Dragon's Lair HD
© N/A
Platform: Blu-Ray
ESRB: E
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Digital Leisure
Publisher: Digital Leisure
Suggested Retail: $49.99
Graphics: B
Sound: C+
Gameplay: D
Replay: D
Fun Factor: D
Buy it now!
"Dragon's Lair"
By: Captain Gordon EdwardDate: Monday, April 30, 2007
DVD games have been around for quite some time, but then again so have CD games. No I am not talking about PC games that you can plug into your drives and install onto your computer, nor am I talking about DVDs that you plug into a gaming console and save your progress every few minutes. I am talking about a straight up game that is streamed off of a disk and played off of that format exclusively. If you remember the program in school, it could be seen as a Hypercard game. But with the Blu-ray things have changed, and more space can be fit onto disks. There is a chance to have interactive menus while movies play in the backgrounds. Of course it also means that you can play a newly created Blu-ray game that is made to play like the DVD games of the past. The game was designed for play on a Blue-ray player, and of course I decided to give it a whirl on my Playstation 3.
Of course the series of Dragon’s Lair has also been around for quite some time. I fondly remember as a kid going to an arcade and popping in fifty cents to play it, but back then I was not really great at the game, which resulted with me dying every thirty seconds. You may be surprised on how quickly fifty cents is consumed in a game like Dragon’s Lair when you die that often. But you may also be surprised after all of these years how little things have changed. You control the Dirk of Daring in this HD port from the arcade. As the valiant knight you must attempt to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of a dragon, which is why it is called Dragon’s Lair.
Controls are fairly simple for the game, where you need to use the arrow keys (I used the D-Pad) to navigate through traps and battles with enemies. You will also need to press the X (OK) button in some situations to further your progress when interacting with the environment. The game will not directly tell you when you need to move in the different directions, so that means you will end up dying quite a bit trying to figure out what direction to move in, and when to press the correct buttons.
Dying will be second nature to the game, and you will often die several times on every puzzle trying to get the proper timing. Of course there are subtle hints on which direction you need to go in, but sometimes it feels a bit too random, which is why you will end up dying often. The bright side about dying is that you will generally see a different death animation for each section you die on, sometimes several different ones, but it still fills you with a bit of lament.
When I played the game there was an error though. A few moments into the game if I were to die and re-spawn I would warp around to a different part of the castle. This meant that I had no idea on where I was going, or what puzzle was around the next corner. Even if I were to complete the path, the moment that I died I would warp to a different place in the game. I was eventually solved it by putting the controller down and letting my character die for a few minutes while I went to the washroom. This made the game a little annoying after being trapped in this error, but after I got out of it I was able to play the game normally until I started over.
Graphically the game is beautiful in its simple animation. I would have loved to see a few more frames, but the art depicted is great to watch. It even made me wish that the adventure were more so just a DVD rather than a DVD game so that I could experience it as a simple story. The levels vary drastically and that adds a dynamic feel to the different sections of the castle. For sound well you are going to hear a lot of beeps as you continually push the buttons in the direction you want to move the character, without it responding, but you will also hear the same death music over and over again. The game sounds just as I remember it, which is a bonus.
In the end, there are a few problems with the game, which make it hard for me to recommend for others to play. The main was the glitch I experienced made it difficult to continue playing in general. Constant deaths made it an annoying experience, but those who like that in a game will love this one. I really wanted to love this game and have the nostalgia rush over me, but it was unable to deliver a satisfying experience because of the glitch. I loved it so much from the past, I would have loved to see this transfer over nicely, but it was not able to pull it through in the end. As a side note the game has a few video extras that make the Dragon Lair nut love it... but for others you may wish to avoid. Wrapping up, Captain Gordon gives Dragon’s Liar a C-.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? CaptainGordonEdward@Gmail.com
