March 19, 2012 at 4:07 PM ET
One of the true classics of the golden age of the arcade, circa 1983, is finally coming to Xbox Live Arcade, circa 2012, according to Europe’s PEGI ratings board.
VG247 reports that the port has yet to be announced by Microsoft, and was instead outed by PEGI, or the Pan European Game Information system. PEGI rates games across Europe in a similar manner to how the Entertainment Software Rating Board does for North America.
Upon its release, "Dragon's Lair" represented a massive breakthrough in video game graphics. The animation created by accomplished animator Don Bluth (best known for films "The Secret of NIMH," "An American Tail" and "All Dogs Go to Heaven") was a stark contrast to the primitive 8-bit pixels that were the norm of the early '80s.
Even to this day, the visuals are still impressive, though traditional game graphics have made significant strides in the past 29 years, to the point that some games have animation that is extremely close to traditional, hand-drawn animation. Yet many will argue we're not exactly there yet, and may never get to such a level.
Unfortunately, "Dragon's Lair" is not nearly as interactive as the games of today, nor was it back then either. Yet it helped to form the foundation for interactive cinematics. After being dormant for many years, the mechanic made its return in "Shenmue" in 1999, and has remained ever since. But again, the gameplay's roots can be traced all the way back to 1983.
"Dragon's Lair" was also a LaserDisc based game, which was the primary format for such lush visuals upon its arrival. As technology advanced, and storage solutions decreased in size physically (LD discs were very large platters), the game would be ported to whatever was considering cutting edge at the moment. The Xbox 360, it would appear, is just another sign of the times.
--
Matthew Hawkins is an NYC-based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, Giant Robot and numerous others. He also self-publishes his own game culture zine, is part of Attract Mode, and co-hosts The Fangamer Podcast. You can keep tabs on him via Twitter, or his personal home-base, FORT90.com.
