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The first time I saw the original coin-op Dragon's Lair laserdisc game, I was hooked. Even after I had mastered it, I would still continue to play it because the underlying movie was so funny. I would purposely use two of my lives exploring every possible comical death, before completing the game with my last life. I was excited to get a chance to review the new Dragon's Lair 3D, Return to the Lair, for the Xbox and looked forward to seeing some of my old friends again.

In Dragon's Lair 3D, you are once again the clumsy, bumbling Dirk the Daring. The sexy princess Daphne has once again been kidnapped by the great Dragon Singe, leaving Dirk to come to the rescue. Singe retreats through a magic portal to a castle where the evil old wizard Mordrok lives. Before Dirk enters the portal, he receives an amulet. Dirk then plunges through the Portal to rescue his girl.

The amulet allows Daphne to coach Dirk along, telling him how things work, and giving general hints. Also the amulet collects and holds Dragon Essences that Dirk finds. Essences allow Dirk to perform special feats (I will cover them later). Dirk can also pick up healing and mana potions, crossbow bolts and treasure.

The Dragon Essences give Dirk special powers, including the ability to convert mana to health, the ability to glide, a spinning sword attack, Fire resistance and the ability to spot illusions. While an essence is being used, Dirk's mana will also be used.

Is it just me, or has every Adventure game since Diablo, required the ruthless massacre of innocent wooden barrels? Barrels yield health and mana recharges, as well as treasure, crossbow ammunition or the occasional giddy goon. Each area has a set number of treasures. You can access the inventory system with the start button to see how many you have obtained versus how many are left.

Unlike the original, you have complete control of which way Dirk's facing and his movement. Dirk is free to walk, turn and jump any direction. For a sequel to a game that original had a four direction joystick and an action button, you will be shocked at how you will be using most every control on the Xbox controller.

The left analog controls Dirk's movement, right analog controls the camera. The left pad is used to cycle through and select essences and crossbow ammunition. Left trigger makes Dirk run (expect a cramped hand from keeping this pulled almost 100% of the time). The right trigger makes Dirk crouch. The left and right triggers together will make Dirk do a roll. The four buttons on the right are "A" jumping, "X" use, or shooting/swinging a weapon if one is drawn, "Y" auto target, "B" Blocking. The clear button draws Dirk's crossbow (once he has obtained one), the black button draws Dirk's sword. You will use all these buttons frequently. Accessing potions is done through a clunky inventory system accessed via the start button. Changing from sword to crossbow, targeting then selecting a specific type of arrow, almost requires three hands!

Graphically, I am big fan of the cel shading technique to give games a more cartoon feel. Dirk's animations were extremely well done and of course Daphne looks as good as ever (hehe). The look and feel of most levels remained close to the original. Only rarely did a cell shaded Dirk look out of place in the 3d world. The game supports high definition tv mode, but unfortunately my budget does not support HDTV, so I don't know how it looks there. The sound was quite good, building into nice themes for each of the boss fights. Daphne's ditzy stripper voice is kind of hard to understand in spots and after awhile does get a bit annoying. I think that was by design.

One of the bright spots that surprised me was that I had to fight the camera very little in this game. Most platform games require you to constantly reposition the camera, this one is no exception. You will often want to take a look around but the frequency is much lower than any other game in recent memory. The auto target feature in combat was both good and bad - it instantly turns you toward and tracks a target. The bad part is if you have to run and you forget to turn the target track off, you end up running toward your target... oops!

As a platform game, this one is mixed. Some rooms are great; some rooms make you want to scream. Jumping with Dirk at a full run is tricky, often times he will just run off the ledge. Having him grab a ledge and pull himself up (which he is supposed to do automatically), is a hit or miss thing. In fact, once you get the Dragon Wings essence, which allows Dirk to glide, you will have it active anytime there is jumping involved in case you mess up. Rope to rope swinging and chain climbing are ok though.

Thankfully, death is not painful at all, the game has many hidden waypoints where if you die, you will be back at that point within a few seconds. You can also save your progress at just about any point. The big boss fights are an exception. These battles are drawn out and you have to make it all the way through the fight in one swoop. Often you'll also have to complete a room prior to a boss battle, combined with beating the boss all in one try without a save. I was telling a friend about this one room where I died 50 times within five minutes, he did not believe me until he came over and gave it a shot. You will see the animation of Dirk's crumbling bones more than you could ever imagine.

Many of the rooms from the original game are here and there are many well thought out puzzles and rooms to navigate. You will rarely be stumped about what you have to do. Like the original, you are given visual clues about what to do at certain times. There are a few rooms though, where you will know exactly what you have to do and still die many times trying to pull it off.

The boss fights were surprisingly good with only one noteable exception that I will mention in a moment. The Bat King flies around and attacks Dirk with his sonic radar. The Lizard King chases Dirk swinging his mace while Dirk is chasing the magical pot of gold that has stolen Dirk's sword. The Electrical Knight laughs at you while you jump across the electrically charged checkerboard floor to get to him. These and the rest were all fun fights. The annoying one was the Master Smithee who makes weapons from his weapons rack fly at you *shudders at the thought*.

The disc does have video segments regarding the making of the game, and of making the history of the original Dragon's Lair. As you go through the game, a few cut scenes are unlocked. Once you beat the game, the final cut scene and credits are unlocked. The final cut scene was much shorter than I expected! I was a little dissapointed. Also, how hard would have been to port and put the original game on the disc? It would have been a hoot to play it again. As for this game, I do not have an overwhelming urge to go through it again, perhaps that will change.

Overall, this game tried to succeed as three distinctly different games. Interactive movie, platform game, action combat, it did an average job at all three, good at times, well below average at others. I would recommend this game to any Dragon's Lair fans like me, but I would certainly suggest renting or borrowing it before you buy it.