First, you had the option of selecting one of three difficulty levels (Cadet, for beginners, or for the daring, Captain or Space Ace, which activated additional levels of play). (This had the added benefit of making Space Ace a little bit easier to master, since you were not constantly getting different levels thrown at you each time you died).Īnd Space Ace offered a new innovation-true branching. Space Ace levels unfolded like scenes from a movie, always occurring in the same order as you pursued Borf across alien worlds and through space, ultimately intercepting him at his headquarters to rescue Kimberly. In Dragon's Lair, you started at the front of the castle and ended in the dragon's den, but in between were a series of self-contained levels that appeared in more-or-less random order. Space Ace also came much closer to realizing the concept of an interactive movie by offering levels in a linear progression. Compared to the fast and frenetic action of Space Ace, Dragon's Lair just seemed to crawl. So aside from the obvious change in genre, what set Space Ace apart from Dragon's Lair? First off, the pace was much quicker, with many more decision points. You play Ace, a macho star-pilot who gets zapped by alien Borf's new invention, the "Infanto Ray", a laser gun that reverses the aging process and instantly transforms whatever it hits into a baby.Īpparently Ace only gets winged, however, because instead of turning into a gurgling baby, he merely reverts back to the gangly 98-pound weakling he must have been before he hit puberty and changed his name from Dexter (and certainly before he met his current babe girlfriend, Kimberly).īorf kidnaps "Kimmy" in his spaceship, and the adventure begins. Space Ace was Don Bluth's 1984 follow up to Dragon's Lair, and although the gameplay fundamentals remained the same (timed joystick and button presses), Space Ace improved on it's predecessor in almost every way. Luckily, you're allowed to save your progress at four fixed points.Space Ace: defender of justice, truth, and the planet Earth. Timing is crucial you will need to press keys in the exact second. So you're basically trying to keep the strip running. If your decision is wrong, the cartoon will end with a death animation, and Dexter will lose one of his three lives. Each of the 27 seconds-long scenes requires one to three keystrokes. You never control Dexter directly, you just choose an appropriate direction. You have to avoid traps and enemies by pressing the right key at the right time: cursor keys for movements, Insert key to shoot. Space Ace II is a essentially a cartoon strip in which our hero will encounter numerous hazards. Thus empowered, he has to defeat Borf's minions. In critical situations, the meek Dexter can transform into his mighty alter ego Space Ace. Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge continues the saga of young cadet Dexter, who tries to free his love Kimberly from the clutches of the evil nemesis Borf. It has great graphics and animations for its time but suffers from short and very simplistic gameplay. Space Ace lives from the same premise and problems as the related Dragon's Lair games. "PC conversion of Don Bluth's classic laserdisc arcade game. Excerpt from Rob's original review at CW#3 and MobyGames description: If you like any of these disk-based versions, check out the deluxe DVD/CD-ROM versions at Digital Leisure's products page. Treat the games as fun and humorous computer cartoons, but don't expect them to be involving games. It wasn't until the advent of CD-ROM that Readysoft (now sold to Digital Leisure) started making "deluxe" version of these games and put them on CD-ROM and later DVD. PC versions are, naturally, cut-down versions from Laserdisc originals, with many sequences missing altogether. These game are little more than PC version of "choose-your-own-adventure" books, in which gameplay is boiled down to choosing an action from multiple choices. ![]() ![]() This is by no means surprising: although these games boast very high production values and excellent animations which are created by Don Bluth Studios, their value as a game is sorely lacking. In early 1990s, Readysoft released a number of animated action games that became instant hits on the Laserdisc platform, although their PC counterparts suffered poor sales in comparison.
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