Sony sends out 'Lair Reviewer's Guide' -- Must. Not. Laugh.

Well played a little bit after watching that video and it did address a small thing I had the 180 turn. Doing like in the video it is really easier for me to do. Now this doesnt get them off the hook though I dont think the in game tutorials did a good job at explaning how to do the move as well as other things so I think the tutorials are an area they should have put more work into. Though I still question the depth of the game in general.

The word no one has mentioned, one of those ol' scary geek words, is LATENCY. For all of its vaunted floating point performance, the Sony can't produce the result fast enough for a decent control system. Remember PS3 Madden's half second delay on snaps?

You have got to be goddamn kidding me! O.o;;;

Never before have I heard a company telling reviewers that they were simply being idiots when reviewer their game. -_-;;

Way to go Sony, way to go.... I'm sure that added more points to you as a good company making good products.

*cough* Yeah right! *cough*

I'll give you an A- for effort though.

Just insulting.
Shouldn't name their guide a "Rewiever's guide", "How to play Lair" is less offensing than "How to review Lair"...

Damn, speaking about realistic dragon flying? So, what about the realistic fireball shooting? I'm wondering if dragons ever exist they would shooting fireballs like a submachine gun...

If they had made Lair for the 360 it would have been awesome. :D

Oh God...it's like Atari's ET all over again...Make it LOOK good, screw the gameplay, and oh yeah, MAKE THE TILT FEATURE a big part of the game...Well, discs are less landfill than all those cartridges used to be...

And those don't look like dragons in the videos....

They look like fugly rats wtih wings.

Ha ha thats funny...I can't wait to here IGN talk about this on game scoop lol.

Okay, okay, hilarious. The game is junk, and they sent out a reviewer's guide...200+ comments on how this game sucks because of the poor controls...funny.

Anyways, after watching that video, I can see how the game controls, and it isn't THAT bad people. I think this game is getting the Red Steel treatment IMO. Red Steel was no masterpiece by any means, but people knock on the controls like they were the worst thing that had come to video games since having to blow into NES cartridges. The controls ARE frustrating at first, but after some getting used to, they worked quite well and were certainly responsive.

Now, one could argue that controls are not supposed to be made harder or frustrating to begin with. However, I think it a simple fact that this new motion control era just needs it's time to become accustomed to. Analog controls certainly needed some adjustment not too far back; so did pressure sensitive triggers. I guess it's just easier to dismiss a game instantly and poke fun of it on your fav blog.

Back on my point here, I see 200+ comments on poor controls, but nobody mentions the poor framerate? Is it terrible youTube comprssion that's fooling me, or does the game have THAT bad of a framerate?! It looks downright terrible.

As for the reviewer's guide. Ouch. Sony tells us when next gen starts, and now they have to tell us HOW to enjoy it. Tsk tsk...

Personally reviewer's opinions don't mean shit to me. I rent a game to determine its worth.

I found Lair to be highly entertaining. I never played the Rogue Squadron games so I can't compare. Controls did take some time, but much less then FPS on consoles did. Framerate does dip sometimes but that is usually when you're in the air and the massive battles are taking place below and you look there. Its understandable, acceptable?, thats up to you. Graphics presentation?, great.

Too many reviwers these days jump on the review bandwagon. First review out and most are cookie cutters.

This guide isn't the penultimate PR move, but insulting? Nah. How many people can really be objective when there is so much bad press out there about this game right now.

I wonder how many reviewers read about the poor controls, played it for a few minutes, then gave up?

F5 would have been much better off with a reviews feedback questionnaire. Something that attempted specific questions about the controls and tried to precisely pinpoint where the dorks had the most difficulties.

It's nice to see Peter Eggebrecht getting his for calling other consoles sloppy. Well, not in the sense of graphics, but gameplay, ho-ho!

i remember another game with terrible motion controls like lair... and the developers of that game also released a guide on how the game should be played...

