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Dragon's Lair Remastered in HD 263

Posted by CmdrTaco from the maybe-this-time-i'll-save-daphne dept.
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.
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Dragon's Lair Remastered in HD More

Dragon's Lair Remastered in HD

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  • I remember... (Score:2, Funny)

    by 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... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dubmun ( 891874 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:47AM (#15531692) Homepage Journal
    Pong HD... lets see those pixels shine!

  • I'd love to play it again in HD (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:49AM (#15531700)
    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... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:49AM (#15531705) Homepage Journal
    Dragon's Lair [wikipedia.org] 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... (Score:5, Funny)

      by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:00AM (#15531769)
      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... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tim C ( 15259 )
      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... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @12:57PM (#15533300) Homepage
        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.
    • I was fixing videogames in a high school co-op program at a service center for Tilt! arcades when DL came out. Even with a DL game in the warehouse on freeplay, it was a bugger to master. I saw the ending sequence by playing the disc directly from the player in the machine.

      The first time I saw the game won during actual gameplay was when I saw the Dragon's Lair special of the old Starcade [starcade.tv] game show. (The Starcade website is going through upgrades or something at the moment of this post)

    • Re:Overrated... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:58AM (#15532204) Homepage
      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.
      • It was definitely a stupid game. I don't think I ever put a quarter in it. it looked so nice, but it gave the player absolutely no feedback about what he should be doing. It seemed like playing blindfolded.

        It was very stupid.

    • Re:Overrated... (Score:4, Funny)

      by slindseyusa ( 942823 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @11:20AM (#15532404)
      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.

  • back in the day (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ElephanTS ( 624421 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:52AM (#15531726)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by neonprimetime ( 528653 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:53AM (#15531733)
    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 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ElephanTS ( 624421 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:01AM (#15531776)
      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 (Score:5, Funny)

        by Mayhem178 ( 920970 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:19AM (#15531903)
        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. ;)
      • I rather liked Tempest (Atari 1981) and Frogger (Sega/Gremlin 1981). The vector graphics of Tempest were pretty intense. The PS2 Tempest release does not work well because of controller issues and a TV display is just not the same as the original Wells-Gardner vector display. The PS2 version of Frogger works well.
        • I'm one of the ... *counts on fingers * ... 8 people in the world who bought an Atari Jaguar.

          Tempest 2000 on that is fucking amazingly fun to play. Play it with the jag hooked up to an amp capable of Pro-Logic II (heh, it's the best you're gonna get from a 2-channel source) and enjoy. For added entertainment, imbibe your intoxicant of choice before playing.

          Woohoo!
          • "I'm one of the ... *counts on fingers * ... 8 people in the world who bought an Atari Jaguar."

            Big deal! I'm one of the three people in the world who bought a Jaguar CD! Just for Jeff Minter's VLM! ;-)
    • ....wow, a Sega game amongst the "classics" list? Those are maybe the "modern" classics. I'd say the real classics are as follows:

      • Pong
      • Pac-man
      • Donkey Kong
      • Asteroids
      • Space Invaders
      At least, those were the most popular as I remember them. And that doesn't dig into like, Colecovision and whatnot. I could mention Adventure!, Pitfall, and several others. And with the exception of Pong, I still love all of them.
      • "a Sega game amongst the "classics" list"

        Uh, I would consider Frogger [klov.com] a classic. It's at least as old as Donkey Kong.
    • 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.

    • Frozen Bubble is a classic? Might as well replace the rest of that list with clones as well then.

    • 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

      • Hey! I'm in my twenties and I first encountered Mario in Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600. I wish Nintendo would bring back Mario's limited telekinetic abilities.
      • Hey, be fair. I'm in my 20s, and I remember playing all of those games. My local laundromat had a Pac-man and a Space Invaders machine. Man, I sank a lot of quarters into those things. Wish that laundromat was still there. :(

        My grandparents own a handheld Donkey Kong game from who knows what year (even I can't remember). It's a big, bulky thing, it looks like a big wedge of cheese (30 degree angle) on its side, with a joystick and a button. Man, I loved that thing.
        • My local laundromat had a Pac-man and a Space Invaders machine. Man, I sank a lot of quarters into those things.

