The game: Animation maven Don Bluth's foray into gaming made a big splash in arcades: to say the graphics were unparalleled was an understatement. Here, take a look at Dragon's Lair's graphics next to one of its contemporaries:
Above: You can see why we wanted to like it
What could you do? Press a button or joystick direction every ten to twenty seconds, triggering an action or failure on the part of lead character Dirk the Daring. The game didn't even work very hard to make your actions correspond to anything onscreen: it was just watch, watch, watch, arbitrary joystick jab, rinse and repeat.
What did the game do for you? Dirk the Daring was one of the most versatile heroes in all of gaming. He swung a sword, leapt yawning chasms, rode a magic horse, fought a dragon, swung from flaming chandeliers, and closed with one of vintage gaming's most beautiful princesses! And we know this because the game did every last bit of it, as long as you occasionally jabbed at the controls to show that you hadn't walked off to get popcorn.
Seriously, this is less interactive than... Operating a DVD menu. This can be easily proven by playingthe anniversary editionof Dragon's Lair, which was released for the world's most popular – and underutilized! - gaming console.
Above: Don't hold your breath for a Modern Warfare 2 conversion
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