... i think it was called "cooking mama".

um.. everyone keeps talking about this game as if it's a brand new concept and defending the crud controls.

no offense but does NO one anymore remember Panzer Dragoon? I seem to remember those 2 ton dragons being able to move pretty dang well in every sega saturn and xbox game.

what really makes me sad is that this is factor 5 for gods sakes. if ANYTHING they can make a flight sim. I mean ever since the mid 90s thats all theyve made. i mean how hard is it to slap on the same controls as rogue squardron and just tweak it a bit.

oh well, i guess this is just karma biting them in the ars for switching to sony when they thought it would bring them more money, then apologizing to nintendo when they realize the move was an idiotic game plan. not to mention that comment about the ESRB was just plain histaricle. yea.. give more dignity to the gaming world to make them more like movies, just add sex!

I don't own a PS3, nor do I particularly like Sony's PR tactics but this whole Lair thing has me a tad confused. Even moreso after watching that video. I haven't played the game, but everything seems to have controlled fine and if the problem really was that reviewers were flailing around like the author did at the beginning than it doesn't surprise me that the game controlled like crap. Another thing I've heard constantly in reviews is the lack of tight turning and how that screws up gameplay. I wouldn't expect tight turning in a game that requires you to fly a giant reptile, but it seems that the physics defying 180 degree turn is perfectly adequate.

Now normally I'd guffaw like a drunken barfly at a move like a "reviewers guide" but this actually seems to have some merit. In an age where a couple of badly written reviews can fly around the internet in hours and deeply affect the purchasing decisions of consumers it makes sense that Sony would fight back. And, honestly, from the looks of that video it really DOES look like reviews had no idea what they were doing.

For the record, that seems perfectly intuitive to me. My first instinct would have been to relax the controller and not attempt to drive the dragon like it was a souped up sports car, and the other moves he was pulling off not only seemed easy but practically instinctual.

Then again, I haven't played it. But after watching that I might give it a shot.

@ Orion

I think you're missing the point. That video seems to suggest that the game controls were in fact quite good if handled properly.

As far as it not playing like Panzer Dragoon and Rogue Squadron; well the simple answer to that is, Lair isn't Panzer Dragoon or Rogue Squadron. That and Panzer Dragoon is on rails, unlike Lair. That and it is clear they were going for a different feel.

But like I said, I'm just confused. That video really seems to negate all the bad press this game is getting. It's hard to argue with video proof. Not impossible, but hard.

the problem with the game isnt that the controls dont respond as quickly as that monkey was moving on screen. the problem with the controls are two things for me:

one that you have such a huge, slow turning radius that if you need to make another pass on an object theyve either moved to a differnt position by the time you make a 360 degree turn, or theyve destroyed what you are trying to protect.

and two the targeting system which they convienently didnt show very well in the video, doesnt let you target what you want. the ai on the targeting system is actually pretty stupid and targets crud i dont even care about.

so you can fight till the end of time that "its flying liek a real life dragon" but the end result is the game NEEDS you to fly with more control as the game's objectives dont give you any slack for the 5 minutes it seems to take you to turn around, and the 5 extra passes you shouldn't have needed to take because it wouldnt let you target the right enemy. thast what makes this game useless. at the end of the day you can have yoru realistic movements if you want.. but when you have to restart a level over and over because of it, thats when its time to turn off the system and throw the controller on the ground.

So I finally got to play this for more than a minute last night. When I'm lying on my deathbed, I'm going to wish I had those hours back. Visually the game is beautiful but the good ends right about there. This game is shit, no 2 ways about it. Christ even the SDF didn't come out in the droves I'd expect them to to defend a game they've been using in "just you wait.." arguments for the last 6 months. My PS3 maybe a good blu ray player, but it's dying a slow, horrible death as a gaming platform.

Off to finish Boishock, toodles...

Yeah, so speaking of video proof being hard to argue with... I just watched the Gametrailers review of it. And.... wow....

Seriously. I take it back.

Just trying to dig through a lot of the nonsense the web is known for to try to get to the bottom of whether people are freaking out over nothing because it's the cool thing to do. Such is why I'm somewhat speculative about all these control complaints.

