Dragon's Lair III, um, released
All of a sudden. There's a demo too. There's also a throng of Dragon's Lair fans complaining that it's just rehashed old content with a Laserdisc-style approach to control. Oh.
Digital Leisure, a publisher with a predilection for DVD-Video based game products, has announced, demoed and released "Dragon's Lair III" this weekend, which seems to be some sort of amalgam of previous Dragon's Lair action-adventure titles and new extras like expanded boss battles.
And, as you might have guessed, it handles in much the same way as the old Laserdisc Dragon's Lair titles did (or so the older members of staff tell us), hence Digital Leisure's decision to release it on DVD-Video rather than PC, PS2 or Xbox specific game disc. In fact, the retail DL3 will work on all these machines (assuming you have a DVD drive on the PC, and the necessary console peripherals like the Xbo DVD remote) and any regular DVD player.
As you can see from the screenshots, it's using the same engine as last year's Dragon's Lair 3D, and indeed much of the same content. But, says Digital Leisure pres. Elizabeth Foster, "with the inclusion of more intense fighting levels, new characters and dramatic Boss Battle scenes." The result is 43 levels and nine boss fights, apparently.
Digital Leisure offers no word on whether you can buy the game outside the States (it'll cost you $29.99 over there), but you can get hold of a demo version here. Whether you'll want to, however, is another matter. Even if you're not confused about whether it's old or new (as far as we can make out, it's a bit of both but mostly the former), early testimony from fans suggests the reality of DL3 knocks you out of the nostalgia bubble almost instantly, and that the Recycle Bin is where it really belongs.
Still, that's just what a few people said. You can always download the demo and make your own mind up. And if you do, be sure to let us know what you think...