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Come on, admit it: If you’re a guy in your early- to mid-30’s like me, you couldn’t wait to watch “The Dukes of Hazzard” every week during its successful run on network television from 1979-82 on CBS. You probably still watch some of the re-runs on The Nashville Network. I do.

The fun show included goofy story lines featuring rural Georgia cousins Bo and Luke Duke and their family as they tried to avoid the Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane and Hazzard county lord Boss Hogg.

But the main reason you watched “Dukes” – other than seeing Catherine Bach traipse around in tight shorts as Daisy Duke – was to see the amazing car stunts performed by Bo and Luke’s awesome muscle car, the General Lee, as they hauled ass around the dirt roads of Hazzard County. Those stunts are a perfect match for a video game, so it’s only fitting that SouthPeak Interactive recently released The Dukes of Hazzard: Racing For Home for the PlayStation. After all, Driver was a huge hit last summer for GT Interactive, as its deep urban missions and amazing chase scenes and stunts captivated driving-game fans and 70’s cop-movie fans.

So is the Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home a Dixie-fried version of Driver? Not quite. But it’s a fun, but too short, ride.

The gameplay in Dukes of Hazzard is solid. Players face nine “episodes” with three scenes in each, creating 27 distinct missions. Objectives range from taking a few laps around the Hazzard County Fairgrounds to speeding in the General Lee while avoiding Rosco. Other missions have you behind the wheel of Cooter’s tow truck or Daisy’s jeep to accomplish certain goals. Some scenes have a set time limit; others continue until the objective is met or the General is too damaged to continue. Certain power-ups – such as a nitro boost, a toolbox to fix damage, an oil slick to slow opponents or a dynamite arrow to shoot out opponents’ tires – are available along the way. These power-ups add fun to the title and eliminate some of the boredom, which unfortunately becomes a major factor in this game. More on that later.

The artificial intelligence of Sheriff Rosco’s car is loony, to say the least. Rosco will drive in a very erratic fashion in an attempt to ram the General and put the Duke boys out of commission. Rosco often flies past the Dukes in a vain attempt to nail the General and then ends up crashing against a guardrail as the Dukes whiz by. That AI may seem flawed, but anyone who has watched more than a few episodes of the show knows that Rosco wasn’t the brightest bulb in the lamp. Developer Sinister Games did a fine job modeling the bumbling nature of Rosco P. Coltrane as he vainly tried to chase the Dukes all over Hazzard County.

Damage plays an important, but flawed role, in the gameplay of Dukes of Hazzard. As the General takes more hits from Rosco and other opponents and from collisions with innocent motorists on the Hazzard County roads, different colors will appear in a graphic showing the damaged sections of the car. Green indicates mild damage, yellow moderate and red severe. If the damage is too severe and widespread before the goal of the scene is met, the scene will end immediately. But unfortunately damage does nothing to affect the handling or performance of the General Lee before it receives its final and fatal blow. I know this is an arcade game, but it would have been cool to have some realistic damage effects, especially since damage to the car is the only thing that can end the many scenes that aren’t governed by the clock.

In reality, the General Lee was a 1969 Dodge Charger muscle car. Those Mopar muscle cars were known for the raw power and speed created by their Hemi engines, not for precise handling. In fact, they handled like bedsprings on wheels. Sinister Games modeled the sloppy handling of a late 60s’ muscle car very well in this game. The General power-slides through turns, rolls gently during some of the awesome jumps and sways lazily after landing askew from big jumps. The General also slows realistically when leaving the road and driving on the grass. Nice touch.

While the gameplay of the Dukes of Hazzard is decent and fun, the thrill wears off quickly, for a variety of reasons. While this game has 27 distinct missions, all but the most diehard fans of the show will tire of playing them. There are three skill levels: Easy, Tuff and Hard. The Easy level is just that – incredibly easy. But there’s quite a jump to the Tuff level. It’s significantly more difficult. And that creates problems because just about most of the scenes are simple, point-to-point affairs with no alternative routes. So if players fail, they will find themselves running the same route over and over again. Driver often had missions that involved picking up goods or people and then dropping them off to different points in the city. In Driver, you also could take a variety of routes on a city grid to reach objectives. Driver also had numerous, smart cops chasing you. That added incredible longevity. In Dukes, you’re on the same course, usually pursued by the same dopey Rosco and no one else. That really hurts longevity.

