The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger is an 1991 action-adventure game released by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Released only in North America, it is based on The Lone Ranger radio and TV franchise, the latter which was still rerunning in syndication when the game was released. The player takes the role of the Lone Ranger himself as he engages against outlaws in side-scrolling, overhead, and even first-person segments. The Lone Ranger theme music is played prominently during the game, which includes a DPCM-coded voice clip of the ranger shouting his catch-phrase "Hi Yo Silver". Plot The game follows the basic premise of the Lone Rangers mythos. The player takes control of the Lone Ranger, a former Texas Ranger whose comrades were murdered by an outlaw named Butch Cavendish. While the game's instruction manual deviates from the original radio serials and TV series by claiming that Dan Reid was John Reid's father, the game itself remains true to its source material by identifying one of the murdered rangers as the Lone Ranger's brother. Using an overall storyline that is similar to the film Drunken Master, the game's ultimate goal involves rescuing the President of the U.S. from Butch Cavendish and his gang. Gameplay There are a total of eight areas in the game, where the player must accomplish a different objective on each one before moving to the next one. Each area begins at a large overhead map with the Lone Ranger's partner Tonto giving him advice on where to go next. On the map, the player can the move the Lone Ranger to various towns, caverns, mountains, bridges, and other locations, as well as run into wandering gangs of outlaws who will attack the Ranger. Sometimes new locations will be revealed by a blinking Sheriff's star on the map after the player has fulfilled certain achievements. The locations in the game vary between top-down, side-scrolling, or even first-person exploring segments.