Some things really don't age well. The mullet is a good example – its few years in the limelight were more than enough. Remember Push Pops? They were lolly-pops that you pushed, but in the end they just ended up running down your arm, forming a congealed mess that looked like some kind of horrible nose bleed.

The point is that some things really do need to stay in their time period, or risk becoming highly anachronistic if they continually push forwards and re-announce their existence... a bit like Mark Holden, and now Dragon's Lair, which has been re-released in a high def format.

Dragon's Lair is an exact replica of the arcade ‘game' (or interactive movie) that appeared in 1983 and then moved onto Laser Disc (yet another proprietary format that had a very short run). I'll call it a game, but it's not really. A game is something that you control; in Dragon's Lair all that you control or have influence over are five buttons, which may or may not be the correct buttons that were needed at a particular time, and which may or may not reward you with some kind of on-screen action.

You ‘control' (or watch) the actions of Dirk the Daring, a (and I quote from the back of the case here) "valiant knight on a quest to rescue a fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon.” That's it really. There's no story other than some fool who's gone and got herself snatched by a nasty dragon (presumably for breeding purposes or perhaps just so that he can smell her lovely hair conditioner) and it's up to the most wussiest-looking knight in the land to come on in and brave trap-filled rooms and obstacle-laden paths that make up the castle.

That's where your skills on the remote control come in. Let's have a read of the hilariously ambiguous instructions that come with the HD DVD:

Uh, so let's see... if I get it right, I get it right and if I don't, I die... and the only way to know if I get it right is if Dirk doesn't die... okaaaay. This is my entire beef with Dragon's Lair. Sure, in its time period of 1983 it would have been totally awesome to see a hand-animated game where you can choose directions and have those choices come to life on the screen. And God knows the world was starved at the time for decent games that pushed technology in new directions. However, for anyone playing Dragon's Lair for the first time in this time period, a huge big "WTF!?” will be uttered upon loading it up and quickly realising that you pretty much have no idea what to do. When you've seen the death animation for the seventeenth time, you'll likely be ready to throw the darn disc into the bin.

I lie a little, because you will know what to do if you watch the movie itself without having to press anything (a feature possible on this disc), in which case you'll be able to see the vision behind the game and exactly what Dirk is supposed to do when the room starts to burn or you're coming up to a nasty-looking dead end – you press the opposite direction. Those savvy enough to react to the audio and visual clues of each scene (every room has some kind of situation – and these get increasingly complex) will probably have a great laugh with the game, but only for nineteen minutes, as this is the entire running time of the game. A fair bit of that includes mirrored scenes (so you press right to avoid the wall instead of left) and a couple of ‘boss' fights that need to be completed in order to pass the game.

I guess it can be fun to learn particular sequences and test your memory for which buttons to press and when, but this pleasure is only going to be subjective. Others will roll their eyes, pop the disc out and go back to Gears of War.

Other extras on the disc include a commentary by the creators of the game, which is fairly boring. There are only so many times you can watch three elderly programmers scratch their heads and try to remember something poignant about a particular scene. There are interviews etc, as well as a comparison to the old game and the new high def transfer, which is certainly noticeable now that it's been cleaned up and presented in 1080p.