9. Dragon's Lair
Released by (deep breath) Advanced Micro Computer Systems in 1983, the Lair was largely designed by well known animator Don Bluth, responsible for classics such as an American Tail and The Land Before Time(old fogies don't act like you haven't seen those flicks when you were a kid). Dragon's Lair was and mostly still is unlike any other bravely taken on arcade project, a game with minimal controls but at the time very easy on the eyes for a coin-op. DL's basic premise, you control Dirk the dashing knight as he tries to save his princess Daphne who's been kidnapped by a Dragon who's taken her back to a big scary castle owned by a wizard name Mordoc. But instead of traveling through levels and smashing buttons, DL's controls were something quite different-they would ask for you to either point in a particular direction with the joystick or if needed, press the sword button to activate your weapon swinging in the animation played out on the screen. The key to the game (admittedly from someone who's old enough to remember playing the game) is TIMING,TIMING,TIMING. Be off even one millisecond from pushing the joystick in the right direction and you could find yourself dropping down a trapdoor, don't press your sword fast enough and an enemy just might take Dirk's head off. The game got a limited, lukewarm revival with an Xbox version in 2002, but never enjoyed the popularity the original had back in the eighties when it frustrated slowpokes across the nation. So, how do we fix Dragon's Lair for 2013 and make it worthy of our current technology and expectations? I say by taking it out of the console and BACK to the arcades. They...they still have arcades, right? Anyway, what I imagine as the 21st century version of Dragon's Lair is a giant machine that resembles something closer to one of those phone booths with the tiny curtains than any arcade game we're accustomed to popping change into. What I imagine is this machine, large enough for a grown adult to stand in but tailored for any size player, is functioning as a giant web-cam of sorts, using the same tech used in Playstation's disappointing Move controllers. As a player of the NEW Dragon's Lair, you would step into the giant 'booth' and once inside, cameras inside size you up and get you in sync with the game so when you move, Dirk moves, when you swing an imaginary sword, Dirk will swing his mighty blade on the actual game play screen in front of you inside of the booth. There's no stopping how real the experience could get from there, and no need to get so complicated and overrun with all the bells and whistles of a new-gen game like the 2002 release. Just the basics and most of the old game's animation coupled with some new stuff and you'll never laugh at the name 'Dirk' again.