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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.
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.
VOTE!
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?
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
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 - 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 beat it the other day.
Pros:
Cons:
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
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
'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.
Next time a malevolent entity starts killing the families of your developers, maybe you should just cancel the game instead.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
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.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
This shows how evil Sony are. Nintendo would have answered or commented on or even responded to criticisms, even if they had said the exact same thing in the same words. Sony, however, dismisses the critics. Why do they hate us so much?
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. (Flamed by fanboys here). 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.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
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!
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.
What lag? You've been playing the game online?
Don't you mean a dropping frame rate? Since when is an unstable frame rate called lag?
This is the same type of arrogance that has the PS3 in such a mess. Everyone is telling them they're doing it wrong, that they don't like it yet Sony always responds "No it's fine, everyone will love it".
Still, at least this guy is outgoing, perhaps they'll get someone more competent to replace him.
By save/load, do you mean save/load in general, or do you mean the ability to save at any time and reload a single save multiple times?
Even if PC gaming is better in general, what PC-native[1] games don't require the purchase of four recent PCs if you have four people in the house who want to play?
[1] A console ROM image of dubious legality run in emulation is not PC-native.
Yeah, that qualifies as a curse. Pretty pictures, though. Maybe someday Sony will realize that graphics and hype aren't enough (fl0w.)
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Seriously. Factor 5 did a real good job with that, and at this point you could buy a Used Gamecube and Rogue Squadron II (It was a launch title) for $60.
Critics dismiss Sony.
Wow, I'll be avoiding this at all costs. Shame, I like dragons.
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