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.

Comments

Coincidence?

[Debello]

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

[amrust]

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

[deep_creek]

Yes indeed. a fellow complained about it at work today. The control of the lizard is like a drunk uncle or more likely perhaps to turn the poor chap into a drunk uncle. Frustrating as hell he said trying to steer the dang thing. He said the graphics were great but reminded him more of a bunch of cut-scenes put together to make you think you were playing. I mentioned the old game Dragon's Lair, and he said, "Yes, exactly like that".

Re:a dud by any other name

[TikiTDO]

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...

[wamerocity]

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...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

I'm a consumer, hear my reaction!

[Solra Bizna]

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!

[Dachannien]

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

[aldheorte]

'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.

unfazed?

[gcnaddict]

"Sony remains unfazed."

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

I thank you!

[Aceticon]

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!

What a surprise

[Leo Sasquatch]

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.