Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Lair has done almost universally poorly in reviews, and Penny-Arcade’s new comic looks like it’s giving gamers everywhere the last word on the “beautiful disaster” of a game. We first got wind of bad things afoot with Lair with EGM’s review. When I first saw PSM’s 5.0 review and doubted their take on the game after seeing their 6.5 review of Warhawk get generally overruled by mid-8 to high-8 reviews on other sites, I couldn’t have guessed that the review situation would turn out to be the reverse for Lair. Play Magazine apparently gave it a very high score, and Penny-Arcade’s strip contends that it doesn’t take much to transform their review into Factor-5 marketing spin.

Tycho wrote:
Controls aren’t the only problem in Lair, though, so altering the controls wouldn’t represent a complete solution. You’re using those controls to accomplish frustrating, unimaginative, sometimes enigmatic tasks. People will forgive a good game its indulgences if they feel they’re being met halfway, and one never gets that impression here. You may find yourself in disbelief an hour into it, the Electronics Boutique receipt crumpled in your fist, trying to correlate Lair’s non-stop torrent of anguish and your missing sixty bucks.

It’s not too hard to eulogize a franchise that never was when it’s based on giant fire-breathing dragon mounts in a fantasy game world. It’s apparent that all of the good will the game had up front was probably earned based on that theme and concept alone seasoned with a dash of developer pedigree. But when the game is coming up on a year late and still just wasn’t good enough, you have to wonder how diverse their test groups were. Did they hear the objections and just decide the testers didn’t get it? Did they get reports back telling them some aspects of the game weren’t working like Incognito did, and then did they see Incognito’s reworking of Warhawk as a sign of weakness?

Via Penny-Arcade comic and blog post.