Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair, Desktop Computer

In 1983, a new era in videogames was born. At a time when the staple diet of gamers worldwide was the 2D, sprite-based shoot-em-up, all of a sudden, an entirely new concept arrived: the interactive movie. Now arcades were packed full of kids huddled round one particular machine, at the controls the lucky player had just paid 1 to actually PLAY A CARTOON! It was crap. It basically involved watching an animation and occasionally having to move the joystick or press the button at a specific time in order to continue. But it certainly looked darn nice. And it used laser disc, which was pretty cool. Well, twenty years on and we finally have the technology to do it properly. Dragon's Lair 3D does exactly what everyone first thought the original arcade game did all that time ago, delivering a 3D platform adventure, complete with some smart looking cel-shading, in which Dirk the Daring again attempts to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe. Legendary animator and creator of the original, Don Bluth, has lent a hand with the development of Dragon's Lair 3D, assisting with the creation of new designs and characters. The castle, which is the location for the core of the adventure, is made up of 16 unique areas, each with multiple rooms and dangers. And now that everything is actually interactive you can run, jump, crouch, somersault, and perform a host of other tricks as you guide the lanky hero through the treacherous environments. Along the way, Dirk can also make use of a variety of items, change weapons and drink potions in order to regain his dwindling health. It's been a long time coming, but the classic cartoon adventure has finally realised its videogame ambitions, delivering an immersive and atmospheric adventure to the PC. And with such a brilliant plot as 'rescue the Princess', who can resist?

Buy Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair for 2.99 GBP

Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun
As you may have already guessed from the title, this real-time strategy sim is set during the time of one of England's longest reigning monarchs, Queen Victoria. As such, the game's concept - treading a similar path to other Paradox Entertainment-developed titles such as Hearts of Iron and Europa Universalis - sees you endowed with the task of achieving global supremacy during the 19th Century. Th...
Championship Manager 2006
It's getting towards the business end of the 2005-2006 season in the English football leagues at the time of Championship Manager 2006's release on PC: time perhaps, for a reminder of just how much of one's life can be frittered away in front of a monitor, and not only through being an elf in a MMORPG, looking at rude things on the 'net, or blowing away HR Giger-like monsters on the latest rootin'...
Shanghai Second Dynasty
The Eastern game of Shanghai, although never a mainstream genre by any means, is a thoroughly addictive tabletop game. In its purest form, players are given a board of tiles that are stacked on four layers, the objective being to clear the table by matching available pairs of tiles. The only problem is that you can only take tiles with a free space to the left or right of the respective tile. It's...
Hitman: Codename 47
First there was Doom; a great creation for the first person shoot-em-up genre in the early nineties. Then there was Tomb Raider (1996), another fantastic franchise designed for the third person adventure game. Since both were considered to be role models for developers in their respective genres, there aren't many games that can combine the two together. However, one of the exceptions to the above...
Heretic 2
Heretic II sets you upon an epic quest across an entire continent to find a means to cleanse a world infected with a deadly magical plague that has victimised the people of the realm. Exploring city, swamp, canyon and dungeon levels, you use a variety of offensive and defensive spells such as the Sphere of Annihilation, Repulsion and Fireball in conjunction with a magical bow and staff to defeat a...
Might and Magic 6: The Mandate of Heaven
The release of role-playing games was once a rare occurrence for the western audience, although the genre wasn't as sparse on PC as it was on home consoles. Sometimes considered to be unpopular among the English speaking population, it has taken great time for role-playing games to earn themselves a decent reputation. Some titles make it over to western shores, regardless of their popularity, help...