Lair has not come out yet for the PS3, but this hotly anticipated game has already been destroyed by most reviewers. Now the development team has come out of their development foxhole, not to necessarily defend their game, but to start pointing fingers and casting blame. The interview they had on MTV’s Game File was eye opening to say the least.
First off they went to the “Its hard to develop for the platform card” and while there is evidence to back this up from more than one place, should not be used as an excuse for a game that has been touted as a system seller since I first saw it at CES in 2007. It seemed like they were getting a lot of help from Sony with development kits and the like, so I think it is difficult to use this as any kind of defense for the game.
Then they decided if that wasn’t good enough, it has to be the biased media. They gave the explanation – “The Sixaxis motion control itself feels a lot more organic and free-form than the rigid controls of other flight games and does much better for casual players, as we saw in focus tests. It does seem to alienate some reviewers who are at the top of the hard-core crowd and seem to have a passionate hate for all things motion.” While it is difficult to get use to a new kind of motion control, I don’t see developers with Nintendo having these issues. Metroid seemed to do pretty well with the critics and it uses a motion control scheme. And if you felt the motion control was going to be so non-accepted, why not build in an optional control scheme that would allow for a normal type play. Would it have been a lot to add to the game; maybe, but it would have helped with reviews and sales, that is for sure.
The best part of the interview comes when they talk about doing a 180 degree turn with the dragon, using motion control. They say they can pull it off 8 out of 10 times, but they claim that it is about the same ratio to which they can complete a backspin hit in Wii Sports Tennis. Great, we can’t blame your motion controls, because look, they are as successful at performing certain tasks as the Wii controls. This may be true, but Wii Sports never had the hype that your game had. Lair was touted as being a great game and would be reviewed as such. Again, to deflect blame by using faults just shows a lack of class.
The guys from Factor 5 need to just own up to their game. Hell, embrace it. Look at John Romero, the guy is still synonymous with Daikatana, but he still gets paid and is still working in the game industry. But to sit there and say “it isn’t our fault that the game is bad, it is the media and the platform” just makes you, for the lack of a better phrase, full of crap. It is just irritating to see a company want to pass blame from their hands to someone else’s when a game with super hype goes down the toilet. I played Lair in an early state at CES in January, and I did not think it was that bad. It was not great, but it was not bad. If they felt they had all these “issues” with the game, they should have tried to turn down the dial on the hype meter.
So I hope that Factor 5 goes back to the shop and releases some patches to tune up the game and maybe mix in a new control scheme. I would even go so far as to say you owe the people that supported your hype machine these patches and changes – maybe even some DLC for free. And I will even give you some free advice; If you decide to play the blame game again, just say our game is better than Vampire Rain and Big Rigs combined.
At least people will have to agree with that.
Tags:
blame game,
commentary,
control scheme,
development,
factor-5,
lair,
motion control,
PS3
Lair Development Team Plays the Blame Game
Lair has not come out yet for the PS3, but this hotly anticipated game has already been destroyed by most reviewers. Now the development team has come out of their development foxhole, not to necessarily defend their game, but to start pointing fingers and casting blame. The interview they had on MTV’s Game File was eye opening to say the least.
First off they went to the “Its hard to develop for the platform card” and while there is evidence to back this up from more than one place, should not be used as an excuse for a game that has been touted as a system seller since I first saw it at CES in 2007. It seemed like they were getting a lot of help from Sony with development kits and the like, so I think it is difficult to use this as any kind of defense for the game.
Then they decided if that wasn’t good enough, it has to be the biased media. They gave the explanation – “The Sixaxis motion control itself feels a lot more organic and free-form than the rigid controls of other flight games and does much better for casual players, as we saw in focus tests. It does seem to alienate some reviewers who are at the top of the hard-core crowd and seem to have a passionate hate for all things motion.” While it is difficult to get use to a new kind of motion control, I don’t see developers with Nintendo having these issues. Metroid seemed to do pretty well with the critics and it uses a motion control scheme. And if you felt the motion control was going to be so non-accepted, why not build in an optional control scheme that would allow for a normal type play. Would it have been a lot to add to the game; maybe, but it would have helped with reviews and sales, that is for sure.
The best part of the interview comes when they talk about doing a 180 degree turn with the dragon, using motion control. They say they can pull it off 8 out of 10 times, but they claim that it is about the same ratio to which they can complete a backspin hit in Wii Sports Tennis. Great, we can’t blame your motion controls, because look, they are as successful at performing certain tasks as the Wii controls. This may be true, but Wii Sports never had the hype that your game had. Lair was touted as being a great game and would be reviewed as such. Again, to deflect blame by using faults just shows a lack of class.
The guys from Factor 5 need to just own up to their game. Hell, embrace it. Look at John Romero, the guy is still synonymous with Daikatana, but he still gets paid and is still working in the game industry. But to sit there and say “it isn’t our fault that the game is bad, it is the media and the platform” just makes you, for the lack of a better phrase, full of crap. It is just irritating to see a company want to pass blame from their hands to someone else’s when a game with super hype goes down the toilet. I played Lair in an early state at CES in January, and I did not think it was that bad. It was not great, but it was not bad. If they felt they had all these “issues” with the game, they should have tried to turn down the dial on the hype meter.
So I hope that Factor 5 goes back to the shop and releases some patches to tune up the game and maybe mix in a new control scheme. I would even go so far as to say you owe the people that supported your hype machine these patches and changes – maybe even some DLC for free. And I will even give you some free advice; If you decide to play the blame game again, just say our game is better than Vampire Rain and Big Rigs combined.
At least people will have to agree with that.
Tags: blame game, commentary, control scheme, development, factor-5, lair, motion control, PS3