Looking back at press coverage of the launch of Dragon’s Lair, you’d be forgiven for assuming that this arcade machine was about to change the course of gaming history. “Dragon’s Lair is as different from normal videogames as Space Invaders was to pinball,” declared one news report, between shots of wide-eyed teens craning for a glimpse of 1983’s hottest release. Artist and animation legend Don Bluth was no less audacious in his assessment, positing that his first foray into videogames had united “engineers and dramatists” in the arcade market for the very first time: “That’s why I think you’ll find something tremendously more exciting, something that will pull you into the screen like you haven’t been pulled before.”
Forty years later, it’s a claim that still holds water. The game’s hand-drawn animations were more expressive, fluid and detailed than the simple pixel sprites that filled arcades of the time. Where every object in Donkey Kong and Galaga was rendered in garish colours and orthogonal movements, the cartoon characters of Dragon’s Lair pranced about with the same grace and flair as those broadcast on television or shown in blockbuster films. Nothing looked quite like it, and even today, as games continue to trend towards highfidelity photorealism that dates much more quickly, it looks less like a relic of a graphically underpowered past than some apparently long-lost Disney film.
この記事は Edge UK の October 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Edge UK の October 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
NO MORE ROOM IN HELL 2
You're not alone in the dark
WINDBLOWN
Life after Dead Cells
COLLECTED WORKS - JOSH SAWYER
Journeying to the Forgotten Realms, Infinity and beyond with the RPG veteran
SCREENBOUND
Going deep in a mind-bending hybrid of perspectives
Trigger Happy
Shoot first, ask questions later
Grand strategist
Paradox's Mattias Lilja addresses the publisher's recent difficulties - and the plan to right the ship
Diablo IV
A progress report on the games we just can't quit
Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection
In Capcom's diabolical tribute, evil goes far deeper than the demons on the screen
SERENITY FORGE
How a near-death experience lit a fire in the Colorado-based developer and publisher
THE MAKING OF...ALIEN: ISOLATION
How a strategy-led studio built a survival horror masterpiece in Ridley Scott's image