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Graphics Software Entertainment Games

Dragon's Lair 3D Not Worth The Effort 286

Posted by timothy from the behind-its-time dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "While not the best source for gaming information, CNNs Technology section has a review of Ubi Softs Dragon's Lair 3D. Long story short, according to the writer Marc Saltzman, the game isn't worth it. In fact, the opening paragraph says, 'The only thing worse than a lousy video game is when it taints a well-respected, 20-year-old franchise.' One interesting tidbit from the article, the original Dragon's Lair is one of only three video games on display at the Smithsonian. The other two games being Pac-Man and Pong."
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Dragon's Lair 3D Not Worth The Effort

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  • It is too bad they butcherd it, Dragons Lair was a kick ass game. Oh well, I still have Xcom (the original)

  • Oh great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:40PM (#5296912) Homepage Journal
    My first name is Dirk, so does this mean I'm going to go through ANOTHER round of meeting people for the first time and having them say, "oh, like Dirk the Daring?" Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad for this latest version to flop.

  • I like Dragon's Lair 3D (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:40PM (#5296913)
    Althought I got stuck pretty far in to the game, I think DL3D is an excellent game keeping true to the original Dragon's Lair.

    DL 3D gives the full range of motion the original Dragon's Lair always lacked. D3 3D also keeps up the cartoonyness and originality from the original.

    It's definately worth checking out in my opinion. But as the CNN review's opinion differs, it only proves that everyone has their own opinion...
    • I'm with you... I like the game.

      It's fun, it harkens back to the "Golden Age" of the arcade, and it's absolutely stunning on my 65" Mitsubishi at 1080i!

    • Yea, I liked it pretty well too. The full range motion, like you mentioned, plus being able to save the game at any time. It was a not-too-hard, jumping/puzzle, fight/action game with a little bit of a story. Nice change of pace from the frantic twitch FPSs that we are bombarded with. One thing I've noticed in other bad reviews of it is they say Dirk moves way too slow. I wonder if they just didn't figure out double-tapping the forward key makes him run faster. Only thing I didn't like was lots of crashing. Somewhat buggy. Also, it was a little short.
      • Only thing I didn't like was lots of crashing. Somewhat buggy.

        I assume this is your first UbiSoft game then? Frequent random crashes and save file corruption are their trademarks.

    • Re:I like Dragon's Lair 3D (Score:5, Informative)

      by L-Train8 ( 70991 ) <Matthew_Hawk@ho[ ]il.com ['tma' in gap]> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:07PM (#5297934) Homepage Journal
      While the original Dragon's Lair was a ground-breaking game, it sure had it's problems. The animation was very cool, and at the time it was head and shoulders above the blocky, aliased, 256 color look of anything else in the arcade. But the twitchy game play was pretty flawed.

      The new game recreates those same strengths and weaknesses. The cell-shading looks great, and it really captures the look of the original. The animated look is really done right, and looks pretty fresh. But the game play can be at best uninspired to downright bad.

      For example, on one level, you walk into a room with three exit doors. The floor starts to crumble. Only one of the doors works, and if you don't choose it right away, you will fall through the floor to your death. In the original, there were a lot of this type of puzzle. The correct door would flash white and you'd have a split second to move the joystick in that direction. In the 3D version, there are no visual cues. You have to use trial and error. Fortunately, you are not paying a quarter for 3 chances to find which is the right door. This kind of challenge captures what is worst about the original.

      When DL3D is not following the dreadful control scheme of the original, it provides mediocre puzzles by todays standards. The one big technical distinction this game has, namely that it is the only game out to have HDTV output, is countered by the fact that the framerate can crawl in HDTV mode.

      This game is very much like the original. It looks great, it's technically innovative, and it is deeply flawed.

  • Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <jason.nash@nosPam.gmail.com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:41PM (#5296922)
    Why is this on Slashdot now? That game has been out a while. I messed with it on XBox. It's the only title that does 1080i HD. The game itself was terrible...though my Dragon's Lair fan friend liked it.

