Space Ace
Encyclopedia
Space Ace is a laserdisc video game
produced by Don Bluth
Studios, Cinematronics
, and Advanced Microcomputer Systems (later renamed RDI Video Systems
). It was unveiled in October 1983, just four months after the Dragon's Lair
game, then released in Spring 1984, and like its predecessor featured film-quality animation
played back from a laserdisc
.
The gameplay is also similar, requiring the player to move the joystick or press the fire button at key moments in the animated sequences to govern the hero's actions. However, the game's action was more varied with the player occasionally given the temporary option to either have the character he is controlling transform back into his adult form, or remain as a boy with different styles of challenges.
. The game's attract mode
introduces the player to the story via the following narration and dialogue:
animator Don Bluth
. To keep the production costs down, the studio again chose to use its staff to provide voices for the characters rather than hire actors (one exception is Michael Rye
who reprises his role as the narrator of the attract sequence, as he did on Dragon's Lair
). Don Bluth himself provides the (electronically altered) voice of Commander Borf. In an interview about the game, Bluth had stated that had the studio been able to afford more professional actors, he thought Paul Shenar
would have been more suitable for the role of Borf than himself. The game's animation features some rotoscoping, wherein models were built of Ace's spaceship "Star Pac", his motorcycle, and the tunnel in the game's dogfight sequence, then filmed and traced over to render moving animated images with very realistic depth and perspective.
s containing the game program, an additional circuit board to add the skill level buttons, and replacement artwork for the cabinet. The game originally used the Pioneer LD-V1000 or PR-7820 laserdisc players, but an adaptor kit now exists to allow Sony
LDP series players to be used as replacements if the original player is no longer functional.
In 1991, Leland Corporation
released a slightly updated version of Space Ace in the form of a conversion kit for the then recently-released Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
. The updated version added more complicated moves (including diagonal moves), and dropped the easier skill levels, meaning only the "Ace" (difficult) level could be played.
The Dragon's Lair Deluxe Pack released by Digital Leisure Inc. featured Space Ace along with both arcade Dragon's Lair games. They also released a version of Space Ace on DVD that could be played on most DVD players, although it lacked the skill level select of the arcade version, and also played somewhat differently (if the player made a mistake on the arcade version they simply picked up again roughly where they left off, whereas the DVD version forced the player to replay the entire scene from the beginning).
DAPHNE
, an emulator for laserdisc based games, can emulate both the original version and the 1991 version. DAPHNE requires the ROM files plus the original laserdisc to run. Alternatively, an MPEG-2 video stream and Ogg Vorbis audio stream can be substituted for the laserdisc. These streams can be generated from the original laserdisc or from Digital Leisure's DVD.
Like Dragon's Lair, a comic book mini series incorporating elements from both the game and Saturday Supercade version (such as Ace randomly changing into Dexter and back, instead of "energizing" back into Ace) was printed in 2003 by Crossgen Publishing.
In the December 2003 issue of PSW (PlayStation World) a free disk was given away with the magazine featuring Space Ace on one side (accompanied by trailers for similar games), and trailers for upcoming games on the other.
In May 2009 the Game was made available for the Apple iPhone OS
mobile platform.
Space Ace has most recently appeared on the Nintendo Wii as part of the Dragon's Lair Trilogy, which also features Dragon's Lair
, and Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
. It was later released on the DSiWare in North America on December 6, 2010 and in the PAL region on December 31, 2010.
On February 17, 2011, it was confirmed by Paul Gold of Digital Leisure Inc., that a port was going to be released for the PlayStation 3
, via the PlayStation Network (PSN), like they had done for the Dragon's Lair video game. It was released to the PSN the week of February 22, 2011.
cartoon block, which was composed of cartoon shorts based on current video games. Twelve Space Ace episodes were produced. The episodes were once shown on Cartoon Network
and are still sometimes shown as filler in Boomerang
's Boomeraction block.
Samurai Jack
references Space Ace and the other Don Bluth-animated arcade game, Dragon's Lair, in an episode where Samurai Jack asks which path to take to reach a dragon's lair, he is told the left; when he asks what the right path leads to, Jack is told, "Space Ace."
Laserdisc video game
A laserdisc video game is an arcade game that uses pre-recorded video played from a laserdisc, either as the entirety of the graphics, or as part of the graphics.-History:...
produced by Don Bluth
Don Bluth
Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth is an American animator and independent studio owner. He is best known for his departure from The Walt Disney Company in 1979 and his subsequent directing of animated films such as The Secret of NIMH , An American Tail ,The Land Before Time , and All Dogs Go to Heaven ,...
Studios, Cinematronics
Cinematronics
Cinematronics Incorporated was a pioneering arcade game developer that had its heyday in the era of vector display games. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look...
, and Advanced Microcomputer Systems (later renamed RDI Video Systems
RDI Video Systems
RDI Video Systems was a video game company founded by Rick Dyer originally as "Advanced Microcomputer Systems", and was well known for its Laserdisc video games, beginning with the immensely popular Dragon's Lair...
). It was unveiled in October 1983, just four months after the Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
game, then released in Spring 1984, and like its predecessor featured film-quality animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
played back from a laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
.