          So you stood there at the games until the clothes dried themselves. You would have gotton an hour's use from the dryer on four quarters which was more than most people got playing four quarters on a video game. I agree, though. It was much easier to carry a dried, washtub shaped, lump of clothes home from the laundromat.
    • Problem is there aren't enough levels, I finished the 100 levels with the ubuntu package, now I want more.
    • You forgot one -- Duke Nukem Forever.

    • Frozen Bubble? This is what passes for a classic??

      Clones can't be classics. The original was a classic, albeit from the later age of classics. Porting it to Linux does not mean you have created a new classic -- it just means there's a shortage of games on Linux.

    • Re:The real Classics (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 )
      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.
  • 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.

    • 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."

      It was, and for that exact reason, I put exactly 4 quarters into it before I walked away and said the hell with it.

      At the time, I was a bit of an arcade junkie. And I thought Dragon's Lair sucked

      But for me, a very casual gamer, it was fun. It was the games that required el

  • originally designed as animation (Score:4, Informative)

    by morie ( 227571 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:54AM (#15531743) Homepage
    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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BigNumber ( 457893 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:58AM (#15531759)
    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 (Score:5, Informative)

    by De Lemming ( 227104 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @09:59AM (#15531767) Homepage
    As the review doesn't show any graphics, here are a number of screenshots on Digital Leisure's site [digitalleisure.com]. Their site also has a trailer here [digitalleisure.com].

  • How to play DL (Score:5, Funny)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:01AM (#15531778)
    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... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Churla ( 936633 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:03AM (#15531787)
    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.

  • And quite playable. See Daphne. [daphne-emu.com]

    You'll need to locate the graphic files yourself, of course. But anyone who has done the Mame thing should know how to do that.

  • Anyone remember the 'Wizard' game with a keyboard? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by siberian ( 14177 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:07AM (#15531813)
    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.

  • I don't seen how making a cartoon HD will make it any better. I remember this in the arcade and as others have mentioned, it was a quarter eater that wan't very fun to play. It definately looked good but gameplay was all guesswork or memory. Minimal to zero skill was involved. You either knew where to go and lived or you didn't and died.

    I also remember when it came out for the PC around 1991. It took 7-9 floppies and looked nearly as good as the original. It was fun for about one night.
  • I was considering downloading Daphne as it is one of the few classic emulators I don't have.

    http://www.daphne-emu.com/ [daphne-emu.com]

    I am a big fan of software preservation. However, if I only emulate the original copy would that be considered warez now that a new shiny version is back on retail shelves?

    Honestly, I wonder if this might spin off a retro-trend in similiar twitch-movie gaming. I don't see why people couldn't make similiar games with DVD systems today. You just branch to various chapters on a disc and hit
    • I don't see why people couldn't make similiar games with DVD systems today. You just branch to various chapters on a disc and hit a button at precisely the right time.

      Already done. Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair 2: Time Warp, Dragon's Lair 3, and Space Ace, all available on interactive DVDs, though only one of them is available as new from amazon.com. There are others as well.
  • Is a high-definition cartoon really better than a regular cartoon? I don't think so. Either way the cells are coloured or shaded. More detail in a cartoon isn't too impressive because it's not the kind of detail that matters, compared to real-life actors.
    • I've thought about converting some animated shows into HD for fun, but not upscaling. Instead, I'd take advantage of the bigger canvas of HD and stitch frames together so you could see the backgrounds in their full glory rather than the quick pans across them and otherwise expand the field of view (e.g. a shot from Gargoyles [imdb.com] of Xanatos' Eerie Building that panned from pointing down at the base up to being level with Castle Wyvern atop it, but instead of being a pan being stitched together as a reveal).

