Dragon's Lair caused quite a stir when it was first released in 1983. Up until then we all had to put up with graphics of the likes of Pac-Man. But Dragon's Lair was different, much different. For a start it featured animation created by former Disney animator Don Bluth. Basically, in those days we didn't have high-definition graphics so if you wanted Disney quality pictures you basically had to use animated clips stored on another revolutionary product, the Laserdisc.

So anyway onto the review. The game revolves around the Hero Dirk and his attempted to rescue Princess  Daphne from the evil dragon Singe holed up in a wizard's castle. Much like a choose your own adventure book, at the end of every cartoon sequence you make a decision and point your joystick in a direction or hit the fire button. (On this game as it is a Blu-ray Java game - you use your remote). If you don't make the right decision or fail to be fast enough, normally Dirk ends up falling down an Abyss).

So, this game really does make full use of the Blu-ray Java platform and has the same level of playability as the original (there was a DVD version out a few years ago but the lag in pressing a button and waiting for something to happen was a bit too much for hard-core gamers). Luckily that is not the case with this. Hitting the remote gets you through the game pretty quickly and if you remember how to play the game from your arcade days then you should be able to finish in little under half-an-hour.

The original game was recorded with mono sound, so the manufacturers have improved on this by re-mastering it in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound which sounds a lot better (although the original game wasn't really know for great sound effects so all that work may be a little wasted).

Digital Leisure, the company behind the latest version, took the original filmreel to Canadian High-Def studio Infinite HD. The footage has been restored frame by frame, and remastered in full-whack 1080p HD. As there is only around 20 minutes of original video, the entire title fits neatly on a single layer Blu-ray disk.

There are a whole host of extras including an in-game commentary by the three creators of Dragon's Lair (Don Bluth, Rick Dyer, and Gary Goldman).

Overall, probably worth getting if only to relive your childhood and the game does show you what a Blu-ray player can do. The game costs around $50 and you can purchase the game form Amazon here.

Rating: 8/10