    Not even worth an article.....

  • Well respected? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkidd@gmail . c om> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:41PM (#5296927) Homepage
    Shall we define well respected? Dragon's Lair was never a good game, just memorable since it used full animated cartoons and had a story in a time in which no one questioned why the yellow circle eating dots. Dragon's Lair 3D didn't do anything to the legacy in my opinion.

    • Re:Well respected? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jason.hall ( 640247 )
      I'd say it was well-respected since it used a technology unlike any other game in the room, successfully enough that there was usually a line to play it.

    • Re:Well respected? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:56PM (#5297055) Homepage Journal
      The first game to bring hand animation, laserdisks, and alternative paths together in a single game. The technology was really advanced for the time, and it grossed 34,000,000 in the first year, thats a lot of quarters.
      • That's because it cost $50 bucks to play for any reasonable amount of time and accomplish anything in the game. Though I did really enjoy the game ;)
      • >The first game to bring hand animation,
        >laserdisks, and alternative paths together in a
        >single game.

        Historically significant isn't the same thing well-respected.

        -l

    • Re:Well respected? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bughunter ( 10093 )
      Agreed. I watched people pump quarters into it but could never understand why... it was just as fun to stand there and watch someone else play.

      Now the real landmark game IMO, was Mach III [coinop.org]. With laserdisc backgrounds and computer generated targets, it was slightly more challenging than Battlezone [ggdb.com], and much more visually stunning. I was a starving college student when it came out, but I pumped at least $20 a week into that machine just to get my daily adrenaline fix.

      That and Centaur [pinball.nu]. Man, those were the days when pinball machines rocked.

      • I was really impressed by that game. It was one of the few games from the 80s that really captured my attention (and money). Ah, the memories.

        What I *can't* understand is why they chose Pac-Man for the Smithsonian... why not Ms. Pac Man? I think it was a better game, personally. And it is the #1 collectible arcade machine in the world.

      • Re:Well respected? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Performer Guy ( 69820 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:07PM (#5297585)
        I watched people pump quarters in, watched them play, remembered their moves then tried it myself and mastered it without emptying my wallet. It was amazing at the time, but laser discs are inherently limited. It WAS ahead of it's time.

        Very annoying when the joystick wore out though. Ahh the black screen of doom as the laser disc accessed the appropriate death sequence. Those were the days.
      • Does anyone rememebr that game where you are a cowboy? Went around shooting at characters. All on a black background? The game play was shown as a hologram. Looked really cool. Played worse than anything I have ever come across. Reminds me of the horrible holograms they still have in Space Mountain at Disney World.

    • Re:Well respected? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Another AC ( 151302 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:08PM (#5297162)
      Yeah, the game _looked_ cool, but it played like a "rat touches button, gets shocked" experiment.

      My experience with dragon's lair:

      life 1:
      2 seconds: dirk walking towards a castle.
      2 seconds: pause.
      2 seconds: dead dirk with skulls

      life 2:
      2 seconds: dirk crossing a bridge
      2 seconds: pause.
      2 seconds: dead dirk with skulls

      life 3:
      2 seconds: dirk sees some gold.
      2 seconds: pause.
      ??
      2 seconds: profit.

    • Re:Well respected? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fondue ( 244902 )
      Dragon's Lair was an interesting technical experiment without a game attached, from a time when such mistakes could be more easily forgiven (because no one had made them before). The fact that the developers of the game have continued to flog the same pretty but gameless dead horse for the following 20 years (Dragon's Lair and its equally non-interactive ilk tainting every platform from the 3DO to the Game Boy) strikes me as an unprecedented marathon of creative bankrupcy.

      Interesting how nostalgia can be based entirely on looks. (Myst- another tedious waste of polyurethane and aluminium- has a similarly inexplicable cult following.)

  • I played that game so much in the arcade. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:42PM (#5296930)
    In fact my hand still involuntarily twitches in the direction of white flashing lights.

