The sheer amount of information collected here about Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace and their spin-offs is staggering. MS-DOS, Amiga, Gameboy, Nintendo, and even mobile versions of the game are documented, just to name a few. Each game listing comes with some documentation, often including a screenshot and some interesting trivia. You’ll even learn about some unreleased and cancelled versions of the game. Clothing, board games, toys, and many other collectibles are also thoroughly documented. Design buffs will love the documented logos and font styles that are also included. If that weren’t enough, there’s a whole page dedicated to listing the Dragon’s Lair "firsts" such as the fact that it was the first game to use orchestral music (as opposed to the blips and bloops of gaming up until that point).
One of my favorite sections is a collection of magazine ads for the game. These ads not only featured the game, but the way they did so said a lot about advertising and marketing strategies of the day. Don Bluth’s gorgeous artwork was usually front and center. That and a few screenshots was often all the ad needed to really pop. Another one of my favorite sections is the collection of images of the actual media the game came out on. There are pictures of the Dragon’s Lair Super Nintendo cartridge, a digital cassette tape, a 5.25" floppy disk, and several DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray variants, just to name a few. This is an example of an area of the book that would appeal to not only just Dragon’s Lair (and Space Ace) fans, but fans of historical preservation of technology in general.
Again, my mind reels at the sheer amount of research and material that is packed into this book. Press releases, magazine ads, collectibles, pop culture references, books, comics and posters are all documented here. Some of the big names in collectors are also given a section in the back of the book, which is a nice touch. The only big criticism I have for this book is that it doesn’t tell a very compelling story. The 80’s were a tumultuous time for gaming in general, and the narrative at the beginning of the book doesn’t fully capture you and draw you in on that. That’s a small criticism on such an extensively researched book with a different focus altogether, though.
It's not just collectors who will get something out of this book. Fans of gaming, computer gaming, and children of the 80’s will get a kick out of all the related trivia and the progression of technology you'll witness as you read through all hardware and software variations that the game branched out to over the years. The only hope I have is for a Kindle or other e-reader friendly version of this to be released in the future. The author, Syd Bolton, is also the founder of the Personal Computer Museum in Ontario, Canada. When you’re done reading the book, you might just find yourself wanting to plan a visit to see it!
