If you were a teenager in the 80s then you certainly have fond memories of Don Bluth’s laser-disc games like Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace. These games were simply amazing at the time and were so bleeding edge that you could sever an arm if you got too close to the cabinet.
For those of you who never owned a vinyl album, Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace were basically “interactive movies” controlled with a standard arcade joystick and fire button. The high-quality hand-drawn animation (by Don Bluth studios) were contained on an array of laser-discs, and scenes were dynamically presented based on your correct (or incorrect) input. At the time, CDs were brand new, and laser-discs were more or less based on CD technology, so about 30 minutes of semi-standard-definition video would fit on each side of an 11-inch disc. The discs supported random-access just like today’s CDs and DVDs, which is what made the games “interactive”.
There were about 20 or so laser-disc games spawned in the eighties, but ony Don Bluth’s games reached any level of ubiquity. This may be because the level of animation was never at the level of quality that this senior animated could churn out. Don Bluth was originally a Disney animator that moved on to create his own studio, and is the genius behind “The Secrets of Nihm”, “Anastasia”, “The Land Before Time”, “Titan A.E”, and many other classic animated films.
Now Digital Leisure has introduced Space Ace in High Definition format. These aren’t merely upscaled transfers from laser-disc but a total re-mastering of the original film. Yes, back in those days animation was still done using hand-painted cells and cellulose film. If you were a fan of these classic games (or are just an animation buff) then Space Ace HD will certainly interest you.
First ever High Definition Film Transfer!
For the first time ever you can experience the stunning visuals of Space Acer in full High Definition video! Using the most sophisticated film transfer technology, this smash hit arcade game can now be played in High Definition and fantastic 5.1 Surround Sound on your computer.
In Space Ace you play the heroic Ace who must stop the evil Commander Borf from taking over the Earth! Borf plans to reduce all of humankind to infants and take over the planet. Only two people have the courage and strength to stop Borf and save Earth: the beautiful Kimberly and the heroic Ace. But as they approach Borf’s stronghold, Ace is hit by the Infanto Ray, changing him into a child, and Kimberly is kidnapped by the evil madman!
The fate of Earth is in your hands!
Features:
- Relive the Arcade experience with this remastered HD adventure
- Completely Arcade Authentic
- Fully interactive gameplay digitally remastered from the original film
- Restored original soundtrack, for the first time in 5.1 surround sound
- Stunning Classic Cel Animation from Don Bluth
- Three Different Viewing Resolutions
- Watch Mode — Sit back and watch the beautiful animation unfold before your eyes.
Minimum System Requirements : (1280×1024)
Windows XP / Vista, 2.4 GHZ Processor, 512 MB RAM, 64 MB GFX Card, DVD-ROM Drive, 1024×768 min screen res. 5.1 Surround Sound audio card required for surround playback, standard audio cards will output remastered stereo audio
Installing Space Ace HD is extremely simple. There is no install process, and everything needed to run is included on the dual-layer DVD disc. Once autorun is started, you are presented with a menu to play or watch the game. You can select the quality level when playing (low, medium, or high) to get smooth playback depending on your system’s processing power. Under Vista x64 the game sometimes doesn’t render the initial menu.
The game supports three difficulty levels, which can only be seen when the game is running in Windowed mode. In this mode there is a traditional context menu that allows you to change options like the Score Overlay, Difficulty, and Copy Files to Hard Disk. These options are not seen in full-screen mode and do not present themselves on the inital load screen. On “Cadet” level there is a large window of time that the game accepts your input. Correct moves are registered with a high “beep” and incorrect moves deliver a low “beep” result. In this mode it is very easy to get through the game, and you’ll really only die if you don’t respond at all. “Ace” level has the same time window as the original arcade game, and requires quick timing.
If you choose to “watch” the adventure without any input then you can choose “deaths” or “no deaths”. No user input is required, and the “no deaths” option shows you how the video would run if a player successfully walked through the entire game without any incorrect moves. The “deaths” options goes through each scene, but shows all of the possible ways to kill Dexter before moving onto the next scene. Watching the game a few times serves as a good tutorial on the correct moves when playing the game.
Space Ace HD for the PC is encoded using High-Definition Windows Media (HD-WMV), and each scene is a seperate file on the DVD-ROM disc. There are nine different versions of the film on the disc (three quality levels at three different resolutions) so the game can be viewed no matter if you have a widescreen or standard monitor (but 1280×1024 is the minimum supported resolution).
The 16:9 version of the film has been “pan and scanned”
Video modes are selected automatically depending on your viewing mode. If you have a wide-screen display then the widescreen version is displayed by default. If you are playing in a window, then the 4:3 high definition version is displayed, and there is another full-screen version with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Here are all of the supported video modes.
Space Ace HD Available Resolutions
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The game is controlled using standard keyboard controlls (key up, key left, key right, key down, Enter or Space). Because it accepts keyboard input, the game works perfectly with X-Arcade’s Tankstick (which basically just sends keyboard output). Your current stats (score and lives left) appear overlaid over the video in a standard Windows font (looks like Tahoma with a pure red color). Since this disc is completely “plug and play” you can drop it into a MAME cabinet for instant retro goodness.
The game is just as hard as you remember. In Dragon’s Lair there was usually a flash preceding the next action you were to take, but in Space Ace you must mostly judge when to make a movement (such as dodging through the arms of a crusher robot) by using your wits. You will die, and you will die often, but fortunately you can continue playing as long as you like without eating up all your quarters… that’s worth the price of admission right there!
Space Ace Easter Egg: Borf without pants
The film transfer is arcade authentic. Since the video was captured from the original film, you can see some of the “film grain” that can be mis-interpreted as “noise”, but this just adds to the charm of the original hand-drawn artwork if you’re a true animation enthusiast. The lower-quality levels of the game introduce some severe blockiness (which are eliminated in the high-quality version), but the animation remains smooth and fluid.
Not only is the film transfer vibrant and brilliant, but it includes the game’s original Easter Eggs. In Dragon’s Lair there were several of these, but in Space Ace there is only one that I know of: Borf is drawn without any pants in one of the last battle scenes. It only happens for a split second and is easy to miss.
For those that see this as a novelty only, then you’ll be turned off by the $50 pricetag. Alot of work has gone into bringing Space Ace into the 21st century, but the fact remains that gameplay is rather short (once you’ve mastered it), and unless you’re a fan of the game then you’ll probably just watch the video walkthrough.
The video quality is superb, and Digital Liesure has packed this disc so full to make sure that nearly every PC can experience it.
For the animation enthusiast (or those of you still with a “Flock of Seagulls” haircut still listening to Cyndi Lauper) Space Ace HD is the quintesential retro experience. It has been completely remastered for high-definition displays and sports a new 5.1 soundtrack. If you are extreme enough to have a full MAME cabinet and authentic arcade joytstick, then there is no question that you should have Space Ace HD.
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