  • Redo it as a "real" game (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Wicked Priest ( 632846 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:13AM (#15531865)
    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.
  • One thing I didn't like about Dragon's Lair was that if you died a couple times at the same place, the game would automatically bypass that scene. I understand that it was done that way because the designers knew that people would be standing around watching and they wanted people to be able to see as much of the game as possible, but they should have put in some way to turn that feature off.
  • I have one of the old Sony "LaserMax" 1453 Laserdisc players that went into the console in the arcade. All I need is a Dragon's Lair Laserdisc and the schematics for the controller board (plugs into the RS-232 port on the player) and I can have my own MAME and Dragon's Lair console! Woohoo!

  • For those of you who can't wait. (Score:3, Funny)

    by forgotten_my_nick ( 802929 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:21AM (#15531916)
    Dungeon Escape is fun. :)

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

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

  • Dungeon Escape! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by axolotl_farmer ( 465996 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:23AM (#15531926)
    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! [studiohunty.com].

    Anyone beat that one yet?
  • ... using Flash or SVG or something. That way anyone can re-rasterize this silly game it to whichever absurd resolution they can handle.

    Actually now that I think of it, that might be a nice proof-of-concept for resolution-independent animation recording... lots of CPU though...

  • IIRC, Dragon's Lair was the first game that took TWO quarters to get a credit. At least in my city where the game made the local news.

  • I hated this game. (Score:5, Funny)

    by recursiv ( 324497 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:48AM (#15532133) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • Yeah, the intro would come up, and you had to push right a couple times to jump across the bridges before he even went in the castle.

      Most machines had this turned off. Perhaps your experience is why they turned it off. I figured it was to decrease game time and thus increase throughput.

  • Quarter eater (Score:5, Informative)

    by sootman ( 158191 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @10:52AM (#15532162) Homepage Journal
    "...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 [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ace [wikipedia.org]
  • While I never got to play Dragon's Lair for all the reasons people have posted (too expensive, line too long, looked way too tough) there was another game that came out that had the same annimation and interface that I did get to play.

    It was some type of spy/noir game set in the 40s or something like that. You had to drive up some curvy road hitting the joystick at just the right moments. That game was pretty cool and i seem to remember it probably because it was animated so nicely.

    I'll have to hunt aroun
  • 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 a
    • Ahh. Cliffhanger.

      The story/animation in that game captured me in a big, big way. When I discovered the Miyazaki film within the same year, (or rather, some story books using stills from the film; getting an acutal copy was somewhat more challenging), I was similarly blown away. --Manga and anime were unknown words back in '83, and I was of the first wave of Westerners to fall under its spell.

      Good times!


      -FL

  • Worst actual gameplay ever. It was just a big money waster until you figured out the moves.

    I did very much enjoy watching people who had learned all the moves go to the end but I personally thought the gameplay was crap. I was much happier to step across the isle and play Tron. Man would I love to own that cabinet today.

  • The way it was meant to be seen? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ChaosDiscord ( 4913 ) * on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @12:11PM (#15532880) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @12:14PM (#15532902) Homepage Journal
    Someone ripped the video and posted the whole thing to youtube. [youtube.com] No quarters needed.
  • I agree with most posters on this topic... Dragon's Lair was too difficult to be more than a player-abusing quarter-eater.

    There were some other laser disc games that were fun, though:

    1. Super Don Quixote [klov.com] -- Like Dragon's Lair, but with visible prompts so you didn't have to guess which way to move the joystick
    2. M.A.C.H. 3 [klov.com] -- A very primitive sort of flight simulator game, but really fun anyway
    3. Astron Belt [klov.com] -- Like M.A.C.H. 3 set in Tron-style cyberspace (or maybe 2001-style LSD-hyperspace. Not quite as fun to p

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