Space Ace (NTSC)

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, Dragon's Lair 2, A Fork In The Tale
Year Released	1983	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	N/A	Other Extras	Featurette - History
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director
Studio Distributor	Digital Leisure	Starring
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music

    Borf, the bad guy, has kidnapped Space Ace's girlfriend Kimberley with the aid of his Infanto Ray - a weapon which regresses its victims to babydom. It is up to you, as either Space Ace or as his regressed version Dexter, to save Kimberley. Cheesy stuff, perhaps, but there's nothing wrong with a simple plot in a game like this.

    Throughout the game, you have the choice of continuing to play as Dexter, or to Energize and become Space Ace. If you remain as Dexter, the game is considerably easier, with far less moves to make to complete the game. The fact that once you have completed this game as Dexter you are able to repeat it as Space Ace, visualizing more scenes than you did previously, gives this game a reasonable amount of replayability.

    There are several improvements that have been made to the authoring of this title, presumably in deference to issues that arose from the release of Dragon's Lair. Firstly, there are two options for actually playing the game; one allows a minimum of two seconds to make every move, and the other preserves the original timing. According to the documentation, this improves the playability of this title on a number of DVD players. I also felt that the progression through the scenes was smoother and more responsive to keypresses than Dragon's Lair was. Additionally, the animation is more seamless in appearance between transitions.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is therefore not 16x9 enhanced. It is in NTSC format, so your display device will need to be NTSC-compatible to play this game.

    This transfer looks considerably better than the one afforded to Dragon's Lair. Nonetheless, it remains somewhat blurred and indistinct by current standards. Shadow details are passable, but there is a little low level noise in the picture. Fortunately, this is much less noticeable than the low level noise exhibited by Dragon's Lair.

    The colours were far more saturated and vibrant than those in Dragon's Lair, which looked quite dull in comparison to this title. This, however, does come at the expense of some colour bleeding which is apparent in the most highly saturated elements of the image.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. Video glitches were noted occasionally, but they remained minor and acceptable. A few film artefacts were seen here and there - comprising the odd nick or scratch in the original filmic elements.

Audio

    There is only a single audio track on this DVD; English Dolby Digital 2.0. This is predominantly mono, with some nice stereo sound effects.

    Dialogue, what there was of it, was always clear and easy to understand.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The score is passable for an arcade game, but is otherwise unremarkable.

    The surround channels were not used.

    The .1 channel was not used.

Menu

Featurette - History

Watch

Trailers

    The video quality is dated, showing the analogue heritage of its source material, but remains acceptable.

    The audio quality is fairly unremarkable, with slightly better use of stereo effects than Dragon's Lair.

    The extras are interesting, even though the video and audio quality are lacking.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
6th October 1999