  • So (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bob Abooey ( 224634 ) <bababooey@techie.com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:43PM (#5296944) Homepage Journal
    Game reviews are so subjective I don't know why anyone would put any stock in them.

    I could write up a review of the latest version of nethack describing how intense it is and how it sucks you right into the game and eats up hours of your life which would be a bunch of blather to someone who only enjoys FP shooters. Of course that's an exageration to prove my point but you get the idea.

  • yeah, but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by stjohn909 ( 234133 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:44PM (#5296947)
    This reviewer also panned Unreal Tournament.
    FWIW.
    • OT. but that's the first Ken MacLeod sig I've seen. Cassini Division is a great book. Interesting to compare the socialists in space in Cassini Division with the libertarians on Mars in Stone Canals. Also like the lead character doing the right thing for the wrong and prejudiced reasons.

  • One game is a 20 year franchise? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by loucura! ( 247834 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:44PM (#5296951)
    The game is a sequel. It suffers the same problems that most sequels suffer. What made the original popular was it's originality. Sequels suck because they try to leech off from the originality of the original.

    That said. How the hell does one game make a 20 year franchise? Did Dragon's Lair spawn several sequels? If not, then it's a 20 year late sequel.

    Real franchises spawn fun sequels...

  • Taints a well-respected, 20-year-old franchise (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:44PM (#5296952)
    Unfortunately, trying to control Dirk is a game in itself. And not a fun one.

    Sounds like they've reproduced the all the 'magic' of the original, if you ask me.

  • "Taint"? (Score:4, Funny)

    by tapin ( 157076 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:44PM (#5296953)
    "Taint" is in the eye of the beholder.

    While some would argue that any of those isometric-view or 3D Pac Man games from the late eighties and early nineties (Pac Man World, anyone?) "tainted" the original, I'd say even more would just go "huh? Never heard of 'em."

    Did Frogger 3D "taint" the original Frogger? IMO, no, it's just pretty much been forgotten. Even better yet, what about Centipede 3D?

    Dragon's Lair 3D might be a total waste of time and money for anyone developing or playing it, but that doesn't mean that it detracts from the original (which was pretty much as close to a video game version of "simon says" as you could get, of course. But, ooh, it's on a laserdisc! Eh, whatever...)

  • Marc Saltzman (Score:5, Informative)

    by ShwAsasin ( 120187 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:45PM (#5296959) Journal
    Marc Saltzman isn't just a CNN croney, he writes for numerous newspapers (Globe Technology, Toronto Star), writes reviews for Electronic Playground TV Show, written game Design / Review books, and much more. Perhaps you should look beyond the CNN and see who the true author of the article is, you'd be surprised at the content that AOL has on their site and software even though it's branded AOL. Same is true with CNN.

  • Ugh... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jace of Fuse! ( 72042 )
    I was looking forward to this title, too.

    Though I must say I'm not at all shocked. After all, have any of the Dragon's Lair games been good since the first one? And really, was the first one any good for any reason other than the novelty?

    I recall seeing something somewhere about being able to make the original game play itself. I imagine it was much cooler to watch as a cartoon than it was to play as a game.

  • I liked it (Score:5, Informative)

    by iocat ( 572367 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:47PM (#5296974) Homepage Journal
    I played it and I didn't think it was that bad. It's a lot more like the original Dragon's Lair than it is a traditional, modern, platformer. While there are some animation and control problems, as a fan of the original, I definitely enjoyed this latest one. All of the history abnd background material on the disc was cool too. Out of 10, I'd give 6 or 7. It's not the best game ever, but it was a good way to waste a few hours.

    • Re:I liked it (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:06PM (#5297144)
      Well I'm sorry you're wrong. CNN doesn't lie ok! Now I'm going to go back to being freaked out in my basement with my ducktape and wait until the terror drops from orange.
      • Whatever... I'm waiting from the Fair and Balanced review from Fox...

