One of the best features of gaming on the iPad is that more and more developers are bringing the oldies back and making them goodies again. We recently reviewed the new X-Men game that is like taking a visit back to the 1990’s arcade with its graphic and game play and now we’re looking at another game that seems like it was completely ported from decades ago to the iPad with very few changes.
If you play Dragon’s Lair HD for iPad and don’t feel like you are being transported back to the days of coin machines and tokens then you simply don’t have enough imagination. This particular game is truly the kind of port many of the video game purists would love to see. The one thing I remember most about playing this game in the arcade is that there seemingly wasn’t enough time to make the right decision. I don’t know how many times I died three or four minutes into my first quarter because I was expected to make snap decisions and couldn’t do it. That feeling of having to react as quick as humanly possible has been brought back with the rest and when you aren’t spending a bucket load of quarters trying to just get past the first screen, the need to react quickly is just fun.
The rest of the game is just as you might remember it, from the different rooms you have to jump into and the monsters you have to try and avoid. The game will also flash the directional button you must hit in order to survive to the next room and you will need to hit that button quickly in order to avoid dying. The graphics are exactly as they were back in the day and while the cartoon-ish graphics were truly something incredibly new back when the arcade came out, and even now they give the game a look few other iPad games can offer.
The best part about Dragon’s Lair HD is that there are actually two different modes. The purist in you might want to go with the arcade mode, where you only sport a few lives and when you have been killed enough times you will have to start all over. Because the game requires quick action this mode is incredibly hard, but satisfying when you are able to move on. For those who want to play the game from beginning to end (or as close to the end as you can get) there is the home mode which has a slightly different beginning to the game and offers you more lives. Just in case you can’t play the whole game through it does automatically save wherever you left off meaning you can pick up and take on the quest again the next day without having to start from scratch. At $4.99 the game is a little more expensive than some other games, but the sheer fun of being able to play a game lost to us for so long is worth the slightly higher price tag.
App Store: $4.99
Comment on this story | Read comments (1)
Loading ...
I hope the developers will bring back Space Ace too….
I lost many quarters to these games!!!!