Showing posts with label Dragon's Lair for Sega CD print ad (supplement) (1993). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dragon's Lair for Sega CD print ad (supplement) (1993). Show all posts

Monday, February 23, 2015

Dragon's Lair for Sega CD (1993)


Original ad published in "KC Joe Montana" issue of Sega Force 
(1993, a supplement to EGM).
Press to view or download image in higher resolution.

A historic, yet grainy port of the arcade classic


Ten years after Dragon’s Lair hit the arcades, Sega CD owners got the chance to bring a little bit of gaming history to their living rooms. It was a decent port, yet nowhere near the quality of the original arcade game developed by Advanced Microcomputer Systems and animated by ex-Disney frontman Don Bluth.

The problem with Dragon’s Lair, as with Time Gal and to a lesser extent Road Avenger, was the media onto which the game ported. Sega CD’s could hold 500 megabytes of information, while LaserDisc’s about 4.6 GB, when transcoded to digital formats (LaserDiscs held information in analog format). So yeah, there was a world of a difference in technical terms, even tough the Sega CD was a much newer system. 

Gamers obviously noticed this imbalance and slowly lost interest in the expensive Sega CD. Today, the system is remembered for allocating more than enough FMV games that offered little interactivity in detriment to other traditional video game genres. This was only boring, it proved to be the system only differentiating point when compared to the better balanced—and cheaper—Super NES.



The ad itself is classy. I actually like the black background of Dirk the Daring's well-detailed animation cell. You get the feeling that this would no be your average video game. Dragon’s Lair was well known by 1993, so marketing could skip the copy and go directly to a well known character to promote the game. Those screen shots at the bottom of the page look quite nice and the header is appropriate. Good job!




Dragon's Lair for Sega CD print ad copy

One Cool November Knight

Dragon’s Lair on Sega CD. Total gaming excitement!

ReadySoft Incorporated