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Dragon's Lair - A Forbidden Love Affair?

Posted by simoniker on from the keep-it-quiet dept.

Thanks to WoS for its article exploring the low critical regard that laserdisc videogame Dragon's Lair is held in. The author argues that the game "is the most successful videogame in the history of the world that nobody will admit to liking. For over 20 years, Dragon's Lair games have been coining in cash hand-over-fist, while drawing nothing but bile from press and critics." He goes on to suggest: "Half-Life is almost as linear and pre-scripted as Dragon's Lair, and is just as happy to kill you instantly if you take a single step in the wrong direction", before concluding: "It's only the hardcore, the critics and the reviewers who tend to have it in for Lair and its ilk, and that may be because a game like Dragon's Lair renders both criticism and years of carefully-accumulated gaming expertise worthless."

7 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. NO! It sucked! by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Funny

    It sucked quarters at the arcade, when I bought it for my Amiga, the Sega CD and on the PC!

    Nope, never did like the damn game, humm, I don't have the DVD yet.

  2. Deprived Fans.. by swdunlop · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yet another deprived fan, wishing his carefully memorized sequence of joystick twiddles were useful in modern games. Dragon's Lair was strictly a memory game, albeit one with slick graphics and a funny narrative.

    --
    Weapons of Mass Analysis
  3. DL was better as an arcade game by Zawash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dragon's Lair worked better as an arcade game. At the local games parlor, the few who knew how to beat the game (or at least get past the first few screens) were revered by the unwashed masses. The gameplay was nothing special, but the graphics were mindblowing. Hmm - I can remember the game being featured on a Beyond 2000 show, even..

    When it at last was released as a PC game, it was too short and too easy, when you no longer was limited by the amount of quarters in your pocket.

    The game could actually be replaced by a "guess the number" game, where you guess one single digit at a time, and have to restart from scratch when you miss a digit. You even get a nice cartoon if you guess correctly. The catch is that the number you're supposed to guess is the same every time you play..

    --
    File not found. Fake it(Y/N)? _
  4. It isn't a game by AliasTheRoot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The reason people hate it is because it is frigging terrible. If Don Bluth had released a 30 minute cartoon of it, people would lambast it for being of lower than his usual standard and exceptionally badly written.

    Instead, they released a "game" where the gameplay mechanic was watch some turgid animation, then at the critical junction move a joystick or hit a button at the right time to continue playing the animation.

    Unfortunately, 9 times out of 10, the required direction or button wasn't clearly explained or worse still made no sense at all and then you got to watch the stupid death cartoon yet again.

    Most people prefer pacman because in that game up makes you go up and right makes you go right.

  5. Dragons lair as linear as Half Life? by johannesg · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What a bunch of crap is that. In Half Life you at least have freedom to walk around as you want, look at the environment as you want, tackle problems in different ways, go back to earlier locations (you can go back to the big escalator from nearly halfway through the game!). And although the locations can only be visited in, effectively, on order, it gives a damn fine impression that you have absolute freedom.

    By comparison, Dragons Lair requires you to press a single button during a very short interval to choose between death and life. It is just a series of binary choices, with no hope of variation, ever. The beautiful graphics tend to wow people, but once you play the game you quickly realize it isn't a game at all.

  6. Not all popular games are critically acclaimed by ambrosine10 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Look at the "Myst" series. Myst and Riven topped the charts for years (I think it was the best-selling game on CD-ROM since the format came out) and all it ever got were bashings in the (gamers') press by the critics.

  7. I liked Dragon's Lair by LordOfYourPants · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I liked Dragon's Lair.. then I liked Dragon's Lair II (the level with the piano playing was fantastic).

    Nowadays, I like Dance Dance Revolution. All pretty much the same interface (except Dragon's Lair didn't have any moves where you had to hold the joystick/sword button down for a long period of time if I'm remembering right).

    The day someone can combine the fitness involved in DDR with a game that looks like Dragon's Lair, I'll be there too :)