Big Picture Big Sound

I remember the day back in 1983 when "Dragon's Lair" made its way into my local arcade. Back then, when I should have been studying Trigonometry, or delivering newspapers on my paper route, I was hanging out in the "Electric Dream Factory" honing my hand-eye coordination skills instead.

"Dragon's Lair" was quite unlike any other game of its time, featuring real film-quality animation (by Disney alum Don Bluth). To cope with the massive storage requirements of high resolution video and the inability of 80s-era arcade consoles to render high-quality animation in real-time, the game's hardware was based on a customized laserdisc player. Choices made in game play caused the player to branch to a particular chapter on the disc playing back one of hundreds of different video clips. Game play was fairly limited (and difficult!), with inevitable delays caused by the laserdisc player's chapter-seeking mechanism, but the visuals were quite stunning compared to any other game in its day.


And it's only fitting that the ground-breaking arcade game would be one of the first Blu-Ray titles to feature BD-J (Blu-ray Disc Java) - the interactive component of the new high definition disc format. The game has actually already been released in high definition format for the PC (with a newly transfered high definition video transfer and a new 5.1-channel soundtrack), but BD-J will make it playable on Sony's PS3, as well as any other BD player that supports the BD-J specification. Since BD-J is a mandatory part of the BD spec, all BD players should support the disc. The BD-J version should allow Blu-Ray Disc player owners to enjoy a fully arcade-authentic experience of "Dragon's Lair" on the HDTV of their choice.


Digital Leisure, with authoring partner Infinite HD, transferred the video directly from the original film cleaning each frame by hand, creating a "truly vibrant image."

"I've seen the newly restored footage and it just looks amazing" says Don Bluth, original creator of Dragon's Lair. "It looks even better than I can remember. The visuals, the 5.1 surround sound audio, all I can say is 'Wow!' Now a whole new generation can enjoy Dragon's Lair all over again."


Unlike most current high definition releases, all of the special features on the disc were shot natively in 1080p at 24fps. These include brand-new interviews with creators Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and Rick Dyer, and for the first time a full length visual commentary of the game.

Digital Leisure plans to follow up Dragon's Lair Blu-ray with the release of "Space Ace" and "Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp" in the Blu-ray Java format. Dragon's Lair Blu-ray will be available April 9th at many software and movie retailers as well as online at digitalleisure.com.