Dragon's Lair Remastered in HD

JamesO writes "Digital Leisure has announced the development of Dragon's Lair HD, for release this autumn for the PC. Remastered is usually a term associated with DVD movie release, usually referring to the cleaning up of the film's print. It's not that odd then that the term is being used for what is essentially an interactive cartoon. Dragon's Lair HD promises to do what it says on the tin, offering the original game in true high definition. " I still remember the first time I saw Dragon's Lair in an arcade. I'd love to play it again in HD — in the arcade it was a quarter eater.

Comments

I remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember the first time someone banged into it while I was playing and F-ed up my game... :(

Next on the list...

[dubmun]

Pong HD... lets see those pixels shine!

I'd love to play it again in HD

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the secret to Dragon's Lair was standing right behind someone with a giant stack of quarters being pumped into the game.

And throw in a few barely audible mumbles of "you suck" when they screw up.

Best/cheapest way to enjoy the game.

Overrated...

[TopShelf]

Dragon's Lair made for some nice eye candy at the time, but as a game, it totally stunk. Despite sharing my first name with the gallant hero, it held my interest for about 15 minutes before going back to the rest of the arcade.

Dragon's Lair was a very early example of the game that looks so much better than it plays.

Re:Overrated...

[gEvil (beta)]

Despite sharing my first name with the gallant hero...

I'm really sorry to hear that...Unless your last name happens to be Diggler.

Re:Overrated...

[Tim C]

That's pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

I remember playing Dragon's Lair in the arcade once. It sucked, even when not compared to the other games available.

What makes them think people are going to pay for a game of comparable quality (in gameplay terms at least) to some of the worse after-thought games that get stuck on kids' DVDs as extras? I understand the power of nostalgia, but I'm slap bang in the target demographic age-wise and an avid gamer, and I'm not touching it with a barge pole.

Re:Overrated...

[gstoddart]

Dragon's Lair made for some nice eye candy at the time, but as a game, it totally stunk. Despite sharing my first name with the gallant hero, it held my interest for about 15 minutes before going back to the rest of the arcade.

I felt the same way about the game back in the day.

It was all eye candy, but you had very limited mobility/interaction with your character. You didn't have free movement or anything like that, you had to interact with the game in time with it's branching on the laser-disc. If you chose the wrong direction, you died. Too late, you died. Too soon, you died.

As I recall, there was exactly one path through the game, and you basically had to be playing according to a set script which seemed to have no flexibility. At least, that was the impression I had of it before I went back to Donkey Kong.

Distinctly underwhelming with crappy game play as I recall it.

Re:Overrated...

[slindseyusa]

Dragon's Lair made for some nice eye candy at the time, but as a game, it totally stunk. Despite sharing my first name with the gallant hero, it held my interest for about 15 minutes before going back to the rest of the arcade. Dragon's Lair was a very early example of the game that looks so much better than it plays.

Wow. The parent comment is exactly what I would have said when reviewing recent versions of Final Fantasy.

Re:Overrated...

[DerekLyons]

That's pretty much exactly what I was going to say. I remember playing Dragon's Lair in the arcade once. It sucked, even when not compared to the other games available.
 
What makes them think people are going to pay for a game of comparable quality (in gameplay terms at least) to some of the worse after-thought games that get stuck on kids' DVDs as extras?

What makes them think so? The fact that for over a year - Dragon's Lair machines were printing presses, and they were printing money. You, and the other folks on this thread, who didn't play it represent a distinct minority.

Re:Overrated...

[Zatar]

Eh, one of the main reasons people enjoyed playing the LD games was that they were so beautiful to watch that if someone was any good they'd get a lot of bystanders looking over their shoulders and telling them how great they were. That aspect will be completely missing from a home version.

Also everyone is complaining about how the game is so static and you do the same moves every time but if you think about other games from back then like Robocop or Shinobi or Super Mario or Q*Bert (any game without a random number generator, really) you had theoretical freedom in the game but as the same thing happened every level at the same time, when you got good you really just ended up doing exactly the same pattern of moves every game at the same times and you only ever died if you screwed up the pattern. Of course, people had the freedom of creating and improving their personal "patterns" but it's not as different as people seem to think.