        "Mr. Bluth, with all due respect, you're wrong! The American people don't want great graphics unless the gameplay is there too, and frankly, the gameplay is just not there in Dragon's Lair. But I respect your opinion, and you have a lot of guts coming on the Factor tonight."

      • don't take your tinfoil hat off yet! you've been had....you should be freaked out in your basement with duct tape

  • Face it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:49PM (#5296989) Homepage
    There are rarely "updates" of classic games that are worth the effort of playing. The two that immediately leap to my mind are Defender 2000 and Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar. I'm sure there are others that are decent, but there are many crappy ones too. The 3D Frogger games, Robotron X, the latest 3D Defender update, the 3D Spy Hunter, and on and on.

    Wait...I'm seeing a trend here. Taking classic 2D games into 3D is often a bad idea. I'm shocked. Shocked I say.
    • Taking classic 2D games into 3D is often a bad idea.

      One possibility is that the original 2-D games were much more abstract (by necessity due to limited RAM, etc.) than their modern 3-D retrials. This abstractness, in itself, was part of the fun experience that we remember. Sometimes, the problem with sophisitcated 3-D games is that they leave little to the imagination leaving only the experience the game designers provide.

      This isn't always true, because the best 3-D games are fantastic (in the fantasy sense) and still capture our imaginations. It just seems much much harder to do this well in 3-D than 2-D, possibly due to the vastly greater amount of information required in the extra dimension.
    • Wait...I'm seeing a trend here. Taking classic 2D games into 3D is often a bad idea. I'm shocked. Shocked I say.
      Mario 64. Mario Sunshine. Metroid Prime. QED.

  • Well.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:52PM (#5297027) Homepage Journal

    'The only thing worse than a lousy video game is when it taints a well-respected, 20-year-old franchise.'

    Let's hope this line isn't repeated when Duke Nukem Forever is finally released in 2016.

  • Ubi Sucks (Score:4, Informative)

    by LordYUK ( 552359 ) <jeffwright821.gmail@com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:54PM (#5297043)
    Ubi sucks. They butchered Pools of Radiance 2, and they've apparently butchered Dragons Lair 2 also.

    I havent bought an Ubi game since PoR, nor do I plan on ever buying another Ubi game again. Ubi is #1 on my personal shit list of game producing companies.

    • Re:Ubi Sucks (Score:4, Informative)

      by buffy ( 8100 ) <buffy@pa[ ]et.net ['rap' in gap]> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:07PM (#5297155) Homepage
      Ubi sucks. They butchered Pools of Radiance 2, and they've apparently butchered Dragons Lair 2 also.

      Yeah...but Splinter Cell [splintercell.com] kicks ass, dude! Don't give up on 'em until you play it!

    • Re:Ubi Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Warin ( 200873 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:39PM (#5297396)
      There is one title that completely nullifies your opinion of UBI...

      IL-2 Sturmovik.

      One of the best flight sims ever, but largely ignored because it deals with the eastern front. Hopefully the stand alone 'expansion' Forgotten Battles rectifies this by adding the American aircraft to the mix. Its one of the best flight sims I've ever played, and kicks Combat Flight Simulator 3 all over the skies!
      • I hadn't done any flight-sim gaming for ten years (CYAC) before I finally gave the updated IL-2 demo a try. The first one didn't grab me, but the updated demo hooked me badly on online gaming (a mix of mostly "air quake" and "hardcore settings" servers). And the demo only does 4-player online games.

        Ubi has also given the lead developer, Oleg Maddox (this crazy Russian programmer), and his company a great deal of latitude in terms of free patches (several very large updates, with new planes) and communicating with fans. They have a very well-run forum, with both an official Ubi presence and fan moderators (take that however you will). Their policy seems to be very fan-centric, at least as far as IL-2 goes.

        Whatever else Ubi has done, they've done the Right Thing with IL-2 (which you should try).

        I'm just downloading the new video from the expanion now.

        ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/games/il2sturmovik/media/V id eo_IL-2fb.zip
    • I havent bought an Ubi game since PoR, nor do I plan on ever buying another Ubi game again.

