If you're not having a good time, you're doing something wrong." Harrison Black, War Of The Worlds (tv series)

Riggers
Volunteer
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:09 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: UK
Contact:

Post by Riggers » Mon Jan 10, 2005 12:29 pm

I think that an awesome Knight Rider game could be made for the DS. It could be a 3d GTA type game (but with good, clean violence instead!). There could be different missions - rescue missions, survellience missions, destruction derbys...and the touch screen could be KITT's dashboard! :D

Keon2005
Rookie
Posts: 64
Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2005 9:34 am

Post by Keon2005 » Sun Jan 16, 2005 7:57 pm

You know i was contemplating whether or not to buy KR2. but after reading that review I decided not to, I dont even want to waste the memory space downloading the demo. Its sad to say, but it just sounds like they through this game together in 6 months instead of Taking two full years to carefully construct a half way decent sequel with craftsmanship. I mean the part about the fake voiceworks disgusted me. Did they even bother to ask the original actors from the show to do the voices (except Devon of course). I mean if they did they probably would have said yeah but may have cost a few bucks to pay them, or maybe they would have done it for nothing who knows. As far as how KITT looks, they could have at least looked at some old Knight Rider footage and stock photos to construct him to near perfection. Why didn't they just ask Glen Larson or Mike Shiffe for some ideas. They is never anything wrong with asking questions when trying to accomplish a task, its how you learn. As far as the weapons go they could have just used the laser power pack that KITT had an thats all, but not use it in every mission. I mean Good Grief I havent drove KITT in a video game when he had missles since the 1991 Nintendo version. There is a big difference between Knight Rider and Mad Max. As far as sound effects they could have at least dubbed KITT's turbine sound from the original show just like they did Turbo Boost. Even if Davilex didnt have the money they had the time, and that time could have been used wisely, they also could have taken an extra year if they needed to. What do you think.

User avatar
NeoRanger
FLAG Recruit
Posts: 281
Joined: Wed May 19, 2004 2:36 pm

Post by NeoRanger » Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:10 am

My 2 cents here... I haven't played the second. After the reviews I read and having played KR1 quite a few times I found no reasoning in spending $$ for a game of such quality, which IMO has lost the nostalgia value the first one had.

Anyway what I wanted to say was that I hope that we WON'T have a Knight Rider 3, at least not by Davilex. They did exactly the opposite froma what we have asked and delivered a game that has minimum appeal. Before anyone shoots at me for this last comment, I believe that Davilex probably COULDN'T follow our list of suggestions, because as far as I know they are not any major company with a budget big enough to pull off some great stunts. Of course the mess of these two games is unacceptable.

If there is to be another Knight Rider game, I hope it's made by another company.

madfiddler
Volunteer
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2003 8:25 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Post by madfiddler » Thu Jan 20, 2005 6:05 am

Completely disappointing about the sound effects in the game. I've been doing video game audio for the past 12 years now and would (almost) kill for the opportunity to make the KR games sound as they should..

User avatar
Super knight
Recruit
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:00 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: France
Contact:

hello

Post by Super knight » Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:07 am

Hello, i am french.

I think his game is a bad game, DAVILEX have create a car impossible to drive.

My dream is EA games have the licenses!
webmaster of http://www.knightriderworld.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

User avatar
ReddawgKnight
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 514
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2004 12:23 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact:

Re: hello

Post by ReddawgKnight » Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:32 am

Super knight wrote:Hello, i am french.

I think his game is a bad game, DAVILEX have create a car impossible to drive.

My dream is EA games have the licenses!
Yes what he said :wink:

Red Rider
Recruit
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2004 5:02 pm

Post by Red Rider » Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:51 pm

I've bought the game last week because I'm a Knight Rider Fan... and finished it in an afternoon (I've tried all the difficulty levels)... They are known in Europe for making some poor quality games with no scenario,but they bought some licenses like Knight Rider or Miami Vice (wich is bad either...). No comment...

User avatar
jacktherattle
Volunteer
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:37 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Tampere, Finland
Contact:

Post by jacktherattle » Mon Jan 24, 2005 5:30 am

I bought the KR2 on last thursday and played it through in one day. You know what... I really liked the game. It was a far better than the first one. It was only too short. Turbo Boost was a little worse than in game one and KITT's engine sound still wasn't original, but it if we forgive these the game2 is great.
KR2 beats Miami Vice game hands down. If you really are KR fans...buy this game!!! :D

whet
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 882
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: derbyshire england

Post by whet » Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:32 am

I agree th you Jacktherattele.

The game has been rubbished unfairly in my opion,
Glad I am not on my own!

User avatar
Sith
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 601
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Korriban
Contact:

Post by Sith » Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:02 pm

whet wrote:The game has been rubbished unfairly in my opion,
You must not play many games my friend. ;) The game has serious issues... as the various websites, myself and others have pointed out repeatedly.

And why are we so harsh on them? Because we deserve much better treatment. As Sarfraz said, look what Atari did with the Transformers PS2 game.

