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Great for fans of the old game, mediocre as a stand-alone ga

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: January 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

"Dragon's Lair 3D" is the story of Dirk the Daring, as he returns to the evil wizard's castle to save Daphne, the princess and slay the dragon. It's a great item for Dragon's Lair fans, but mediocre as a stand-alone game.

Each room of the castle is warded by all sorts of bizarre, dangerous contraptions and strange cartoon beasts. The game play for DL3D generally involves moving room to room, navigating various hazards, picking up treasures, breaking open barrels, and fighting occasional monsters. Dirk the Daring has two basic weapons at his disposal, his sword, and a crossbow. Most of the puzzles in the game are simple and involve jumping at the right time or flipping switches.

DL3D oozes "Dragon's Lair" from every pore. It looks, feels and sounds like the old "Dragon's Lair" (due to the fact that it was made by the same people who gave us the arcade classic). Dirk the Daring still emits yelps and grunts instead of speech. The actress who voices Daphne's lines sounds exactly like the original Daphne, and the hazards in each room have the magical, unpredictable danger that defined the first game.

"Dragon's Lair" fans will be delighted that many old rooms been recreated in a way that captures the look and feel of the old version - some of them with extraordinary detail. The Lizard King makes a reappearance, and the fight with him resembles the arcade version, with you chasing your sword down the hall while he tries to pop you over the head with his sceptre. So do the three ropes across the fiery pit, the hallway with where the giant skeleton hands come out of the doorways, and many others. The hallway with the giant skeleton hands actually begins with Daphne yelling "Save me!" right before she gets dragged into one of the rooms, which is exactly how that scene begins in the old arcade game.

Unfortunately, the game play is simple, uncreative, and filled with repetitive jump puzzles and simple, easy combat. The AI for most monsters is nonexistent, and many can be easily dispatched with a simple block-and-slash tactic. Many of the recreated scenes seem forced, and have no value other than paying homage to the arcade classic. A prime example of this problem is the room where the Black Knight electrifies the floor with his sword. DL3D has the same room, but in the new version, the player simply needs to slowly move along the safe parts of the floor to advance forward. It might be a challenge for children, but not for experienced gamers.

The worst part about the game is the horrible controls. They are imprecise, sluggish, and aggravating. In addition, sometimes the camera switches to an annoying top-down view. This game has the dubious acheivement of being both easy and frustrating at the same time. These faults are inexcusable for a game that relies so heavily upon jump puzzles and timing.

"Dragon's Lair 3D" is not a bad game by any means. It is a treat for Dragon's Lair fans eager to relive their old passion in a new way, but it is difficult to recommend to anyone else. This game simply can't compete with all of the great games being made for the PC.

Sweet Nostalgia...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: September 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User

...but still has some of the old problems.

This game is actually more entertaining than I would have expected. I liked the original Dragon's Lair game, so I purchased this one as well. Of course, the game now is somewhat different, especially since the original game was so limited. I gotta say that they did a good job at carrying over the old look and feel though. This game basically is a platform-puzzle game. Of course, this is the game that invented cell shading, and the graphical style is great.

The bad news is that this game is really not quite up to today's standards. This is especially true for the controls. This game has by far the worst controls that I have seen in any computer game in a long time (probably since C64 days...).I have customized my controls a lot (I am now using the FPS-style WASD keys), but it is still horrible. Especially since one uses camera movement most of the time to turn the character the right direction. For some odd reason, the ability to turn the camera is lost every so often, which means you have to control the character entirely with the keyboard. Argh! It's almost like playing a bad pac-man clone! Often, it is hard to move Dork.. ah... Dirk accurately. One often falls off edges for no reason other than the controls not working right. On top of that, the whole game is not very responsive. You jump off a rope and try to draw the sword to quickly engage the enemy, but nothing happens. C'mon, people, DirectX's DirectInput technology really isn't rocket science! This is just sloppyness. This game needs more polish!