The gameplay is also similar, requiring the player to move the joystick or press the fire button at key moments in the animated sequences to govern the hero's actions. However, the game's action was more varied with the player occasionally given the temporary option to either have the character he is controlling transform back into his adult form, or remain as a boy with different styles of challenges.
Gameplay
Like Dragon's Lair, the gameplay of Space Ace requires the player to move the joystick in the right direction or press the fire button at the right moment to avoid the various hazards Dexter/Ace faces. Space Ace introduced a few gameplay enhancements, most notably selectable skill levels and multiple paths through several of the scenes. At the start of the game the player could select one of three skill levels; "Cadet", "Captain" or "Ace" for easy, medium and hard respectively - only by choosing the toughest skill level could the player see all the sequences in the game (only around half the scenes are played on the easiest setting). A number of the scenes had "multiple choice" moments when the player could choose how to act, sometimes by choosing which way to turn in a passageway, or by choosing whether or not to react to the on-screen "Energize!" message and transform back into Ace. Most scenes also have separate reverse versions of each other. Dexter usually progresses through scenes by avoiding obstacles and enemies, but Ace goes on the offensive, attacking enemies rather than running away; although Dexter does occasionally have to use his pistol on enemies when it is necessary to advance. An example can be seen in the first scene of the game, when Dexter is escaping from Borf's robot drones. If the player presses the fire button at the right moment, Dexter transforms temporarily into Ace and can fight them, whereas if the player chooses to stay as Dexter the robots' drill attacks must be dodged instead.Story
Space Ace follows the adventures of the musclebound hero Ace. At the start of the game, the villainous Commander Borf attacks Ace with the "Infanto Ray", a weapon that transforms him into an adolescent version of himself, and kidnaps his girlfriend Kimberly. It is up to the player to guide Dexter, Ace's younger incarnation, through a series of obstacles in pursuit of Borf, in order to rescue Kimberly and prevent Borf using the Infanto Ray to conquer EarthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. The game's attract mode
Attract mode
Attract mode is an arcade game's screen display shown when no one is playing the game. The main purpose of the attract mode is to attract passers-by to play the game, although it might also have the side effect to act like a screensaver.-Summary:...
introduces the player to the story via the following narration and dialogue:
- Narrator: Space Ace: Defender of justice, truth and the planet Earth! Ace is being attacked by the evil Commander Borf.
- Ace: Hold your fire! [to Kimberly] Who is that creep?
- Kimberly: Borf!
- Borf: Earthlings must surrender to me!
- Ace: No way, Borf, ol' buddy!
- Borf shoots Ace; Ace turns into a child
- Ace: Aargh! I've been hit!
- Kimberly: By the Infanto Ray!
- Borf: Earthlings must surrender to me!
- Narrator: Struggle with Dexter to regain his manhood. Destroy the Infanto Ray. Defeat the evil Borf.
- Ace: Hey, Borf! [laughs] C'mon, Kimberly, let's go!
- Borf shoots Ace
- Ace: I've been hit! [turns into child again] Aargh!
- Narrator: Be valiant, space warrior, the fate of Earth is in your hands!
Development history
The animation for Space Ace was produced by the same team that tackled the earlier Dragon's Lair, headed by ex-DisneyThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
animator Don Bluth
Don Bluth
Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth is an American animator and independent studio owner. He is best known for his departure from The Walt Disney Company in 1979 and his subsequent directing of animated films such as The Secret of NIMH , An American Tail ,The Land Before Time , and All Dogs Go to Heaven ,...
. To keep the production costs down, the studio again chose to use its staff to provide voices for the characters rather than hire actors (one exception is Michael Rye
Michael Rye
Michael Rye is a US voice actor. He is also known as Mike Rye and sometimes used his surname at birth, Rye Billsbury...
who reprises his role as the narrator of the attract sequence, as he did on Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
). Don Bluth himself provides the (electronically altered) voice of Commander Borf. In an interview about the game, Bluth had stated that had the studio been able to afford more professional actors, he thought Paul Shenar
Paul Shenar
Paul Shenar was an American actor.-Career:Shenar became involved in theater at an early age, partaking in the local Milwaukee playhouse productions. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the United States Air Force. Following his military career he began acting again...
would have been more suitable for the role of Borf than himself. The game's animation features some rotoscoping, wherein models were built of Ace's spaceship "Star Pac", his motorcycle, and the tunnel in the game's dogfight sequence, then filmed and traced over to render moving animated images with very realistic depth and perspective.
Format
Space Ace was made available to distributors in two different formats; a dedicated cabinet, and a conversion kit that could be used to turn an existing copy of Dragon's Lair into a Space Ace game. Early version #1 production units of the dedicated Space game were actually issued in Dragon's Lair style cabinets. The latter version #2 dedicated Space Ace units came in a different, inverted style cabinet. The conversion kit included the Space Ace laserdisc, new EPROMEPROM
An EPROM , or erasable programmable read only memory, is a type of memory chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. In other words, it is non-volatile. It is an array of floating-gate transistors individually programmed by an electronic device that supplies higher voltages...
s containing the game program, an additional circuit board to add the skill level buttons, and replacement artwork for the cabinet. The game originally used the Pioneer LD-V1000 or PR-7820 laserdisc players, but an adaptor kit now exists to allow Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
LDP series players to be used as replacements if the original player is no longer functional.
Ports
Numerous versions of Space Ace were created for home computers and game systems, most of which attempted to mimic the arcade version's lushly animated graphics, with varying degrees of success. A sequel, Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge was created for the PC mixing new animation with scenes from the original game that were left out of the PC version due to the high amount of memory they comprised.http://www.d-l-p.com/community/forums/archives/default.asp?Action=View&MessageID=20727&Archive=Yes&Keywords=Leland corporation
The Leland Corporation was a manufacturer of several arcade video games in the 1980s and early 1990s. Notable among these were Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp in 1991, the long-anticipated follow up to the hugely successful Dragon's Lair from 1983 and Super Off Road, which spawned an expansion and two...
released a slightly updated version of Space Ace in the form of a conversion kit for the then recently-released Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp is a 1991 laserdisc video game by Don Bluth. It is regarded as the first "true" sequel to Dragon's Lair. It takes place years after the timeline of the original Dragon's Lair. Dirk has married Daphne, and the marriage has produced several children...
. The updated version added more complicated moves (including diagonal moves), and dropped the easier skill levels, meaning only the "Ace" (difficult) level could be played.
The Dragon's Lair Deluxe Pack released by Digital Leisure Inc. featured Space Ace along with both arcade Dragon's Lair games. They also released a version of Space Ace on DVD that could be played on most DVD players, although it lacked the skill level select of the arcade version, and also played somewhat differently (if the player made a mistake on the arcade version they simply picked up again roughly where they left off, whereas the DVD version forced the player to replay the entire scene from the beginning).
DAPHNE
DAPHNE
DAPHNE is an arcade emulator application that emulates a variety of laserdisc video games with the intent of preserving these games and making the play experience as faithful to the originals as possible...
, an emulator for laserdisc based games, can emulate both the original version and the 1991 version. DAPHNE requires the ROM files plus the original laserdisc to run. Alternatively, an MPEG-2 video stream and Ogg Vorbis audio stream can be substituted for the laserdisc. These streams can be generated from the original laserdisc or from Digital Leisure's DVD.
Like Dragon's Lair, a comic book mini series incorporating elements from both the game and Saturday Supercade version (such as Ace randomly changing into Dexter and back, instead of "energizing" back into Ace) was printed in 2003 by Crossgen Publishing.
In the December 2003 issue of PSW (PlayStation World) a free disk was given away with the magazine featuring Space Ace on one side (accompanied by trailers for similar games), and trailers for upcoming games on the other.
In May 2009 the Game was made available for the Apple iPhone OS
IPhone OS
iOS is Apple's mobile operating system. Originally developed for the iPhone, it has since been extended to support other Apple, Inc. devices such as the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV. Apple, Inc. does not license iOS for installation on third-party hardware...
mobile platform.
Space Ace has most recently appeared on the Nintendo Wii as part of the Dragon's Lair Trilogy, which also features Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
, and Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp is a 1991 laserdisc video game by Don Bluth. It is regarded as the first "true" sequel to Dragon's Lair. It takes place years after the timeline of the original Dragon's Lair. Dirk has married Daphne, and the marriage has produced several children...
. It was later released on the DSiWare in North America on December 6, 2010 and in the PAL region on December 31, 2010.
On February 17, 2011, it was confirmed by Paul Gold of Digital Leisure Inc., that a port was going to be released for the PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, via the PlayStation Network (PSN), like they had done for the Dragon's Lair video game. It was released to the PSN the week of February 22, 2011.
Space Ace in popular culture
A short-lived cartoon series based on Space Ace was produced in 1984, and was aired as part of the Saturday SupercadeSaturday Supercade
Saturday Supercade is an animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions. It ran for two seasons on CBS beginning in 1983...
cartoon block, which was composed of cartoon shorts based on current video games. Twelve Space Ace episodes were produced. The episodes were once shown on Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
and are still sometimes shown as filler in Boomerang
Boomerang (TV channel)
Boomerang is a 24-hour American cable television channel owned by Turner Broadcasting System, a division of Time Warner. Boomerang specializes in reruns of animated programming from Time Warner's extensive archives, including pre-1986 MGM, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises...
's Boomeraction block.
Samurai Jack
Samurai Jack
Samurai Jack is an American animated television series created by animator Genndy Tartakovsky that aired on both Cartoon Network and Toonami from 2001 to 2004. It is noted for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation, as well as for its cinematic style and pacing...
references Space Ace and the other Don Bluth-animated arcade game, Dragon's Lair, in an episode where Samurai Jack asks which path to take to reach a dragon's lair, he is told the left; when he asks what the right path leads to, Jack is told, "Space Ace."
External links
- Dragon's Lair Project entry on Space Ace
- Detailed Info on Space Ace
- The Dot Eaters article on Space Ace and the laser game craze.