Dragon’s Lair HD DVD Review

We recently received a copy of Dragon’s Lair HD DVD to review. Dragon’s Lair is the arcade game that started it all for some gamers including myself. I was six years old in 1983, and when this title hit the arcades that year, it really blew people away. Dragon’s Lair was the first game to truly bridge the gap between video games and animated film. If you had the proper skills, you were able to unlock movie scenes in a linear fashion throughout the laserdisc phenom. Dragon’s Lair wasn’t really a video game or a movie either, leaving it in a strange place in history.

The weekly trip to the arcade in 1983 was always exciting for me and I spent most of my mom’s quarters trying to beat Dragon’s Lair. I vividly recall the day we got Dragon’s Lair in our town. It was a
one-of-a-kind game and still is in many ways. For a short moment in time, it seemed like it would be the future of gaming, but the game slowly faded from the scene and no great sequel was ever made.

Nostalgia Value

The biggest part of Dragon’s Lair HD DVD is the nostalgic value it brings us. It’s a good purchase for old-school gamers like myself with fond memories of the game. Home releases of this game simply never matched the arcade experience until now. The high-definition formats of this game including Blu-ray and HD DVD give us a more fluid and seamless experience that we all remember.

Gameplay

The gameplay is vastly improved over previous home releases with lightning fast load times and great response time with the remote. With the Xbox 360 HD DVD, you can also use any controller to play the title with. Unfortunately, there are on-screen prompts that basically give you hints of what moves to take in the game, which removes much of the challenge of the original.

Customization

There isn’t really any customization worth mentioning found on the HD DVD release. The Blu-ray version does offer the ability to change the number of lives, and change the text overlays, which gives it a slight advantage over the HD version.

Video & Audio

The video quality is where this title really shines and matches the arcade experience for the first time. At 1080p with superior contrast, this title is definitely a sight to see. The HD DVD version of ‘Dragon’s Lair’ includes a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix, which is really mind blowing considering the age of the game. I never expected to one day be playing Dragon’s Lair in high definition on my 50″ television with surround sound. Dragon’s Lair always deserved to come back in style, and I believe that it finally has.

Bonus Content

There’s plenty of Bonus Content found on the disc. Often, bonus content on discs has little value, but I found the content from Dragon’s Lair to be interesting. The most interesting bonus feature is the Video Commentary with Bluth, Goldman and Dyer. They appear together in a small box in the top right corner, commenting along with the complete 19-minute short film of the game.

Final Opinion

If you love Dragon’s Lair, then this is a great purchase or rental for you. This title brought back some happy memories for me and also reminded me of how old I am, and how far we have come in gaming. We will probably never see this style of game ever again, but it still has a unique value that continues to captivate gamers such as myself. I’m not sure if they plan to re-release this game in the future, but I would love to see more customization options. Other than that, it lived up to my expectations and exceeded them in the video and audio categories.