On the other hand of course, crappy controls probably are 50% of the true Dragon's Lair feeling, so maybe some people will overlook this problem. ;-)

I wasn't sure whether to give this game 3 or 4 stars (or maybe even less?). I went for 4, because I think fan's of the original game will get some entertainment out of this title. If you have never played Dragon's Lair before, or do not have fond memories of it, you may want to think twice before you get this one...

Better than I expected.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: November 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Basically a 3rd person action game where you control Dirk the Daring through the dungeons and catacombs of Singe's castle on a quest to rescue the hot princess Daphne. Only this time, you get to control Dirk directly as opposed to the very indirect manner of control in the original Dragon's Lair game.
Players, like myself, who spent many a quarter on Don Bluth's laser arcade game will, no doubt, enjoy this 3-D return to the castle and recognize many of the rooms, beasties, and sounds from the arcade hit. I especially enjoyed the crypts. I think this is also a great game for younger players too, with its bright colors, fairly simple gameplay and controls, and harmless cartoon violence.

So why only 4 stars?
Firstly, the gameplay reminded me a lot of Tomb Raider with plenty of puzzles to solve - maybe too many puzzles to solve. True, the puzzles do fit in with the feel of the original game, but some of them grew a bit tedious after a while.
Princess Daphne's voice got a bit irritating, but the developers must have known this might happen and give you the opportunity to mute her and receive text help instead.
The game's "cartoon" graphics are fine and I'm sure the developers were trying to keep the look of the original game. No doubt, they also enjoyed the benefits of easier programming with simpler characters to animate. However, the original Dragon's Lair had some very nice animation and artwork for the time. Likewise, Dragon's Lair 3-D could have benefitted from some nicer textures - especially in the opening sequence. Dirk is on the outside of the castle trying to find a way in and the background sky is a plain, uninteresting purple hue. A few dark clouds would have done wonders and matched the original game much more so.
Lastly, the game was fairly short.

I know I'm nitpicking. All in all, I enjoyed the game very much and am glad that the delevopers chose to continue the Dragon's Lair series in this manner. Did I mention that the music and sounds were very well done? Gameplay was perfectly stable and smooth (it better be) on my P4 1.9 ghz computer with Geforce4 Ti4600 and quickloads and quicksaves were VERY fast. No crashes, no freezes, no glitches. I imagine this game will run well on many lower end systems. And, hey, it's very unusual to find a [low cost] game with this level of quality. With a little luck, maybe we'll see a Space Ace 3-D next.

Dragon's Lair continues to RULE!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing this game for a couple days now and I must say that it definitely preserves the Dragon's Lair experience. The graphics are sharp, the puzzles are fun, but what is most amazing about this game is that the developers have retained the original "look and feel" of the original Dragon's Lair. There are many scenes within the game that are 3D replicas of the original... for example, the black knight scene (very well done in my opinion) and the ropes scene. I look at this game as an absolute work of art (as I do with the original arcade version) and I would encourage everyone to pick it up. The $$$ price-tag is a bargain.

The only complaint I have thus far is that the default controls are fairly awkward, but since they are configurable, I guess it is really a mute point. I am still trying to get used to the controls, but I'm sure that I will in time.

Pick this one up! I've been waiting for it for over a year... it was worth the wait!!!

Could have been great

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: December 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I would like to love this game. I was just a child when the original Dragon's Lair was released, so I could never afford to pour quarters into it, but I loved to watch. When I read the praise below, I knew I had to have this game, if only to _finally_ find out what happened to Dirk and Daphne.

And this game nearly fulfills every expectation. The graphics, puzzles, and gameplay are all excellent. There's just one little problem. I can't control it! While the game usually plays in a normal first-person shooter mode, it often switches to an impossibly awkward 3D platform mode. Worse yet, in this mode, sometimes the up key makes Dirk move up on the screen, but not always. Pressing the same key twice to edge up to a ledge makes Dirk take a suicidal running-leap. Changing the run key from the default 'R' seems to make it impossible to roll (which involves pressing the forward, run, and crouch keys simultaneously.)