      Myst 3 seemed pretty good. It provided an interesting environment to play in and had very challenging puzzles. Finished it in a week, though.

  • dragons lair dvd game (Score:3, Interesting)

    by brer_rabbit ( 195413 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:56PM (#5297054) Journal
    On a related note, has anyone tried the DVD version of the Dragon's Lair game? Apparently you throw it on the dvd player and control it with the DVD remote control.

    • Re:dragons lair dvd game (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cougar ( 26289 )
      Yeah, I have the DVD version, it's just like the original, 'ecpt you don't waste soo many quarters.

      They cleaned up the original graphics, and tossed on a bunch of old video interviews of the developers taken back when Dragon's Lair ruled the arcade.

  • Sega's Virtua Fighter at Smithsonian (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kircle ( 564389 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:56PM (#5297059)
    the original Dragon's Lair is one of only three video games on display at the Smithsonian. The other two games being Pac-Man and Pong.

    Nope. I know at least Sega's Virtua Fighter is also on display. Here's from Sega's website:

    The Virtua Fighter series has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institute for its contributions in the field of Art and Entertainment, and is on permanent display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington D.C.

    Here's a link to the source: http://www.sega.com/segascream/legacy/historyofvf. jhtml [sega.com]

  • Second in suckage only to Space Ace (Score:3, Funny)

    by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @03:59PM (#5297087) Homepage Journal
    Possibly even less interactive, and for God's sake, how much Don Bluth animation can our ecosystem possibly SUSTAIN? I may never stop throwing up. . .(/rant) So, I bet I wouldn't have liked it anyway. :)

  • An okay game, but the review has it right (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sabalon ( 1684 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:00PM (#5297097)
    I thought the game was fun, then again, I remember pumping quarters into the original one as well. If not for that, I may not have played it to the end.

    There are big bugs in the game, it can be awkward to control, and the sword fighting was easy, just boring after the first couple times.

    But in all, it was a fun game - if not just to see Dirk die all sorts of ways!
  • I put 50 cents in and played for 15 seconds before I got killed.

    I remember thinking I had been totally screwed and never played it again.

    They should have set it up so it gave you at least a minute of play.

  • Poor Don... (Score:4, Informative)

    by seekohler ( 264712 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:02PM (#5297109)
    Don Bluth's lifetime of work is some of my favorite stuff and it hurts a little every time I see one of his newer efforts flop. I've not played Dragon Lair 3D myself but general concensis among my friends seems to be on par with this review.

    He and Gary Goldsmith's last theatrical animated feature, Titan A.E., also did less than expected at the box office. With such classics under his belt like "Robin Hood", "The Rescuers" (Bluth was a lead animator at Disney early in his career), "The Secret of N.I.M.H." and "An American Tail", here's hoping that he keeps the ball rolling and isn't discouraged.

    His website can be reached at http://www.donbluth.com/

  • In the immortal words of the N. Korean News Agency (Score:5, Funny)

    by Didion Sprague ( 615213 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:04PM (#5297126)
    In the immortal words of the N. Korean News Agency [kcna.co.jp]:

    Dragon's Lair Neagativity Assailed

    Pyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) -- The US conspiracy in criticizing 'Dragon's Lair 3D' clearly proves that the U.S. is making absurd pretexts for overtaking DPRK fun with nuclear force, if necessary. It is all the more ridiculous when beloved Dirk the Daring is used by US war-mongers to enhance negative feelings among the the world's gamers.

    The US remains committed to "secret" plans to topple the DPRK and criticism of fun-loving video games is just but one transparent ploy in the war-mongers game of double-standards.

    The US should "pull out" all troops from South Korea and engage in proper dialogue. Until the US video mongers offer DPRK a non-aggression treaty signed by all congress members, the so-called "nuclear issue" of "Dirk the Daring" will not be settled.

    Anecdote about Kim Jong Il

    Pyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) -- In 1988, General Secretary Kim Jong Il visited a factory where people were very cold and had little food. He saw that there were no video games and suggested that fifteen minutes of proper video gaming would strengthen deeply cherished feelings and love of the country.