Re:Overrated...

[MarkGriz]

"The game would flash a yellow-ish light in the direction that you were supposed to move the joystick just before you had to enter the move"

Absolutely. Anyone who didn't get this would likely be frustrated by the game. That's not to say that the flashes were always helpful
because most of the time you would rely on memorization rather than waiting for the flashes. Initially I spent far more time watching others
play than I did playing, which is great for learning the moves. It could be damn frustrating when you screwed up, especially when you thought you
have memorized a series of moves. To make matters worse, at random, some of the scenes were mirror images, and some scene sequences played in a
different order. I completed the game a number of times, which really isn't all that difficult once you've memorized the sequence of moves, yet
it still was tricky to get the timing right.

I think the appeal of this game was that you got the sense of making progress because as you advanced, each scene was completely different.
Despite the poor sense of feedback from the controls, this was a pretty revolutionary for games at that time.

back in the day

[ElephanTS]

This came to my local arcade and I was convinced it was the future of gaming. And then I played it. The scenes took a while to load and the user interaction part wasn't always obvious. You got virtually nothing for your money and everyone hated it for that. We all went back to Mr Do, Asteroids, and Astro Blaster very quickly and then they took it away. Hadn't thought about it since then. Don't see how a HD version is going to improve the clunky gameplay.

The real Classics

[neonprimetime]

Dragon's Lair HD is an achievement no classic gamer will want to be without

I'll stick with the real classics...

• Tetris
• Super Mario 1 & 3
• Frozen Bubble
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Dig Dug
• PaperBoy
• Dr. Mario

Need I say more?

Re:The real Classics

[ElephanTS]

those aren't real classics - they're all 2nd generation classics. The real classics:

Space Invaders, Galaxians, AstroBlaster, Defender, PacMan, Space Panic, Mr Do, Phoenix, Moon Cresta . . . ..

All from about 78-81.

Try telling that to the kids of today!

Re:The real Classics

[thatguywhoiam]

Need I say more?

Definitely not, since you weirdly included PaperBoy, and neglected Lode Runner.

BTW, not all classic games exist on Nintendo's platform. Many, but hardly all.

Re:The real Classics

[BunnyClaws]

I'll stick with the real classics...
Tetris
Super Mario 1 & 3
Frozen Bubble
Sonic the Hedgehog
Dig Dug
PaperBoy
Dr. Mario
Need I say more?

What are you talking about? Are you like in your 20's? The real classics are Asteroids, Space Invaders, Temptest, Pacman, and Donkey Kong. You got to love the kids who think Mario first appeared in Super Mario Bros. Dragons Lair didn't have the best game play however it did have the ability to burn an impression in your mind as you stared in awe. "Oooohhh, it looks like an animated cartoon."

Re:The real Classics

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Sorry ... our definitions of classics are different cause I wasn't born yet

Odds are, your generation would consider classic CARS to have been made before you were born. Classic video games made before you were born still deserve the true classic status.

Re:The real Classics

[Mayhem178]

Try telling that to the kids of today!

I hear ya! Here's a story along those lines. A few years back, I was sitting out on my front porch playing The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on my original Game Boy (yes, it still works, God bless it). Some local kids were roving around in the street on their bikes. One of them saw me sitting there playing what appeared to be a handheld game of some sort, so they approached and asked what I was playing. I told them. They'd never heard of it. They also wanted to know what the strange, bulky handheld system I was using was, and where I got it. I told them. They laughed, and called me a liar right to my face. "That's not a Gameboy!", Kid One said. "This is!" Kid One pulled out a Gameboy Advance (I noted with amusement that a Pokemon cartridge was stuck in it).

I went on to explain that the Gameboy originated in 1989. They didn't believe me. I said, "Wait here." Went inside, got my Gameboy case and all my games (not very many: Zelda, Tetris, Yoshi, Megaman...just the essentials to keep me amused during roadtrips as a child). They were in shock.