After attempting to play this game I know why so few 3D platform games, so common on consoles, are made for the PC. They're just impossible to control with a keyboard and mouse, or even most PC joysticks. So many of the puzzles in this game involve split second timing and precise jumps, rolls, and positioning, playing this otherwise wonderful game is an exercise in frustration.

Save yourself that agravation. If you must return to the Lair, purchase this game for the XBox or GameCube; it's clearly a platform game very poorly ported to the PC.

Finally!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: January 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

At last, Dragon's Lair can be played as it always should have been - in real-time 3D! I am glad to see this ground-breaking classic back and in good form. The look of the game is nearly the same as the original, but now you have complete control of your character. The developers have added some additional villainous creatures, but you still have the time-honored foes (Fire Drakes, Giddy Goons, Singe the Dragon). The game in its present state has 15 levels and over 250 "chambers" loaded with traps, puzzles, and secrets.

The cel-shaded animation is smooth and looks simply awesome. The music and sound is great, and you can expect hours of gameplay. The only downside of this new Dragon's Lair is exactly that of the original - limited replay value. But it provides a wonderful bit of nostalgia for us older folks, and the younger kids should get plenty of play out of the game.

One of the best games I've played in a long time.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: January 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

After playing this game for one night, I already love it. I feel like I'm playing inside a beautiful Disney movie. The 3D environment textured in the cartoon style, and the 2D cel animation makes this game truly unique. The soundtrack and sound effects also give this game an animated movie-like quality. You can tell a lot of talent went into producing this game.

Besides the incredible audio and visuals, the game itself is so much fun. It's got a great sense of humor and just the game play in general makes you want to keep going. I played for an hour and a half, and had no idea where the time went. Besides that, I really like the concept of the mana cell which activates special magical things throughout the castle.

And Dragon's Lair fans definetly will not be disappointed. There's even a documentary about the history of Dragon's Lair and how the newest version was made (like a DVD special feature).

As far as the game controls, I really don't find it much different from the controls of any other 3D PC game. I use w-a-s-d for movement, and the mouse for looking and shooting. The ONLY frustrating thing is that at some points, the mouse control is lost and you only can use the keyboard to navigate, which isn't always intuitive.

But other than that, this game is great. If you get this game, you won't be disappointed.

Beautiful art/colors, great gamplay!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: July 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game is very long and it follows a great storyline. I have played through the game now 6 times in the past 4 months. Quite simply one of the most enjoyable games I have played in many many years. Those that insult the game are expecting a Quake III type game. Dragon's lair 3d does a great job with the type of gameplay it offers. Deny yourself this title and you are missing one of the best... PERIOD. It isn't all hyper run/jump/shoot like a first person shooter. You can run around, play around, just enjoy this game. Once again, the Graphics and Environment are FIRST RATE.

Great game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 22, 2002
Author: Amazon User

No disappointment here at all. They did a great job preserving the old feel and it is really fun to play. I was worried that they would rush something to market, but this is a great extension of the original. I hope to see them make Space Ace 3D in 2004.

Just as much fun as the original!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

It really is amazing how far technology has come. This game keeps all the original aspects of the Dragon's Lair storyline but is also much more compelling because you have complete control over the animated character. Singe and Daphne are there as beautifully animated as they were in the original Laserdisc game. If you are a Dragon's Lair or Space Ace fan (or even just a Don Bluth fan) this is a must own.

The only disappointing part of the game is that the voice of Daphne is obviously not the original. But the gameplay, creative puzzles and hidden areas easily make up for it.

Let's hope they follow through with a Dragon's Lair II 3D game as well as a Space Ace 3D game. Space Ace 3D would be spectacular, especially if they could get the original voices for Dexter, Ace, Borf, and Kimmy.

I gave this game a 5 star rating because of the way they meticulously stayed true to form to the original, because of the stellar way they allow you to control such a wonderfully animated character, and because of the extra value from the secret areas, puzzles, and "extras".

This game has great replay value and is a must buy for Christmas 2002!

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