    Seeing no video games available, however, General Secretary Kim Jong Il stayed up for two straight nights in order to give his beloved workers proper fun. Finally, General Secretary Kim Jong Il called upon his Libyan friends to deliver three cases of counterfeit Mickey Mouse cups for the workers. Seeing the cups, the workers were very pleased and held a toast with empty cups to their dear leader with their new cups. General Secretary Kim Jong Il hoped that although the cups weren't video game they would understand the spirit of the video games and to be entertained and enlightened nonetheless.

  • Trilogy on DVD (Score:3, Informative)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:08PM (#5297160) Journal
    I was in Best Buy the other day and they had a 3-pack DVD set of: Dragon's Lair, Space Ace and Dragon's Lair 2.

    The box claimed they were playable on PS2 and XBOX and, I believe, a regular DVD player.

    With the way the games were played, they should translate to DVD games without much of a hitch.

  • I've played the crap out of it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by deathcow ( 455995 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:08PM (#5297163)
    Mainly because my 3 yr old digs it so much. Lets play Dragons Lair. Lets play Dragons Lair. The kid tells his mom, "You're Daphne, I'm Dirk" and he proceeds to rescue here from me.

    I think the game surpasses the original, (given proper allowances for what years they were both created.) Dragons Lair 3D allows Dirk freedom of movement, he can go anywhere basically, jumping, rolling, crouching, sneaking, climbing, swinging his sword, running etc. I find the idea much more enjoyable than a "go left, right left left up left right left to survive" type game.

    The graphics arent up with the latest "Unreal 2" type lighting, etc. but who cares. They are 3D accelerated and the textures look good and Dirk himself and the cartoony characters look great.

    The frustrating aspect of the game is the level bosses, sometimes they are so hard to figure out that you pretty much "throw down the mouse" and say "screw it, I'm not going to try for a 500th time today to beat the smithey" (HOW do you beat the Smithey?)

    Dirk gets cool "essences" along the way from various level bosses, dragon wings to help him fly, spirit to keep him alive, eyes to let him see secret doors.

    Overall, I give it an "A", with a "B-" for the level bosses and having to determine each of their secret formulas for whippin their butts.

  • Maybe this will convince them not to attempt a remake of Space Ace. I don't know if I could handle it!

    It is interesting though, that you can order the DVD version of the original Dragon's Lair Laser Disc version of the game to be played on any standard home DVD player, Playstation 2, or an XBOX with a DVD dongle.

    It is much more fun to play the original than this new remake.

  • Not that bad! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DJayC ( 595440 )
    I don't understand why people are pissed off. I loved the Dragon Lair series, and I thought the 3D version was faithful to the originl. It was neat to see environments in 3D normally seen in cartoon form. The animation was beautiful, and the game kept me interested longer than most games I play today. It's a fun game that doesn't take too much to play, and I think that's missing a lot these days. I didn't have to sit through a half an hour introduction, the puzzles are fun and fast paced, and the characters familiar. Just my two cents though..
  • My favorite video game has always been The Quarter Eater! [ibiblio.org].

  • Excuse Me? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by _Neurotic ( 39687 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:23PM (#5297263) Journal
    How does one bad review for a game constitute a statement like "Not Worth The Effort"?

    Here's a tip: Try looking at more than one review before you bash something in such a high profile forum.

    In the future, try looking up a game's rating on MetaCritic. [metacritic.com] Have a look and you'll see that altough not everyone liked it, it wasn't universally panned [metacritic.com] either.

    The Slashdot editors need to wake up to the fact that Slashdot holds sway over many a mind. This influence should not be taken lightly.
    • The Slashdot editors need to wake up to the fact that Slashdot holds sway over many a mind. This influence should not be taken lightly.

      Anybody who is influenced by a person named "CmdrTaco" or "CowboyNeil" isn't much of a concern to society. Soon as they move out of their parents basement, their views will change.