The fans expect, and if there is a third game by them... it will likely be more of the same. Plus it will be on PS2, and by that time the rest of the world will be on the next generation of consoles.

If they read this still, I implore them to just sell the license on and walk away from the franchise. Hopefully then another developer will take up the torch, with sufficient resources to do the fans justice with a sequel on PS3.
whet wrote:Glad I am not on my own!
Maybe not, but certainly in the minority. lol

User avatar
jacktherattle
Volunteer
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:37 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Tampere, Finland
Contact:

Post by jacktherattle » Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:33 am

So what?
Of course I would like to have a better game of Knigh Rider. How about the guality of GTA games, or Need for Speed games? Of course.

My point is that I'm happy that even someone makes a game about KR.

The technical part ain't what Davilex makes best oh no. Davilex still made a good work with the atmosphere. The story made me feel like it would been a Knight Rider episode and I'm there too.

And all of you should agree that the game 2 was a lot better than game 1. If they want to see some extra work, the third part would be fabulous.

Either way. The game 2 costed only 30€ and it was new. Fair enough.

If we want them to make the best game ever we have to talk that they will take it seriously.

So who knows their e-mail address?

User avatar
Sith
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 601
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Korriban
Contact:

Post by Sith » Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:58 am

We already tried giving our feedback after Knight Rider 1. For the most part, it was ignored.

The link to our list of suggestions is contained in my first post of this thread.

And no, we don't all agree that 2 is a better game. And it appears the fans realise this, as sales thus far are significantly less than the first game. I personally prefer the first game by far, but neither does true justice to the series in my opinion.

But I've already said all this in my review, so I'll leave it at that. ;)

whet
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 882
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: derbyshire england

Post by whet » Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:09 pm

I agree with Jacktherattle.

At the end of the day, to get a KR game at is is lucky for a show of its age.

As KR has not made a come back yet on screen,
anything is better than nothing!

I have played many games, I realy ain't intested in the new san Andreas game,

looks like more of the same to just some extras thrown in.

The game I realy am looking foward to is GTA 4!

User avatar
Sith
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 601
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Korriban
Contact:

Post by Sith » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:36 pm

whet wrote:At the end of the day, to get a KR game at is is lucky for a show of its age.

As KR has not made a come back yet on screen,
anything is better than nothing!

If we were talking about the first game, then yes I would have agreed with you. We were lucky to get a game.

But that was well over two years ago.

Now, we have Knight Rider on DVD, successful fan conventions, a thriving replica community, and a proposed new movie and TV series in the offing.

In addition, the 80s shows are very much back in demand - as evidenced by the recent Starsky & Hutch movie, and upcoming Dukes Of Hazzard one.

Thats a far more lucrative possibility now, than the situation was when Davilex picked up the license.

In addition, stating that anything is better than nothing really doesn't instill Davilex to do anything more than a refurbished cash cow sequel.

Why should we accept a rehash of an originally poor game, now made worse? Exactly, we shouldn't.

Knight Rider's popularity is on the up, and the chances of a developer wanting to pick up the license has vastly increased.

If Davilex continues to spawn out cheap/short/rubbish games, then they will go under. Its that simple. If it can happen to a large developer like Acclaim, it can happen to them for sure.

Unless Davilex gets a vast increase in money and resources (which is highly unlikely given their reputation), it is most probable that Knight Rider 3 will be a rehash of Knight Rider 2.

And frankly, thats not good enough for me. And judging by the views across the Knight Rider community, I'm not alone in this view.

Again, I say they should cut their losses and sell the license. Maybe then we will see the game the hundreds of you outlined and wanted in The List Of Suggestions we put together two years ago.

whet
FLAG Assistant
Posts: 882
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2002 1:01 am
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: derbyshire england

Post by whet » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:51 pm

Well I think a 3rd would have to be totaly diffrent.

As much as I liked Goliath Garth and Karr in 1 & 2, you realy can't use them agian and get away with it.

After all Micheal and Ktt faced more than 3 criminals in the series.

The film realy needs to get rolling and fast, for intrest in a 3rd game ,alough slightly off thread, there has been talk about a film for many years, so I won't hold my breath on this one.

only time will tell I guess!

User avatar
jacktherattle
Volunteer
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:37 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: Tampere, Finland
Contact:

Post by jacktherattle » Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:15 am

After all I agree with Sith that Davilex can't make a better game than KR2. The third one would probably be a clone of KR2.
So we should send some e-mail to EA or Activision that they would buy the licence from Davilex. They would think about it if they would get a thousands of e-mails from fans like: Save Knight Rider (from Davilex)!

User avatar
MIKEMAC
FLAG Recruit
Posts: 271
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2004 5:03 pm
What year did the original Knight Rider start: 0
Location: freeport
Contact:

Post by MIKEMAC » Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:24 pm

Does anyone know if these games #1 and 2 play on the new "slim" playstaion 2 for the united states?
**true happiness is like peeing in your pants, everyone can see it but only you can feel it's warmth**
Please check out my Knight Rider site at
http://www.knightriderforever.tk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Locked