Imagine the looks on their faces when I went on to show them a few of my Tiger handhelds. ;)

Re:The real Classics

['nother poster]

Nah. With your attitude, we'd refer to you as punk and yell at you to get off of our lawn. ;)

Re:The real Classics

[tehcyder]

Imagine the looks on their faces when I went on to show them a few of my Tiger handhelds. ;)

...the defendant was quoted as saying, before being sentenced to ten years for child abuse.

Re:The real Classics

[TacNuke]

Sounds like you need food badly..........

Re:The real Classics

[Mayhem178]

Heh, and what makes you think I was doing laundry? I was like, 5.

Re:The real Classics

[Blakey Rat]

Frozen Bubble? Isn't that just a crummy remake of Bust-A-Move? How can a remake count as a "classic?"

Also, do you think that there were no "classic" games before the Nintendo came out? Are you like 18 or something? Criminy.

Suprisingly good game

[OakDragon]

Just seeing a description, this game seems incredibly frustrating or boring: "watch an action sequence play out; when you hear a 'beep' try moving your joystick and/or pressing the button; keep putting quarters in until you get it right."

But for me, a very casual gamer, it was fun. It was the games that required elaborate A-button/B-button/joystick sequences that I couldn't stand. Not sure HD will improve things that much, though.

originally designed as animation

[morie]

Don Bluth originally planned to release Dragons Lair as a movie, but then changed his mind and decided to make a game out of it, so a "Remastered"version isn't such a bad name.

don't ask me where I got this wisdom, I read it somewhere when the game was just eleased originally.

Multi-player

[BigNumber]

In the arcade where I played this game, it was a multi-player game. Everyone had their special boards where they had memorized all the right moves. Personally, I was the only one who could get past the black knight.

Okay...now I feel old again.

Screenshots and trailer

[De Lemming]

As the review doesn't show any graphics, here are a number of screenshots on Digital Leisure's site. Their site also has a trailer here.

How to play DL

[DrXym]

Insert coin. Randomly mash joystick. Insert coin. Randomly mash joystick. Insert coin. Randomly mash joystick - success!!!! - randomly mash joystick. Insert coin etc.

in it's era...

[Churla]

I actually liked the second one "space ace" more.

Although there was a Laserdisc centric game which I cannot remember the name of which used footage from Lupin III (anime) for it's content. That was the most interesting because to this day I can still hum the music from it.

Re:in it's era...

[Anonymous Coward]

That game was called Cliff Hanger.

Re:in it's era...

[Mister Whirly]

And what about Don Bluth's RPG game Thayer's Quest? It had a big old keyboard with tons of buttons and was even more frustrating than Dragons Lair/Space Ace...

Anyone remember the 'Wizard' game with a keyboard?

[siberian]

The follow-on to Space Ace and Dragons Lair was some 'Wizards Apprentice' type game with a full membrane keyboard.

It was even more of a gnarly quarter muncher because you had to move from a joystick and an action button to a full 101 key keypad and an unfamiliar user interface. Anyone remember the name of this game?

Anyhow, SPACE ACE ROCKS, DOWN WITH DRAGONS LAIR!! ;)

I always felt like players should charge their audience an admission fee.

Redo it as a "real" game

[The Wicked Priest]

What made this game stand out in its day were "graphics" that couldn't be rendered in real time, back then. But today, they could be. Imagine the look of the original, but with fully interactive gameplay -- that's what I'd like to see.

Re:50 cents?

[BunnyClaws]

I think it was more like 4 quarters. You put in 4 quarters and played for about 15 seconds before you were killed.

Re:Anyone remember the 'Wizard' game with a keyboa

[GodaiYuhsaku]

Thayer's Quest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thayer's_Quest

For those of you who can't wait.

[forgotten_my_nick]

Dungeon Escape is fun. :)

http://www.studiohunty.com/dungeon/

I liked Dragons Lair when it came out but as games go now, it can be somewhat annoying to play.

Dungeon Escape!

[axolotl_farmer]

For those who want to see what Dragon's Lair is like, but prefer stick-figures to cels, there's the excellent flash game Dungeon Escape!.

Anyone beat that one yet?

And You were Right

[Greyfox]

For the most part it WAS the future of gaming. Pity Mr Do, Asteroids and Astro Blaster weren't...

