Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Game	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono)
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 3 - Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, A Fork In The Tale
Year Released	1983	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	N/A	Other Extras	Featurette - Rough Cut Footage
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director
Studio Distributor	Digital Leisure	Starring
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music

    I remember well this game in the arcades, when the previous most technically advanced game was Frogger. Here was a game where you controlled a cartoon, and it looked and sounded just like the movies! Be assured, these laserdisc-based machines blew the socks off people when they appeared in the early 80's. People would simply pour money into this thing because it was so novel, and indeed quite a challenge!

    Although this is a game, it is played on a standard DVD-Video player. The cover suggests that it is not compatible with most Samsung and Aiwa players, though I would imagine newer models should be fine. I would suggest renting this title first if you are at all unsure and do have an old player - my trusty old Panasonic A350A grunted and wheezed through this but managed to play it with little difficulty.

    The game operates by constant "chapter" changes to reflect moves made by the player via the directional arrows / joystick on your remote. There is a noticeable pause on my player whenever this happens, though I imagine DVD-ROM equipped computers would not suffer this problem, as will next generation DVD-Video players.

Video

    The presentation is full frame, with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is not 16x9 enhanced. It is in NTSC format, so your display device will need to be NTSC-compatible to play this game.

    The image is reasonably sharp and detailed, if just a tad on the soft side. Shadow detail is generally poor but adequate. There is no low-level noise.

    The colours are somewhat variable, ranging from quite rich to slightly washed-out. However, large areas of colour are nicely steady showing no bleeding or noise, which surprised me.

    There were no MPEG artefacts of any kind during this movie. It appears that this is not composite video source, as the image is rock-solid steady with no aliasing or dot-crawl of any kind. This suggests that the DVD has not been sourced from the laserdisc (which is composite video only), but from original elements, and might also explain the degradation observed in the colour quality at times.

Audio

    There is one track, being Dolby Digital 2.0. This is mono throughout.

    The sound quality is distinctly lo-fi, sounding thin and compressed, with no dynamic range. The term "tonally challenged" comes to mind.

    There are no audio-sync problems. Given that the player is constantly jumping from chapter to chapter, it is remarkable that the audio-sync is as good as it is.

    The music is quite good given the above limitations. It keeps the game rolling along, though it is unfortunate that it pauses whenever the player skips to the next step throughout the game - something which is simply unavoidable. When this was in the arcades, all the other video machines made strange, alien beeps and buzzes - whilst this "game of the future" had a full orchestral score behind it! Seems odd now, but it was most impressive for its time.

    The surround channels are not used, given that this was an arcade game.

    The subwoofer sat quietly in the corner during this game.

Menu

Trailers

Watch (10:05)

    This simply plays the entire game, start to finish. By golly, it may only take 10 minutes to watch, but it takes much longer to finish! (which, by the way, I haven't yet).

Featurette - Rough Cut Footage (16:42)

   This is basically a progression throughout the entire game. It is of varying quality, sometimes being identical to the finished product, other times simple black & white pencil outlines. It runs roughly 6 minutes longer than watching the game via the "watch" feature because it contains all the "deaths" for particular areas. It is quite interesting, especially from an animation perspective, and gives you insight into the sheer amount of work that has been outlaid.

    The video quality is not particularly great, but is well acceptable, and certainly as high as could be expected given the age of the production.

    The audio is rather poor, but again expected.

    A small but welcome selection of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall