Cliff Hanger was made as a knock off to the Dragon's Lair animation video game craze of the 1980's. But of all the DL knock offs this was the best! You play Cliff, a wisecracking rogue thief out to save a princess, gun down villains, get chased by helicopters, and generally cause as much mayhem as humanly possible.
The game is simply footage lifted from the great Lupin III anime classic The Castle of Cagliostro, but it makes for a surprisingly exciting game. I remember playing this a lot in the arcade years ago. It was just fun having people watch me play and laughing their heads off at the action packed animation. I really dug the jazzy theme music as well, it really got your blood going! The game's theme music was on par with the Indiana Jones theme in terms of coolness in my somewhat less than humble opinion.
There were a couple other Dragon's Lair takeoffs like Thayer's Quest. But the people who made that lame game didn't even bother to finish the whole game! They were gonna release it as two laserdiscs and never got around to making the second disc for the game! The makers of Cliff Hanger and Dragon's Lair were smart enough to wrap the whole game up in one neat package. Hell, that was the least they could do after all us gamers p***ed away so many quarters into these machines. Cliff Hanger rocks hard, dig it.
