Sony Dismisses Critics of Lair

Despite some very public, very negative criticism of Factor 5's dragon/shooter Lair, Next Generation notes that Sony remains unfazed. "Outgoing SCEA PR boss Dave Karraker told Next-Gen in a phone interview that despite poor critical reception, the flying lizard game isn't necessarily grounded. 'At the end of the day, I'll be interested in the consumers' response, because the consumer awareness for this title was so huge.'" Meanwhile, MTV's Stephen Totilo notes, with more than a touch of seriousness, that Lairs production may have been a touch cursed.

Coincidence?

From the article:

"That was the start of one catastrophe after the other -- deaths in the family at the worst time [and] sudden surgeries for key members, which bounced the technology off-track. And just in general, every single time there was a crucial delivery, something bizarre went wrong -- all the way to power outages when writing the master disks."

Not to mention art directors eaten by dragons!

a dud by any other name

I don't care how they try to smooth things over in the press... just rent the game. Anyone can quickly see that creature moves about as gracefully as a drunk uncle.

Buy it? You'll be pissed you even blew a rental fee.

Re:a dud by any other name

I actually found Lair to be pretty decent once I got into it. Then I first got the game I was spitting an swearing with the best of them. The dragon would always go in the wrong directions, the dash and flip commands did not work, and it was a generally bad experience. After this I put the controller down for a few days and left it alone. Somewhat later, out of boredom, I picked it up again and I found to my surprise that the controls felt a lot smoother. No longer was I being pushed in random directions, and now I could get the special commands working most of the time. Finally, just last night I sat down to play yet again and it was honestly quite fun. I really got the hang of figuring out what I need to do, and started to get truly sucked into the story. I think enough has been said about the graphics, which are quite impressive, though not nearly enough has been said about the sound and music which are both far beyond what you are used to from such games.

The general impression I got was one echoed by the guy at the store. It's a tech demo disguised as a game. It did a pretty good job introducing some new concepts (For the PS3 at least) and stood well enough on its own. Later on I'm sure there will be games with a similar control scheme, and they want people to get used to it. That said it wasn't a horrible experience some are playing it up to be. I do wonder if these people even bothered to get the game before opening up their cans of napalm, or if they just read the IGN review and took it as the word of god.

I am still waiting...

I'm still waiting to see some post 1.92 firmware reviews that were supposed to have addressed the awful motion controls. Yes, the company is to blame for releasing the game with poor controls, but since the 1.92, I've heard some 'reports' that the controls were better. Any slashdotter with pre- and post- 1.92 firmware care to comment?

Re:I am still waiting...

I think you're just overlooking all the game issues, due to being surrounded in kittens.

Bad link

As of right now, the link points to the Metroid Prime 3 comic rather than the lair comic. This took me a while to figure out what was going on.

I eventually found a review site at http://ps3.ign.com/articles/817/817117p3.html [ign.com] - it states clearly why the reviewer doesn't like the game. While the user reviews are slightly higher, it doesn't change the fact that the game wasn't that well received (with the people who voted.)

I'm a consumer, hear my reaction!

I beat it the other day.

Pros:

• The controls are mostly intuitive and fluid.
• The graphics are beautiful, especially in the cinematics.
• Dragons! (You don't see them very often in games, at least not controlled by the player.)
• Fairly hard. (Most games I pick up and breeze through, Lair actually got my juices flowing.)

Cons:

• The game tends to mistake a dash for a flip and a flip for a dash at just the wrong times.
• LAG. LOTS of it on the later levels. Though it seems to be independent of resolution.
• Minor plot inconsistencies and deus ex machina.
• No offline multiplayer.
• Gatling fireball makes boss fights too easy. (You can shoot fireballs as fast as you can mash the button. For me, that's fast enough to trigger Metal Gear Solid's autofire detection.)
• Final boss fight made no sense. ("A volcano's erupting! Let's drop firebombs on it!")

Some people have complained about the delay between the controls and the dragon, but that felt natural to me. (How responsive would a real dragon be to being whacked on the head with a blunt object?)

Overall, I liked the game. But I didn't have to pay for it, since I borrowed a friend's PS3 and copy of Lair. :3

-:sigma.SB

Re:I'm a consumer, hear my reaction!

How responsive would a real dragon be to being whacked on the head with a blunt object?

Seems to me you'd only get one chance to find out.

Takes One From The Movie Biz Playbook

'At the end of the day, I'll be interested in the consumers' response, because the consumer awareness for this title was so huge.'

Translation:

"We knew the game sucked, but we marketed the hell out of it anyway so that suckers who don't read reviews will buy it just on the hype and then not be able to return it given the usual return policies. I'm interested to see just how many suckers we netted when the sales figures come in."

They do this with movies that are absolute bombs by not screening them for critics before release weekend, hoping to get a good opening weekend from the pre-release marketing knowing full well the movie is terrible and once critics review it and word of mouth spreads, no one will watch it. It's a marketing scam intended to catch out initial viewers/buyers who have little information to go on.

I thank you!

I hereby want to thank any and all early adopters, early buyers and opening week movie-goers!

It's you guys with your inability to delay self-rewarding and your industry-promoted belief that being the first to get something is cool, that really test out the waters for everybody else, thus saving the savy consumers that follow you millions and millions of dollars.

You guys really are the backbone of society upon which everybody else's success stands: you are out there, bending over and taking it again and again from the industry, shoddy products, overhyped releases, buggy software and all kinds of crap products and services, serving as the shinning beacon of light that guides all others away from a good reaming.

In the name of all of us, who thanks to your pioneering work have avoided unmeasurable pain in their behinds, I salute you!

unfazed?

"Sony remains unfazed."

Unfazed my ass! They spammed the reviewers with reviewer's guides [ign.com]! They seem pretty desperate to buy back the good votes of the reviewers.

Dirty little secret

Bad games sell well!

Most movie tie ins do pretty well. So a crappy next gen thats over marketed should do as well as a good game that has a lot of word of mouth.

Casual review then?

Probably somebody had to start a gaming site dedicated to casual gaming and casual reviews.

For example me, after gaming on PC for more that 15+ year, see most console games as total suckers. And mostly they are - thankfully to terrible game utility (e.g. no save/load functionality), overloaded controls and too much backward franchises (accompanied by flameboys).

But recently, in large thanks to Nintendo and its Wii, there were surge of pretty good playable and enjoyable games even on consoles. I normally tend to ignore console games and write off console gamers as people who grew to live in denial. But I hope that can change.

Some casual reviews already started showing up - as for example Variety's MP3:C review [variety.com]. (Flamed by fanboys here [joystiq.com]). Thanks to the review written in plain human words I would save my 50 for something better than MP3:C when it hits Europe. On on side. On another side, the review had bunch of hints for hardcore folks who have time the game requires to learn to play it.

Split - hardcore vs. casual - is inevitable. It is just better to be prepared. I would side with casual folks, since what they say makes much much more sense. And there is no the elitism aura around them too.

What I'm trying to get to here is that probably if you would grab a random guy from street and give him PS3 + Lair to play for some time - he might like it. Not necessarily he would want to invest $600+ into something like that. Yet. To hardcore folks easy game play (or what I call "enjoyable") is of course no-go.

Well, as Wii fan, I would omit the question about controls. Needless to add that IMNSHO classical controller - main that makes console the suckers - sucks big time.

P.S. Notice how skillfully I have managed in the post avoid saying that console games sucks... Uhm. Stop. ... (rereading post)... Uhm. Never mind.

What a surprise

How much have they spent on this so far? So what are they going to do - issue a press statement that says "We know it sucks, the reviewers are right, it's broken and we hacked it about to get the rating down. We are aware that this level of ineptitude is unacceptable in what's supposed to be a triple-A title for our flagship console. Please don't buy this mess, we'll have it all fixed for the sequel. And next time, we'll actually hire play-testers like we're supposed to."

No, they'll punt it out there, and hope it sells enough copies to people who don't read review sites - people who'll just see it on the shelves and go "Ooh! Shiny dragons!".

Having said that, this isn't an anti-Sony diatribe. I'm sure the Cell is capable of some incredible feats of heavy lifting, once some teams of more-than-usually-talented programmers start to get to grips with it. This, however, is not one of them, and they just need to deal with it, and move on.

By what?

Meanwhile, MTV's Stephen Totilo notes, with more than a touch of seriousness, that Lairs production may have been a touch cursed.

... by poor development practices, naïve management who didn't know how to function without LucasArts support, the ever-present Sony marketing team (who is so bad that I don't even have to make fun of them,) production values with five years of dust, and a game design that would have seemed archaic two weeks after the release of Panzer Dragoon for the Sega Saturn?

Yeah, that qualifies as a curse. Pretty pictures, though. Maybe someday Sony will realize that graphics and hype aren't enough (fl0w.)

Meanwhile...

Critics dismiss Sony.

Aforemention comments.

Playing Lair is horrifying, like having a talking cyst erupt out of your genitals.

Wow, I'll be avoiding this at all costs. Shame, I like dragons.

Re:Dismissal

I recall that for Luigi's Mansion they (pretty sure Miyamoto) went as far as saying that it was made by their less experienced directors (about as close to saying "sorry for the shitty game" as you're ever going to get). That doesn't really excuse a game for sucking, but then again LM was actually all right.