I guess I missed a train of thought. Another issue to address here is the fact you're using motion control with a plain old fashioned controller. I mean, games have done quite well with the regular ol' dual shock for over a decade. Suddenly tilting it around to control a dragon flying in the air HAS to be an odd and unnatural adjustment.

I bet for that reason alone is what stems a lot of "poor control" complaints. It just doesn't feel right when you have all the same buttons in place. In other words, why bother?

Kinda makes sense now why it was so hard for Nintendo to nail the Wiimote. I mean, I guess there's still improvements to be made in their setup...but it couldn't have been easy to think that far outside the box.

When did ET ever look good? And when did it have a tilt feature? Unless you count the angle you tossed it into the garbage at.

If that's the "players guide" the reviewer is holding, that looks too nicely done to be a joke. If it were a shot back at all the crappy reviews, it would be a one page letter with bullet points. That guide looks like someone put effort into making it look nice.

This is like pleading with a girlfriend to get back together with you. Just don't do it, Factor 5. How could you not know this stuff gets out and everyone goofs on you?

I feel really bad for this dev team.

First, the sign on to make a kickass PS3 game. The PS3 is expected to sell a ton. They'll make tons of money.

Second, they're finishing completion and Sony comes out with the motion controls and asks them to put it in at the last minute. Everyone is already crunched for time.

Third, the PS3 sells horribly. Not just bad, but spectacularly bad. Even if their game is pure gold, their profits from sales is going to be crap.

Forth, the game is reviewed to be total crap. Not only will they be losing sales on lack of PS3s success, but the game itself is given a stamp of total avoidance. People REALLY HATE THIS GAME.

They will probably be losing money on this game, rather than make money. They were kind of stuck in this same position last round developing for Nintendo. The Gamecube didn't sell so hot, so they moved over to Sony in hopes of having a huge base to sell games to. Now Nintendo is hot, and they're not making any games for it.

I really feel bad for this company. If they had stuck with Nintendo, they would have at least had an amazingly huge install base to sell to.

Haha O wow, Talk about desperate. Thats just freakin sad. XDDD

It's obviously crappy programming, as my Warhawk flies just fine with the SixAxis.

Isn't it just like Sony to waste time and money on a reviewers guide instead of cutting their losses and focusing on better games? Or an escape pod for when the PS3 fails?

that's the funniest thing i've read in years...

'when video game professionals can't play it, there must be something wrong'

=)

Maybe SEGA should have done that with Gunvalkyrie...lol cause all the " pros " had a problem clicking in a analog stick while pointing in a direction :P

Anyhow I wouldnt defend " pro " reviewers much, the majority of the time they dont even ,play the games they are reviewing :P and if they do play them you get stuff like " Im not sure about pointing and shooting with the Wii-Mote."

Yeah...that last sentence did it for me. When the same folks ( in general ) that couldnt click in a analog stick or questioned the logic behind pointing and shooting cant turn a dragon with motion controls ( hummm could thier problem be they are trying to force the dragon to do manovers it cant!!! then blaming the controls ) I dont know if the game is to blame. I mean hell half the negitive reviews I see for Lair gripe that you have to learn the mission and figure out what to do before you can beat the mission...the horror the horror.

Eh... while most reviewers do their best to provide some value, they all look for opportunities for the best takedown possible, and Lair was obviously too good to resist. It became a competition to come up with the nastiest zingers, not an honest attempt to assess the game. (I assume we're not actually putting forth Tycho as a critical voice on which to base purchasing decisions, right? He's smart enough to know that what he's saying is bullshit, he just doesn't care -- his job is the cheap laff, not criticism to withstand the ages.)

I'm willing to bet most of the Lair bashers here either never played it, played it for two minutes with the full intention of hating it ("I'm going to actually play it so I can describe why it sucks in more detail"), or had ridiculous, unrealistic expectations going into it. The game is not that hard to play, assuming you're neither drunk nor epileptic, and the controls feel totally natural given the nature of the game. It has issues, to be sure, but most of the problems people are squawking about are present in plenty of other games that got better reviews. The overwhelming tone in both the professional and player reviews/posts is that people are OUTRAGED!!! that the game doesn't work to their liking (or are outraged that the PS3 still exists), and that's pretty much it. It's astounding to see how much the desire to appear in sync with the mob outweighs any desire to make up one's own mind. Play it, don't play it, but please stop trying to disguise your emotional outburst as a rational argument against the game. You hated it, we get it, we don't care, let's move on.