The courses in Dukes also have a very similar feel after a while. Every road starts looking the same. Every mission starts feeling the same. Sinister Games should be praised for staying true to the Hazzard County roots of the TV show, but it does create a quick boredom level with the courses. It would have been nice if maybe they created an episode where the Dukes went to the big city or entered the General into a major stock-car race at a superspeedway like Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Dukes of Hazzard features no other modes of play besides the episode-scene mode. That really limits longevity. Sinister should have added some fun wrinkles, such as Stunt Mode with the director feature that was so great in Driver, or a Chase Mode and Escape Mode like Driver. Even a Race Mode in which the Dukes ran against a full field of cars at the Hazzard County Fairgrounds – available at any time – would have provided more fun.

The control setup of Dukes also is flawed. Only three default configurations are available, and none feature analog acceleration and braking with the right stick. Analog steering with the left stick is available in all three configurations. The look-back feature, vital when being pursued by Rosco and other foes, is activated by pulling back on the left stick. This is very awkward, as it’s tough to surrender steering for a few seconds just to check Rosco’s location. Placing this function on a shoulder button or including a permanent rear-view mirror would have been a better solution.

Another major flaw in the control setups is the power-up activation button. Players must press the circle button to use power-ups. This forces players to remove their thumbs from the accelerator for a split-second. That sometimes can be fatal in a game in which the raw speed of the General Lee is the best weapon to escape Rosco and other foes. Again, one of the shoulder buttons would have been a better choice for this function.

The graphics in the Dukes of Hazzard are a mixed bag. The car and scenery graphics look dated, as they lack depth and crispness. There are some rudimentary lighting effects on the body of the General, but it’s nothing spectacular. The General and other vehicles lack detail, and the pine trees lining nearly every track look two-dimensional. Road surfaces also are pixelated. But there is no pop-up, and Sinister created an excellent sense of speed with the framerate. There are occasional, inexplicable slowdowns, as there are rarely more than three vehicles on the screen at one time. But it’s nothing distracting. Camera angles also are very limiting. There are only two angles, a front-bumper cam and the default above-and-behind angle. An in-car angle would have been spectacular, especially during the many jumps and rolls that the General performs in each scene.

Despite the mediocre game graphics, the full-motion videos before the game and between each scene are spectacular. They feature three-dimensional characters, scenery and sounds that are stunningly lifelike. The characters in these FMV’s also provide clues and hints to players about the upcoming scene. This really creates great atmosphere and captures the feel of the TV show. Nice job by Sinister. In fact, the FMV that plays each time the game is loaded looks just like the introduction of each TV episode, including the great “Just some good old boys …” theme song by Waylon Jennings. I really thought I was watching an episode of the show for a bit.

And Jennings’ faithful rendition of the theme song is just a snippet of the great sound of Dukes, by far the best feature of this game. Many of the show’s original cast returned to lend their voices to this game, including Tom Wopat as Luke Duke and Jennings as The Balladeer. John Schneider isn’t present as Bo Duke, but the substitute actor does a good job.

All of the cast’s famous sayings, such as Rosco’s “You dipstick,” “Ewww, I love hot pursuit” and “All right, you Duke boys, I caught ‘cha speedin’. I’m takin’ ya’ in and cuffin’ ya and stuffin’ ya” are in this game. Wopat will say “Watch it, Bo,” or “Dang it, Bo” when players drive sloppily. Daisy and Cooter will call Bo and Luke on their CB radio. The Hemi engine of the General Lee also sounds great, and realistic thuds, crunches and scrapes are heard during collisions and landings after jumps. And the General’s famous “Dixie” horn will sound when players press the circle button. Country music by The Tractors plays in the background during all episodes, a nice, fitting addition.

The sound of this game really transports players back to Hazzard County in 1980. In fact, the only flaw in the sound is the limited number of phrases for each character. Their audio gets a bit repetitive. But otherwise the audio is nearly perfect.

The Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home provides a fun trip down Memory Lane for those who were either weaned on the show during its original run or have become fans of the show through TNN re-runs. But the game fails in its mission to become a Dixie-fried Driver due to its dated graphics, awkward controls and very limited gameplay modes. Dukes of Hazzard is a wild ride for ardent Dukes fans. Otherwise, it’s a fun rental for a weekend trip through the time tunnel.