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S P A C E A C E
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(c) 1983
Space Ace was the second, and last (for some time) laserdisc game made by the Bluth group. By the time it was issued the gaming market generally had started to collapse. The game featured technological improvements (stereo sound for one) which meant that arcade owners had to obtain a completely new game cabinet rather than just swap the ROM and laserdisc, as they had been told on the release of Dragon's Lair, a factor which contributed to its downfall.
The game began with a title sequence featuring the hero, Ace, being hit by Borf's Infanto Ray, which turns Ace into Dexter, a spindly teenager! The process can be temporarily reversed, however, if Dexter takes one of his supply of Proton Pills. The game progressed along similar lines to
Dragon's Lair, where the player would be set in a situation where the correct sequence of moves was required to progress to the next stage. However, unlike Dragon's Lair, Space Ace allowed a little flexibility in how it was completed - mainly, you were allowed to play most of the game as either Ace or Dexter, the game progressing in a different way, depending on your choice. The game also had a linear plot rather than being a series of small separate unconnected scenes as in Dragon's Lair. In this respect Space Ace played as an interactive animated film rather than a game, and was publicised and marketed as a film by the Bluth group, with cinema-syle posters and press kits.The game failed to do as well as
Dragon's Lair - not because there was anything bad about the game, although some thought it too difficult, (I think I'd agree with them!...) but more because it was an expensive untried product being introduced into a struggling market, to now wary customers who'd only expected to have to upgrade the laserdisc and game program. The group carried on with their new project (Dragon's Lair II - Time Warp) despite Space Ace's problems, but really the animated laserdisc game's days were over.The game is available as a CD-ROM these days, although I don't know if the graphics are scanned from the original. I expect they will be.
I first played this game around 1984, and it totally slaughtered me! The title sequence lasted longer than I did! The game was installed in two of the arcades at the beach close to where I live, [still, the beach is pretty close to where everyone lives in England!] and as you walked around the town every few minutes over the background of computer game sounds you could hear "...take a proton pill!..." drifting through the summer air! Whenever you were killed Borf would appear on the screen and tell you "You cannot win!" By the time I'd fed the machine with all my money I was ready to put out a contract on him! (Although of course, I couldn't, because he was a fictional character, and also because I'd fed the machine all my money, and the Mafia rarely work for free!)
This page was created Friday 15 May 1998