Re:Already been done for the XBOX?

[PhiberOptix]

Dragon's Lair 3D != Dragon's Lair

I hated this game.

[recursiv]

I spent 25 cents on it. I put my quarter in and started the game. I watched the intro, and then I was dead. Evidently the intro was actually the game. Anyway, this pissed me off so much that I've hated it ever since.

Quarter eater

[sootman]

"...in the arcade it was a quarter eater."

Sure was. It was the first game I ever saw that was fifty cents a pop.

And for all those who are complaining about how random the play was, this game had patterns, same as any other game. When you're trying to get past those two spinning Q-Tips, you press the stick when he lunges. In the water, you go towards the lighter stream, etc. Remember kids, this was nineteen eighty freaking three--Dragon's Lair looked WORLDS better than what else was out there. Who cares if the gameplay was less than perfect. Besides, that princess was a piece of ass. (No surprise, I guess: reading the Wikipedia article, the studio couldn't afford a model so they just looked at Playboys. Ha.)

Gameplay suffered because there was only one laser disc in the system so there was a short blank-screen delay when the scenes switched from the 'setup' to the 'result.'. I heard that Space Ace had two and it would switch back and forth between them with no delay, but reading Wikipedia I see that there were conversion kits to make DL into SA, so who knows--I might be remembering wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Lair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ace

Easter Egg - Unlimited Lives

[caffeinatedOnline]

While holding the joystick up and to the left, hold down the sword button while inserting your quarter. This will give you lives until you finish the game... really use to piss people off when I would do it and die 50 times in the same spot...

Re:Easter Egg - Unlimited Lives

[nacturation]

Dammit... where were you in my childhood to tell me this information? I'd be a rich man today had I known this. That, and unlimited health for Gauntlet. And a time machine.

Laser Disc Games in general

[logicassasin]

DL is being re-released for the nth time... Big whoop. I remember DL from Showbiz Pizza the day it was first powered up there. I remember the line of tokens on the marquee holding places for a chance to play. I remember it was the first game I ever saw that demanded two tokens or 50 cents to play. I do have some fond memories of the game, but playing it was not one of them.

To be honest with you, I think we can attribute Dragons Lair whole concept to today's game model - Solve a puzzle, move on to the next area, solve another one, move on, beat the game, that's it. Dragon's Lair, as far as gameplay goes, was horrible. The appeal was the display, the cartoon. We wanted to see what happens next, we wanted to see each area and the action that took place. We wanted to know more of the storyline, wanted to see how it unfolded. We wanted to see someone beat the game, and ultimately, do the same ourselves. The problem was that once you beat it, like pretty much every game released these days, you're done with it. There's no real reason to play it again. That's the problem with Dragon's Lair and every other game like it; ZERO replay value.

To their credit, the programmers DID try to make a few games that were more like traditional games, they just happened to use a laserdisc for backgrounds, storylines, etc. M.A.C.H. 3, FireFox, and Bega's Battle (which used footage from the anime "Harmageddon") were better games than DL simply because they had more traditional interaction than DL (I blistered my fingers on MACH3 several times).

That said... Space Ace, from a storyline point of view, was a better experience. The story was far more linear than Dragon's Lair, and the characters themselves were more fleshed out and not as one-dimentional as Dragon's Lair's. It was more entertaining to watch and arguably more interactive than Dragon's Lair. The same goes for Cliffhanger; better story, better characters, better experience most likely because it was based on a real movie (I freaked out the first time I saw "Castle of Cagliostro" some 10 years later).

The way it was meant to be seen?

[ChaosDiscord]

Elizabeth Foster, President of Digital Leisure:

With the power of today's computers, gamers can now enjoy Dragon's Lair the way it was meant to be seen.

Played off a laserdisc, output on a standard definition video monitor mounted inside of an arcade cabinet surrounded by the flashing and noises of other video games?

Watch the whole thing

[Rob T Firefly]

Someone ripped the video and posted the whole thing to youtube. No quarters needed.

Great!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Great! Now I can pick up right where I left off -- falling off that god damned burning rope into the lava.