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dragons lair trilogy?
shateredsoul:
it's like those long action scenes we a lot of now (resident evil, god of war, etc etc), except they make you guess what button to press. Never felt like a game for me.. I don't feel it has much skill involved, just memorization. I remember looking at it when I was a kid and wanting to play so bad. I finally had a chance to play it.. I thought, "75 cents, that's a lot.. but it must be worth it!"
I had no idea what to do, how to attack or anything. Playing it now is sort of fun .. just to see what happens. It still doesn't feel like a game though.
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: shateredsoul on November 04, 2010, 12:51:06 am ---it's like those long action scenes we a lot of now (resident evil, god of war, etc etc), except they make you guess what button to press. Never felt like a game for me.. I don't feel it has much skill involved, just memorization. I remember looking at it when I was a kid and wanting to play so bad. I finally had a chance to play it.. I thought, "75 cents, that's a lot.. but it must be worth it!"
I had no idea what to do, how to attack or anything. Playing it now is sort of fun .. just to see what happens. It still doesn't feel like a game though.
--- End quote ---
Exactly! This is why I don't care for the bluth games in-particular. There are other ld games made by other companies like Super Don QuixHote and Time Gal that use the exact same formula and are more fun to play. Why? Because these games quickly show you which button to press on screen, making them the direct descendants of "quick time events" in modern video games. In the bluth games you get this vague gold glow which may or may not help you figure out what to do. Often times the highlighted thing is in the upper right/left corner, which would be fine if those games didn't have a 4-way joystick! So you have a 50/50 shot of getting it right. It's a shame because the bluth games have the best animation of any laserdisc game, they just have poor gameplay.
Kevin Mullins:
--- Quote from: Vigo the Cruel on November 02, 2010, 12:44:12 am ---Aww....I was hoping there was going to be a real Dragon's Lair 3. I don't quite consider Space Ace a sequel in any right other than in spirit and style.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I wish more love had been put into these as true arcade sequels.
(I have copies of both floating around here somewhere)
lilshawn:
GAH! this isn't about comparing it to other games. You can't compare this game to anything. (except maybe "time traveler" later on) this is about one company seeing bleeding edge technology, taking a chance and doing something absolutely NOBODY had ever done before. i think it did very well for them at the time.
how the hell else are you supposed to control a video disk with only set scenes?? i mean there is only 2 outcomes... you make it or you die. they didn't have much control to play with. like i said, you need to stop thinking about NOW and get your mindset in THEN...
picture 1983, the home video game market was on the verge of collapse, space themed games like galaga where saturating the arcade market. You feel as though if you have to fly, shoot or save another space thing your going to kill yourself, And here it is... it looks like a cartoon movie, but plays like a video game.
now, i'm sure if companies had all the time in the world they could have made Dirk have 10 different ways to go, and a hundred different levels, but because things where moving so fast, and the technology of the time was limited, you do what you can in the time allotted. if you where a software company with this idea, before anybody else, and you didn't try, you would have to have been an idiot not to. say what you will about the play mechanics of the game, but a LD player doesn't have scripting, it doesn't have any kind of programming language, it doesn't have any memory or operating system. you put the disk in, and it spits out video. to control it in anyway resembling a video game was hot stuff in '83 not to mention compared to the crappy sprite based graphics of ALL the video games at the time... you have to give them credit for that.
i'm not a lover of the game, in fact, i'm quite terrible at it. but as a child of the 70's, i seen this stuff as it happened. Been lots of bad decisions by video game companies, and i don't think this would be one of them.
--- Quote ---There are other ld games made by other companies like Super Don QuixHote and Time Gal that use the exact same formula and are more fun to play. Why? Because these games quickly show you which button to press on screen, making them the direct descendants of "quick time events" in modern video games. In the bluth games you get this vague gold glow which may or may not help you figure out what to do. Often times the highlighted thing is in the upper right/left corner, which would be fine if those games didn't have a 4-way joystick! So you have a 50/50 shot of getting it right. It's a shame because the bluth games have the best animation of any laserdisc game, they just have poor gameplay.
--- End quote ---
in case you haven't noticed, all these games came out after dragons lair. you have to learn from somewhere. i'm sure they saw a shortcoming in the game and decided to fix it in theirs. no harm in that.
Howard_Casto:
Those games came out after dragon's lair, but not after dragon's lair II, space ace or time traveler. In other words, they didn't learn their lesson. As I said only time traveler starts to feel like a game, mostly because of the simple visuals and fixed camera angle that makes it easy to understand what you are supposed to do.
And no, we don't have to get our mindset to "then" because we aren't purchasing them then, we are purchasing them now! I take exception to the phrase "looks like a cartoon movie, play like a video game". They looked like a movie and didn't play at all!! I distinctly remember playing them back in the day, or I should say attempting to play them. The thing cost 50 cents... it was the first game I rmeember costing more than a quarter. On top of that three lives and you are done. So I'm sittting there as a kid trying to control dirk as a normal video game character only nothing happens. I finally get to a decision point, but at this point I think the game is broken or somthing and I'm not even controlling him. By the time I sort of figure out the gist of what I'm supposed to do my game is over! And I've wasted a prescious 50 cents on this crap, so I'm done! Yes now with the invention of the internet and emulators (which elimiante the need for quarters) I can get some enjoyment out of the games, but not back then. Laserdisc "quick time" games were a gimmick and it showed.
laser disc games were a TERRIBLE decision for video game companies. How do I know? Because all the companies that only made laserdisc games quickly went out of business. You are wearing those nostalga glasses I hear about so often. Laserdisc gaming was a wonderful experiment that ended in failure. Saying that they weren't a mistake though is like saying the 7800 wasn't a mistake, or that atari making the ET game wasn't a mistake.
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