Ever since the days of Super Mario Brothers where your goal is to save the damsel in distress, there have been hundreds of games to represent this concept.  Well, at least in the past for arcade games.  Now a days, its kicking, punching, dancing, driving and shooting.  But in the past, there were a lot of really good games of saving.  But then something came along and changed the gaming world completely.

“Dragon’s Lair: The fantasy adventure where you become a valiant knight, on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon. You control the actions of a daring adventurer, finding his way through the castle of a dark wizard, who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles. In the mysterious caverns below the castle, your odyssey continues against the awesome forces that oppose your efforts to reach the Dragon’s Lair. Lead on, adventurer. Your quest awaits!”

God I loved that attract mode with this game.  Not only that, but they insisted on using two monitors.  One for the player and one on top of the game for others to watch.  This was the best way to have more people come closer and watch someone play.

Never before have we seen such beautiful graphics and heard such an awesome sound out of one machine.  I mean think about it.  It was all about the beeps and pew pew and booms with the other games.  This game completely leveled up, similar to the graphics that were created for Star Wars or even Tron movies.  But what made this game different from all other games is the fact that if you don’t do this or that at the right time, you die.  It was all a matter of timing and directions for the game.

The bottom line of the game was, it was on a laser disc player and the controls that you use were the remote.  And THAT is progression of technology.  And the game did so well, that there was a decent lineup of different games.  Space Ace, Cliff Hanger, Dragon’s Lair 2, and even Revenge of the Ninja was released along with a good handful of shooting games within the next eight years.

Granted, I really sucked at Dragon’s Lair, at first.  But thanks to the Internet, now I have all of the moves to complete the game.  What was funny though is when I was in school and I had my famous calculator watch, I used to practice the moves on the watch. I also did this for Cliff Hanger, a game that was based on a Japanese animated film series called Lupin the Third.  I was really attached to video games when I was a kid.  But back to the blog.

What basically attracted us to the game was not just the pretty princess, it was that graphics and concept.  Why the games had to be so short though, I’ll never know. If you think about it now, the runtime for the game without dying is 10-14 minutes depending on the looping and backward moving.  But granted, the average gameplay for an individual, not including pinball, is about that time.  But the main problem is, this darned game created the concept of insert .50 and not .25.  LOOK WHAT THEY STARTED!!!!!!  Ever since then, games including pinball started to up their prices and there is even a game out there that I can’t remember the name, but it cost $4.00 to play.  There goes my allowance.  I think they got away with that because if you hold a carrot in front of a bunny, it will be cheap.  If you hold a golden carrot in front of a Playboy bunny, you’re going to pay for it. Not really a supply and demand, but more if a, if they build it, and it is awesome, they will play.

If you are extremely bored, go onto YouTube and look up laser disc games.  There will be a list of all of the greatest and worst disc games ever and you will be able to watch the entire game play through.  If you are adventurous, you can look for an arcade that has them…. which is rare, but you CAN buy the anniversary edition for just about any platform for at least Dragon’s Lair.  I even had it on my iPod touch at one point in time.  Either way, it gives you a good reason to…..

Keep Calm and Insert Coin.

Brad Feingold Brad Feingold (118 Posts)

Brad has been a die hard arcade fan ever since he can remember. From the first time he played Space Invaders, to the first time he played Pacman, Brad has always had a love for video games. Hanging out at either the Great American Fun Factory in the mall, or spending the night in front of the glowing games at the local roller rink, he was always thinking about when he can spend the next quarter. He also worked at Babbages, which is now GameStop, for over six years. Mostly because they had a really sweet checkout policy on new products and great discounts. But since he had the Atari 2600, he has never looked back and owned some of the greatest home machines, NES, SNES, GENESIS, Turbo Graphix 16, GameBoy, Game Gear, Lynx, Playsation 1,2,3,4 and Vita, XBOX, Gamecube, and N64...just to name a few. Brad is also a reviewer for Mobile Beat Magazine as well as a freelance videographer, part time disc jockey, performing artist and photographer. But has a true love is for video games and Star Wars, as he is a member of the 501st Central Garrison. His ultimate dream is to own a fully working pinball machine and arcade machine. Difficult to say which one, but a Star Wars one would be nice start.