Don Bluth is the name behind countless classic feature length cartoons. Starting his career with Walt Disney studios, he has worked on films such as Oliver and Company, the Secret of N.I.M.H. and The Rescuers.
The early 1980s saw him move from Disney to set up his own company, Sullivan Bluth Interactive Media. While continuing to work on feature films, he turned his hand to video games.
At that time Taito's Space Invaders and Atari's Asteroids were state-of-the-art coin-ops. However, when Dragon's Lair was unleashed onto the unsuspecting public nobody could quite believe it.

This was the first game to call upon the latest laser disk technology. Because of the split second speed of the system, the games were basically interactive cartoons. Now we can experience Don Bluth's masterpieces on our home computers.

You assume the role of Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight who rescued the Princess Daphne from Singe the dragon.
Unfortunately, an evil wizard by the name of Mardoc has also taken a shine to your beloved. In a puff of smoke he has whisked the beauty off to a wrinkle somewhere in time.

Naturally you're not too impressed by this state of affairs and decide to win back your bride. With the aid of an aging time machine, you must travel through time in search of the dreaded dimension.
You'll have to hurry, Mardoc only has to place the ring of death upon Daphne's finger and she'll be lost forever.

Time Warp is spread across six disks. The game features 46 scenes, each of which is superbly animated. Progress is made on a trial and error basis.
Each scene requires certain timed joystick movements. Perform the right ones and you will progress smoothly through the levels.

The programmers have thankfully included a save game facility. This allows players to master the earlier levels without having to repeat them time after time.
Unfortunately, gameplay is pretty sparse. Even novices should be able to complete the game quickly and the save game feature only speeds up the process.

Poor old Dirk-the-Daring isn't having a very good time on it. No sooner has he saved the day and the Princess Daphne, than she's spirited away by the thoroughly nasty Wizard Mordroc. So with a swift wiping of the brow and a quick breather, Dirk leaps into his chamois-leather strides, picks up his broadsword and legs it off to get his delectable true love.

Dragon's Lair II is an animated adventure, of sorts. You control the main character Dirk on his mission to retrieve Daphne. Dirk is controlled by either the joystick or the numeric keypad. His movements, however, are extremely limited; an animated scene plays and by watching the action, you have to move the joystick in the right direction at exactly the right time. So for instance, if a snake appears from the right you have to work out what course of action Dirk has to carry out to avoid or kill the snake.

Let's do the Timewarp again
The action starts with Dirk sat around the breakfast table with his family. As he tucks into his porridge his mother-in-law decides he's not a very nice person and proceeds to wave a rolling-pin at him. Because the woman is only slightly smaller than a large planet, the obvious thing to do is get out of the way as quickly as possible.

Thus you have to move the joystick in the right direction (in this case to the left) and at the right moment (when she starts wagging her rolling-pin). Move at the wrong time and Dirk will get a teeth shattering smack on the head. Move at the right time and he'll leap out of his seat and leg it out onto the castle's drawbridge.

Life starts getting tricky for Dirk now. Most of the scenes that follow involve multiple moves to escape death. So for example in the second scene on the drawbridge, just when you think you've completed it, Dirk will snuff it at the hands of some large snakes.

An animated concussion
The major problem with this game is the boredom factor. Because you only have a very small part to play in Mr Daring's adventures, you come up against the 'so what' factor almost immediately. It all seems so pointless. Some of the screens are hard to solve and you find yourself endlessly running through the same animations, vainly waggling the joystick in every direction known to man. You scan the manual hopefully in case there's a clue and try wacky movements like throwing the joystick with great force at the wall.

The animations themselves are superb and are greatly improved by some wicked samples. However that is all this game is: a series of nice piccies and nice sounds strung together and called an animated adventure. However the crowning glory is the price of the whole package. I mean, I know it's six disks, but come on, fifty quid!

In the past, the Readysoft series of laser-disk conversions have been criticised for their lack of true player participation. While this is admittedly a valid point, the argument behind the programmers' thinking is that for it to be a true conversion, the control method of the original coin-op - along with any other notable features - should be kept as close as possible.

A few years ago, a compromise of sorts was made with the release of Software Projects' two 8-bit Lair games, and whilst these were invariably more playable than the coin-op scenes they were based on, they were still criticised - this time for not being 'true' conversion!
However, by now, people know what to expect from these popular conversions - i.e. the aforementioned limited controls, and their customary, stunning graphics and sound.

This latest instalment picks up the story a few years after Dirk's climatic battle in Singe's Castle, with his hapless fiancée, the delectable Daphne, spirited through a hole in time by the evil wizard, Mordoc. Jealous of her beauty, Mordoc plans to make her his bride during a rather rushed wedding, sealing his control over her with the mysterious Death Ring.

Naturally, Dirk isn't too taken with this idea and, scooping up his trusty sword, prepares to track down his bride-to-be. The game opens with Dirk seated at the dinner table, next to his family of Dirklettes and Granny. On hearing the news of Daphne's abduction, the aging battleaxe blames Dirk for her daughter's constant strife at the hands of unnatural elements, and prepares to educate him with her rolling pin. From here, Dirk is chase into the now-empty Castle Singe, and through the many corridors and secret rooms that make up the ominous building.

In all, there are some fifty scenes for Dirk to make his way though, and each screen is full of unspeakable horrors that are just waiting to prematurely end his quest.

As Dirk battles his way further into the game's six disks, the story starts to unfold. Having avoided a number of reptilian antagonists, Dirk stumbles across a rickety old time machine. Realising that the ramshackle device could take him through the time wrinkle Mordoc used to capture Daphne, he then enters the machine and teleports to the wicked warlock's lair for the final confrontation.

Unlike the first game in the series, most of the scenes move directly into the next, ensuring that the gameplay flows (which is essential in a fast-moving game such as this), and each disk holds roughly eight scenes so that swapping is kept to a bare minimum. Likewise, owners of two or more drives will find that the disk swapping is barely noticeable. In fact, every care has been taken to make the game easy to get into (even though it can be frustrating to play), and there are absolutely no delays or annoying pauses between scenes.
And, in terms of presentation, Timewarp also abandons the 'helper' system used in the Singe's castle adventure, and drops the player straight in at the deep end.

As a rule, you're either a fan of the Readysoft games, or you can't stand them. Personally, I must admit to liking them. Granted, they aren't particularly playable, but there is still a lot of enjoyment to be gained from the trial and error methods required to clear a screen.

In addition, the save game option (which first appeared in Space Ace) steers clear of the repetition of playing the early levels too often, although on the downside it does reduce its playing time considerably. Apart from that, it's all familiar ground The graphics and sound are all up to their usual high standard, with superb cartoon-style animation and suitably loud sound effects and speech, and the speed with which the screens flow into each other makes for a fast-paced game.

I won't harp on about the lack of control over the action, but fans of the genre know what to expect, and this episode in the series delivers enough thrills and spills to keep even the most ardent Dirk fan busy. Others, though, along with people who object to paying nearly fifty quid for a barely interactive cartoon, would be better off leaving it alone.