Sharpen your sword and get ready to guide Dirk the Daring as he races through time to save the beautiful Princess Daphne from the clutches of the Evil Wizard Mordroc in Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp. This long awaited sequel to the award-winning game Dragon's Lair has been completely restored and enhanced with an all-new 5.1 surround sound mix and is now available on Blu-ray from Digital Leisure...

Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp was the 1991 laserdisc video game follow up to Don Bluth's original Dragon's Lair. You play the heroic knight Dirk the Daring, who must stop the Evil Wizard Mordroc as he has kidnapped Princess Daphne and taken her through time. But you must hurry, for once the Casket of Doom has opened, Mordroc will place the Death Ring upon Daphne's finger in marriage and she will be lost forever.

Like the first game, this sequel has a predefined animated story that plays out correctly if the player pushes the Blu-ray remote control (or the PS3 controller if you're playing this on your PS3 machine) in the right direction, or press the fire button at the correct time. On screen help is given mere seconds before you are required to perform a certain action. Hit the right button and the action continues. Make a mistake and you die.

To be perfectly honest though, unless you have the reflexes of a cat, you won't be able to play this through very far without dying and sometimes the onscreen help isn't much use. For example the bottom left hand corner may flash... but does that mean you must press left or down on the control panel? Trial and error is the order of the day here and having a good memory also helps as once you die it's simply a case of remembering which moves you've already performed and repeating them.

Extras include the full game footage played through from start to finish (10 min, 06 sec); Video Commentary (14 min, 55 sec picture in picture commentary with Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The commentary is pretty dull, but you do get to see each stage of the game played through with the numerous death scenes added onto the end); Creator Interview (10 min, 30 sec interview with Don Bluth and Gary Goldman); Progression Reel (1 min, 37 sec look at how the quality of the various formats over the years has progressed); Deleted Scene: The Pirate Ship (a two-part feature that shows the animatic (1 min, 05 sec) and the storyboard (1 min, 48 sec) for The Pirate Ship level which was lost); Previews (trailers and playable demos for Dragon's Lair and Space Ace).

As with the previous releases this is only going to appeal to those that grew up playing this in the arcades. But if you fall under that category then you'll love the chance to play it once again without having to shovel pound coins into the slot to keep replaying.

8

Nick Smithson