Review of Space Ace

Introduction

If you`ve never heard of this game, its the third in a series of classic 80`s Laserdisc arcade conversions. The other two were Dragons Lair and Dragons Lair 2, the reviews of which cover far more of the background details than those I`ll mention here.

Once again the gameplay is the same, only where as before you controlled the success or failure of Dirk the Daring, now its the turn of Ace who`s girlfriend Kimberly has been kidnapped by the evil Commander Borf and his dreaded Infanto Ray.

Conclusion

As the third game in the series, this builds on the previous games with better animation and a far catchier soundtrack. The editing is as good as it can possibly get, with the whole experience far more polished when your in the game. The time it would take you to complete this is going to be very long indeed, sequences can go on for a long time making dying very frustrating.

Items and areas flash yellow everytime you are required to do something, which really helps prevent the bumbling about but also essentially turns this into a game of memory more than cunning. But I`m not exactly sure what else you can do with the DVD format as it stands, this is as interactive as it can get.

This is one for nostalgic arcade freaks, and possibly even the kids. If you are interested in just buying one of the series, you really ought to go for this one. Its the best looking and most playable of the three, although its also probably the longest. I dread to think how much it would have cost to play this all the way through in the original arcade.

Once again a must have for emulator fans or people wanting something to keep the kids busy for half an hour every now and again. Others will very much suffer frustration from its lack real interactivity and repetitive play, particularly with the longer sequences.