  • Worthy of the Smithsonian? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fastdecade ( 179638 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:23PM (#5297264)
    Pong - Icon of early video gaming. Very worthy.

    Pacman - First mainstream video game character. Very worthy.

    Dragon's Lair - first laserdisc game. Important but not top three material.

    How about ...

    Donkey Kong - the game that started the biggest dynasty of game characters

    Street Fighter - spawned by far the biggest gaming genre of the past decade

    Tetris - the "Hello World" of video gaming ... the most widely ported arcade game ever. And also its graphics were mundane, even for the late 80s, demonstrating games don't have to be sexy to be addictive.

    And from the perspective of technology, how about some of the early 3D classics (Star Wars, Tron) or some of the Japanese "VR" dancing, musical instrument etc, games. And for cultural impact.

    Dragon's Lair was great technology for its time. But top 3? Not even a contender!!!

  • I would say(ask) the following questions to the reviewer:

    1) Which Platform did you test?
    2) The camera angles were easy with a mouse. I had no trouble at all especially with the follow camera feature on. It even had different follow modes like Zelda.
    3) Daphne's voice can be turned off on the settings.

    It's sounds more like if this reviewer spent a little more time getting familiar with the settings, they wouldn't be so negative on it.

  • My review (Score:3, Informative)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @04:49PM (#5297481) Homepage
    I liked it, for what it was. A little hack&slash, a little coordinated movement. Nice graphics, and a clever music video at the end.

    It lacks in several regards though. First, its just too damn short. Probably spent 3 hours getting through it the first time. Total. Playing it the second time only took me two hours. Of course, you could finish the original in 15 minutes, so I suppose its an improvement. :) However, while they included a good number of scenes from the first Dragon's Lair, they included nothing from the second game, although they did include some characters from it, providing a little more depth to the story, not that DL was ever known as a "deep". But they TRIED to tell a story, just wish they did a better job at it. The second game would probably have been harder to put into 3D due to the dramatically different environments, but it was a more entertaining game than the first one, in my not so humble opinion.

    One big issue of contention, their in-game movies use the bink format, and downloading a free bink player, you can play them fine outside of the game, but for some reason I can't figure out, the in-game player simply can't handle it. Of course, I'm ONLY on a 1.7ghz machine, so I'm sure there's a really really really good reason that a video playback can't exceed 4fps, but I digress.

    -Restil

  • Dragon's Lair's Legacy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mark4ST ( 249650 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:00PM (#5297550) Homepage
    There's some (at least) interesting things about Dragon's Lair 3D:

    • It was released for all major modern gaming platforms at the same time: PlayStaion 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Windows. To my knowledge, this was the first game to do that. There was no sitting in front of my PC, anxiously waiting for GTA3.
    • It includes Daphne. [/me bites fist] She's even cuter when rendered in cell-shaded 3D. I didn't know I could be so enchanted by a low-poly model.
    Dragon's Lair 3D is sort of like a movie license. Movie license games tend to honk because they rely on the movie to sell the games, rather than gameplay. This game does not suffer from that problem because it ads huge elements to the original. For example, you get to use magic and stuff. Dirk slays the bad-ass dragon about half way through the game, and then there's more-- much more!

    Great effort was made to keep the original 1983 flavour as much as possible. The textures on the walls are taken directly from the backgrounds of the 1983 version, whenever appropriate. The characters look almost identical, due to the good use of their cell-shading tech.

    It includes ALL the scenes from the 1983 classic, albeit in the new 3D form. For example, that scene where the knight stabs the floor to electrify the tiles is there, but you have to maneuver Dirk with more than one joystick movement per "blip", sorta like Max Payne. It's now a real jumping puzzle. Wow.

    The voice acting is excellent. Better than most games out there, probably because it's not all that integral to gameplay and used sparsely. Dirk's little "Ghah!" sounds are still hilarious.