What are you guys talking about!!! Dragons DO exist!!!!

Did anyone else notice, that during many parts of the movie, all the guy did was rapidly tap a button (circle I think), while tilting the controller? Doesn't sound like much fun to me. And once he was on the ground, he was just moving the joystick and and mashing a button. Roughly the most boring thing i have ever seen. Not to mention, does anyone else find themselves annoyed by the sound of button mashing, because they hate everything it stands for? (retarded gameplay).

Secondly, in order to do some of the special moves, like the 180 turn, did you see how much he had to jerk that controller? With the Wii, you can pitch a baseball with a flick of your wrist if you want, or you can do a full on body pitch, either works fine. This shows that either the SIXAXIS is totally inferior compared to the Wii motion sensing capabilities, or that Factor 5 is made of employees without anything beyond a middle school education. The fact that the SIXAXIS controller is so retarded that you have to play the game so slowly, and then suddenly do such wildly exaggerated movements to get it to recognize your commands speaks volumes for the incompetence of the system. The video said to relax, but how are you supposed to relax if you have to freak out with the controller to get your dragon to turn 180, do a speed boost, or FIGHT ANOTHER DRAGON ALONGSIDE. Sounds to me like its a bit mix-and matched, because I dunno about you, I can relax just gently titling the controller, but having to have a seizure just to get my dragon to do anything fancy seems like a bit of a problem...

And lastly, to the guy talking about the dragon physics thing. Quite honestly, if you have EVER watched a bird (basically the same as a dragon in my book when it comes to flying abilities), they can turn MUCH BETTER than ANY aircraft on the planet (except maybe super-modern helicopters). Birds, and thus dragons, have the advantage of completely move-able wings, something aircraft designers can only dream about. If anything, controlling this game SHOULD have felt like HEAVEN compared to similar games, such as like...I dunno...Rogue Squadron? Way to go Factor 5, you knew what you were doing before, what happened?

And in response to that argument that you're only RIDING the dragon, not actually THE DRAGON, then, for 1, explain rage vision? How do you have Rage Vision if you're only the rider, hmm? And secondly, if you are only controlling the rider, then the dragon better have a damn mind of its own to be able to figure out things at least a little bit, instead of flying in these boring arcs narrowly missing the target just because the SIXAXIS can't turn tight enough.

And lets not leave out the fact that this game is still basically Rogue Squadron in a Medieval Wrapper, with a few poorly executed bits of flair (From what I have heard, mid-air combat = fail, when it should have been an amazing spectacle).

However, all these control goobers aside, the biggest mistake Factor 5 made, was not letting players use an alternate control scheme! You should always take out a little insurance, and so if you're going to gamble your multi-million dollar several-year long project on an essentially experimental control scheme, you deserve every bad review, every bad comment, and probably some flaming bags of crap on your doorstep too, because that is just sad.

Its just, I wonder, do these people actually play their own games? And if they do, maybe they should watch themselves play them, just so they can realize how boring it really is.

Why am I so pissed about this? I mean, sure, people make mistakes, even multi-million dollar ones. But I'm pissed because honestly, its time for the video-game industry to grow up! Let's stop dicking around and actually make products worth the time and effort! I'm sure just about everybody would have been more than willing to wait a few months more to have a properly functioning control scheme. But noooooo, some (likely corporate) ass-hole had to say "crunch the game out now, i don't care." And what do you get? A big crunchy turd of a game with sooooooo much wasted potential. I have never liked sony, but i honestly wanted Lair to be good, I really did, because it looked like it had the stuff. But now its just another entry in the long list of disappointments and wasted potential that this industry has been suffering from for so long. Games are finally starting to get taken seriously, and then people roll out turds like this. If the game isn't going to be decent, don't even waste your time releasing it, do the market a favor and stop polluting it.