Dragon's Lair is like Dracula in Castlevania games. No matter how many times it's killed, history's most interactive DVD menu screen continues to rise from the abyss, ready to arbitrarily kill players for their lack of memorization skills. Now, the game's making its way to PSP, that is, if United Coders can find a publishers for Dirk's reanimated corpse.

This "Director's Cut" does have a few tweaks, with new scenes added, a castle map that displays your progress and five lives per player instead of three. (There's also an "Arcade" mode if you prefer fewer retries.) ... So, that's the end of the post. We know it was jarring, but unfortunately, our supply of punchy ways to end a story about Dragon's Lair were used up around the game's 17th iteration.

If you're like us, there was one primary factor in your choice of high-definition disc formats: the availability of Dragon's Lair. By that logic, we were siding with Blu-ray for awhile, but now we're just ambivalent.

An HD-DVD version of Dragon's Lair is coming August 15 for $29.99, the same price as the Blu-ray incarnation. O, what are we to do? We can't decide, so we'll just stick to our DS version, thank you very much.

Released on Blu-ray just a few weeks ago, a DS incarnation of the classic arcade/Laserdisc adventure Dragon's Lair has been announced by Digital Leisure. At first we thought the two would go together as well as peanuts and bubblegum, but after reading what developer Wizardry Engineering is doing to make the game fit the system, we might have to reconsider.

Dragon's Lair DS will be playable on one screen or split across two, holding the DS like a book. Touch screen control will be implemented, and there's even talk of voice recognition (blue ... BLUE!!!) and rumble pak support. Hey, if it worked on Game Boy Color, it should go over fine on the DS.

[Via DS Fanboy

Lately it seems like Dragon's Lair has been all over the place. In addition to the recently released (and problematic) Blu-ray version, Cinematical reports that Don Bluth has been shopping around a new Dragon's Lair project recently, complete with a finished script and concept artwork. Bluth had worked on a feature film version that never saw the light of day back in 1983 ( you can check out some storyboards from that here).

It'll be a prequel that details Dirk the Daring's adventures outside the lair ... so wouldn't calling it Dragon's Lair be a bit misleading? Kind of like a Star Wars movie that all takes place on one planet. Still, Bluth was quite the animation director back in the day, so here's hoping that this one gets off the ground and makes it to theaters. It'll have to be better than the Saturday morning cartoon version.

Also, let's hope they give Dirk more to say than "Uh oh." Plus they should talk to this guy about the costuming.

Earlier this week, Dean Takahashi of The Mercury News asked in his blog, "Can anyone figure out what's going on here?" The question was brought about by the recent Blu-ray release of the arcade's animated reflex-a-thon, Dragon's Lair, as well as the unfortunate observation that it didn't seem to work at all on Dean's Philips player. He also experienced audio issues when placing the disc in his PlayStation 3.

We contacted publisher Digital Leisure, hoping to ascertain whether or not this was a widespread issue. While they were unable to replicate the PS3 audio problem, they did note that certain stand-alone drives may be prone to playback issues. If you're at all interested in partaking in Bluth-ray antics, this is the part you'll want to pay attention to.

During restoration and development , Dragon's Lair was tested on the following players: Samsung BD-P1000, Panasonic DMP-BD10, PowerDVD (PC), Sony BDP-S1 and the PlayStation 3. The use of BD-Java in Dragon's Lair is likely the source of problems in other players, as the Blu-ray Association's deadline for mandatory hardware BD-Java support (enabling fancy picture-in-picture features) was only recently set for October 31, 2007. "Due to the lack of Java standardization many players just aren't able to handle proper playback," says the Canadian publisher.

Be sure to consult your manufacturer's website and support forums before you purchase the game -- "There is no way to tell whether a disc will or will not work without trying it out on a player." Excellent. Future firmware updates for your player may improve your chances, but for now, getting it to work is a game of chance. And even if you win, you still get Dragon's Lair.

Nostalgia can warp a mind in strange and terrible ways. Indeed, the fond memories swimming about in your brain may have lead you to believe that Dragon's Lair was, back in the day, a rather swell game. And look at that -- you've even been coerced into thinking it was a game. You've got a nasty surprise in store for you, or rather, a shockingly vivid, high-definition nightmare, should you decide to pick up the newly announced Blu-ray (and thus PS3) version of Don Bluth's "classic."

The postcard we received (depicted above) prompted this warning of sorts, but perhaps we're being too harsh. The April 9th Blu-ray version does come equipped with 5.1 surround sound, remastered 1080p video, creator commentary and several new interviews. The official website also points to upcoming Blu-ray versions of Dragon's Lair II and Space Ace, two of the most revered entries in the die-over-and-over-again genre established by Dirk's original dragon-slaying adventure. If you're going to be skewered repeatedly in a joyless animation showcase, it may as well be in true HD.

Remember Dragon's Lair? The game -- released on laserdisc in 1983 -- was notable for the quality of the on-screen visuals. Instead of blocky pixels, Dragon's Lair featured lushly drawn environments that blew away every other arcade title of the era.

Just one little problem: the game's technology resulted in an inferior play experience. On-screen action felt divorced from the game's controls, in part because the game needed to hunt for the right animations on a laserdisc at every junction.

The result: a game that looked like a Ferrari, raced like a Yugo, and gobbled quarters like no other. It was awful, despite the glowing fluff that appears in the Wiki entry about it.

That's why we're pleased to link to this video featuring a complete walkthrough of the game. After all of these years, it's wonderful to finally get some closure.

[Thanks, Ryuukuro]

Yet another iteration of the classic arcade game, Dragons Lair, is about to hit the shelves. The new version promises the following:

-Relive the arcade experience with this All-New Adventure.
-New, State-of-the-Art graphics with Toon Shading technology.
-All the excitement of the original, with new levels, and characters.
-Three new Bonus Scenes, playable after defeating the Evil Wizard.
-Forty-three Levels and Nine exciting Boss Battles await you!
-DVD Bonus: Art Gallery with never before seen images from Don Bluth Studios.
-DVD Bonus: Includes the complete Christopher Stone Dragon's Lair soundtrack.

The link includes info on the game, as well as a demo download. Enjoy, all you old farts out there.