    The control occasionally honks. (NB: I'm being PC-centric here) Most of the game, you can control Dirk easily with WASD and a mouse. However, there are points where you are expected to steer Dirk with a joystick. But, you don't have one configured, do you? This can seem really weird if you've been playing Quake for years. This would probably not be noticeable on one of the consoles.

    I think that Dragon's Lair 3D is a great game for those are nostalgic for 1983, or those who are very young. But, if you're looking for a rival for Mario, look elsewhere (and let me know if you find anything).

  • Story of a Dragons Lair 2 freak... (Score:5, Funny)

    by seekohler ( 264712 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:03PM (#5297567)
    In the small Putt-Putt arcade where I would frequent in the evenings of college, all my friends were totally into the fighting games. Mortal Kombat, Tekken, King of Fighters.. they played and mastered them all. Yet, I totally sucked at fighting games and couldn't remember the special moves to save my life.

    So, when they were all pumping tokens into Street Fighter Turbo II GX Ultra I was pumping them into Dragons Lair 2. Sure, I knew it was just a fancy game of memory but I loved the Don Bluth visuals. After several months of pumping what must have been an ungodly amount of money into that machine, I had gotten so good that I could beat the game all the way through on a single token. Fifteen minutes of gaming on just 25 cents.

    Then I took it a step further got good enough to beat it on a single token AND getting all the extra items. When that wasn't enough, I eventually had the entire game so memorized I could beat the whole thing on one token, getting all the extra items, never loosing a single life _AAAAND_ using only one hand. People would often come up to watch me play, their jaws gaping at how easy I made it look.

    The best part was finishing the game on a single token and then watching as the next guy stepped up to try. They would always just start pounding on the stick like a frustrated ape.

    It's been years since I played my beloved Dragon's Lair 2: Time Warp but I sometimes wonder just how far I'd be able to get today.

  • Don't like 3-D game? Get the DVD instead!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dolemite_the_Wiz ( 618862 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:17PM (#5297647) Journal

    The original Dragon's Lair game has been out on DVD [amazon.com] for quite some time. To make the game work on your DVD player, you use the arrow buttons on your remote. Pretty ingenious to port this game to DVD, IMO.

    Also, the Game 'Space Ace', the Half-Brother of Dragon's Lair, is on DVD [amazon.com] as well.

    Both of these games rock on DVD!!!

    Dolemite

  • I expected this game to do poorly in the reviews. The problem is that the game starts out very easy (along with little tips that flash up at the bottom of the screen that say "Walk up to the ledge and press 'space' to jump up onto it"), and gets progressively more difficult. The game IS boring and easy, for the first while. But once you get past the "purple baboon-like 'Giddy Goons'", the game starts to get interesting.

    The game could definately use a "difficulty" setting, or a tutorial that you could skip, instead of essentially making the tutorial part of the game.

    I agree with the article's assertion that the camera was annoying at times, but no more so than most third-person view games.

    As for the controls; I personally found using a keyboard to control dirk to be slightly annoying. There's little things like; if you press up twice in quick succession, Dirk will dash forwards a couple steps (same with the other directions). This SOUNDS ok, but every now and then when you're trying to get up close to the edge of a ledge, you'll do it by accident and leap of the ledge. Also, in some portions of the game the camera is fixed, and using four arrow keys (or, in my case, ASDW) limits you to 8 directions (whereas anywhere else you can use the mouse to "look", again, like in most games of this style). I don't know what the article is talking about with it's jumping "sweet spot"... I didn't have this problem at all.

    I did not have any problems that would not be fixed by playing the game with a handheld controller with an analog stick (like you would use on the numerous console versions of this game).
  • Wasn't the main point of the Dragon's Lair game that its graphics were cel-based, rather than pixel-based? If they've gone 3D, is that over? Or have they figured out a way to keep the cels and make it 3-dimensional at the same time?
  • This is really too bad. I was hoping a great NPR (nonphotorealistic) game would come along and spark some changes in how so many programmers write vertex shaders. I'm a big fan of stylistic redering in video games.

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