The Magic Dragon: Revamped arcade classic ‘Dragon’s Lair’ a barometer of advances in video games

Kirk Baird

Monday, Dec. 23, 2002 | 8:17 a.m.

Looking at today's generation of video games, it's easy to get immersed in the technological marvels: Computer-drawn athletes who look like their real-life counterparts, or hideous creations straight out of an H.R. Giger nightmare.

It's also easy to lose sight of just how far and fast video games have advanced since both their inception in the early 1970s and subsequent boom a decade later.

Today's gaming generation no longer relies on crudely drawn white aliens marching horizontally across the sky as they drop missiles on a player's base.

Today, "Space Invaders" is simply a name from the gaming past, an archaic title that conjures little recognition. Comparing decades-old games to those for sale at Toys R Us or Target, for example, is futile. The technology is so far advanced, it renders comparisons decisively unfair much like contrasting a B-2 stealth bomber to to Orville and Wilbur Wright's clunky flying contraption.

But a recent release to the newest game platforms "Dragon's Lair 3D" alters that reality. The title accurately shows just how far the world of video games have come by successfully bridging the gap between what was possible in the early days of video games and what is possible now.

"Dragon's Lair 3D" is an update of the trend-setting 1983 arcade smash "Dragon's Lair," which was a 20-minute cartoon stored on a laser disc. Both features, incidentally, were a first for video games.

Players assumed the role of Dirk the Daring, a bumbling-but-brave knight on a quest to rescue a scantily clad video vixen, Princess Daphne, from the clutches of an evil dragon and wizard.

The game play was simple: The cartoon would play out until Dirk faced a crisis everything from a black knight sending deadly electrical charges through a checkered floor, to a series of knotted ropes swinging perilously over a dark gulf.

The player would then decide Dirk's fate by either moving the joystick in one of four directions (up, down, left or right) or by pressing the sword button. If the decision was correct, Dirk would survive the peril(s) and move on in his quest.

If not, the knight would die in an often messy albeit humorous manner.

To gamers accustomed to crudely pixilated characters, playing a cartoon was a wondrous vision. It also marked a significant milestone in video-game history.

In fact, "Dragon's Lair" is considered so groundbreaking it is one of only three arcade games on display at the Smithsonian Institution, the other two being "Pong" and "Pac-Man."

And "Dragon's Lair" was a huge success.

In the game's first six months of release, "Dragon's Lair" generated $43 million in sales, and it has subsequently appeared in nearly 30 home translations.

But none of those versions compares to "Dragon's Lair 3D," released to the Xbox and PC, and coming soon to the GameCube and SPS2. All retail for $49.99.

As the title implies, the latest incarnation is more advanced than its predecessor, a fantasy-adventure game that happened to be animated.

"Dragon's Lair 3D" is a cartoon come to life.

Unlike the original, the player has full range of motion of Dirk in real time. But, just as its predecessor, Dirk appears animated. It's not intended for him to resemble a real person who has been digitally sampled; he looks and acts just like his 1983 'toon version.

And that's both the beauty and technical triumph of the new version. "Dragon's Lair" 2002 is "Dragon's Lair" 1983.

And that achievement also marks the biggest challenge for the game's programmers.

"In 1983 we debuted a game with feature-quality animation in it. How do you top that in a graphics sense?" said Rick Dyer, creator of the original "Dragon's Lair" and whose company, Dragonstone Software, helped create the new version.

"We were graphically challenged in how we would make Dirk look just as good as good as the cel animation. We wouldn't have gotten there without the advances in the tools and technology (that) really became available in the last 12 months."

Namely, a program called ToonShader that gives computer images an animated look.

In addition, noted animator Don Bluth ("The Secret of NIMH," "An American Tail," "The Land Before Time"), who worked on the first game, was brought in to assist the "Dragon's Lair 3D" game programmers.

"My input, more than anything, was to be sure it all looked right," he said. "You can go off model really easily when you start reconstructing these things."

Not only did "Dragon's Lair 3D" programmers duplicate the cel-animation look, going so far as to scan in background art work from the original game, they also expanded on the game play as well.

The 1983 version of "Dragon's Lair" featured about 38 separate rooms to explore, compared to more than 250 in the latest version. Consequently, the game's publisher, Encore, estimates "Dragon's Lair 3D" will take the average gamer about 30 hours to complete, compared to 20 minutes for the original.

And, in its own way, the updated version of the game is also groundbreaking. "Dragon's Lair 3D" for the Xbox is the first high-definition TV video game.

"It's far better than the original," Dyer said. "It's a vastly bigger world this time.

"(The original) was the Stone Age compared to what we have today."

And an accurate representation of just how far games have evolved.