No no no. Re-review Lair AFTER reading the new manual

[StefanS]

Approaching the problem in that way is so wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start with. Seriously, that's a PR disaster waiting to happen: Do they really think reviewers like to be patronized about doing their job? Do they really think that this won't look bad? Is there any use in jeopardizing the symbiosis they have with the reviewers of the major VG sites & mags?

That's really not the way to do it, if you want to your game to be rereviewed. You publish a major update that fixes the most critical issues (like for instance the bugged "automatic" target mechanism which came up in all reviews I read and which isn't related to motion control issues, etc) and then you humbly ask for another review, since your game plays very differently.
You never ever issue a reviewer manual / guideline. You're overstepping your boundaries here: You need the press, the press need you aka symbiosis. You don't try to do their job for them or to tell them what to do. Whoever came up with that idea was obviously wrong to choose a career in PR.

 

[Acert93]

Whoever came up with that idea was obviously wrong to choose a career in PR.

Probably the same guy who thought it was cool to change Wiki from work

But I agree Stefan. Nice summary. It may not be odd for small "guides" to the game to go out with a title explaining a game a little bit, but a post-release, "You guys are doin' it all wrong!" type manual can only have a negative effect.

 

[BoardBonobo]

PR disaster. Over hyped. And set to fail from day one. And from little acorns do mighty oaks grow.

Lair would appear to be alot of things, one of which would be a reviewers nightmare. I mean having to learn something new, unthinkable! Playing a game in a new way, no thanks! More exercise, more than your wrist gets normally anyway...

Maybe it's time reviewers got reviewed. And, seriously, if IGN want a little bit of credibility for their reviews, then it's probably best not to show a couch potato like they have for a publicity shot. Wii sports was made in mind of people like that. Hardcore gamer or easy money?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You should never need a manual to play a game like this. It's a piece of interactive entertainment,it either grabs you or it doesn't and if the controls prevent that,that's the fault of the designers not the consumer.

You know, I never used to read manuals. Then I found there were often little snippets that I never found in games without reading them. Now I do, and I say to friends 'did you know you could do this with such and such game' when they didn't read the manual, and they normally reply something like 'wow, that's cool and useful'.

If you're introducing a complex system, you'll need explain its intricacies. In this case motion control presumably needs an explanation as to which gestures create which motions. It's no different in principal to something like Black and White's gestures. Without a list of which gestures do what, you could be drawing random symbols all day and not come up with anything. It's no different to a keyboard reference sheet that tells you which key out of 104 on your keyboard does which action in a PC game. You wouldn't be expected to guess them all. It's also no different to something like Wii Boxing which doesn't work the natural way but needs an explanation of how to raise or low your arms to execute punches high or low. These are all interactive entertainments that need some explanation.

It's nice when games, often smaller ones, are that intuitive, but I don't see why Lair should be expected to be such a title. From what I can gather all those who said the dragon was slow turning around missed the training bit where the player is told to flick the controller up to do a 180. I've seen it in gameplay vids, where the player is performing a long turn and on screen the tip appears, but they don't take any notice. I do wonder if the first reviews saying motion control sucked had some influence on later reviews? One person says the turning circle is dire and that sets expectations in other reviewers, who then find the same thing and stop there rather than exploring further. I also wonder if reviewers, like many gamers, think themselves so experienced that rather than waste time with manuals, they just jump in and do their reviewers with a whole lot of preconceptions?

It'd be interesting to see what the guide says and how it relates to review comments. Sony should make it public at this point, now the damage of reviews has been done but they've still got people's attention (if it's info not in the game's manual, and if it's not, why not?). Are there really important things the reviewers just missed that make a huge difference? Either way is a boo-boo by Sony. If this guide just covers stuff the reviewers already know, it's just a waste of time, yet if it provides essential info, it was a major oversight to send the game out to review without suitable instruction!

There's also a worrying precedent here for creative industries to not be original. Again, it depends on what the problems really are. But if the motion controls aren't that bad and just need people to get the hang of them, and yet the universal reaction is criticism of them, it's strong encouragement for developers not to innovate. If Factor5 had shunned motion control and cloned their SW controls, they'd be far better off, even if the game was even more SW in a dragon skin.

I'd also say that now is the age of invitation betas or even alphas! Playtesters, for whatever reason, seem to let dross out the door. Either they're being ignored or they're not picking up faults that gamers will. Titles should have real gamers experience during development. Perhaps something like a selection, maybe 10,000 gamers, who are official testers, who get private access to early builds to playtest them at home? This would provide substantial feedback on what works and what doesn't from the market's POV, and they're the people you're trying to please. If you think a weighty, unresponsive dragon is a cool idea, but games hate it and what immediate response, you drop your idea and go with what the masses want, always. This isn't art but business! If Factor5 had had all this reviewer feedback in the middle of the game, they could have made changes that fixed glowing issues. It'd perhaps be hard to balance user input with designer ideas. Design by committee its ghastly and you don't want 10,000 people all trying to make the game their own! But you can't afford to spend tens of millions on a product only to have it crash out. Feedback from the people you're going to sell this game to seems a smart move.

 

[Acert93]

Lair would appear to be alot of things, one of which would be a reviewers nightmare. I mean having to learn something new, unthinkable! Playing a game in a new way, no thanks! More exercise, more than your wrist gets normally anyway...

Or... a game that doesn't accurate respond to user input isn't fun to a lot of gamers and fans are getting mad and attacking the messenger?

Maybe it's time reviewers got reviewed. And, seriously, if IGN want a little bit of credibility for their reviews, then it's probably best not to show a couch potato like they have for a publicity shot. Wii sports was made in mind of people like that. Hardcore gamer or easy money?

Revelation! Games aren't for fatties! How dare an obesse person try to have a job as a game reviewer!

Opps, maybe 2/3rds of American's shouldn't play this game... THAT explains all the bad reviews: American's are fat and just cannot understand the game.

 

[Neb]

You're kidding I hope... oh wait you're probably not. Honestly, the game is bad in the opinion of a LOT of people. It fell flat on its face and this is just extreme measures taken by Sony to give it one last shot in the arm. Really its kinda sad...

It really is kind of sad and a desperate move from Sony/Factor 5 IMO. This game has more than just controller problems, big framerate problems that makes it harder to be precise, graphics that range from bad to good etc.

 

[ninzel]

You know, I never used to read manuals. Then I found there were often little snippets that I never found in games without reading them. Now I do, and I say to friends 'did you know you could do this with such and such game' when they didn't read the manual, and they normally reply something like 'wow, that's cool and useful'.

If you're introducing a complex system, you'll need explain its intricacies. In this case motion control presumably needs an explanation as to which gestures create which motions. It's no different in principal to something like Black and White's gestures. Without a list of which gestures do what, you could be drawing random symbols all day and not come up with anything. It's no different to a keyboard reference sheet that tells you which key out of 104 on your keyboard does which action in a PC game. You wouldn't be expected to guess them all. It's also no different to something like Wii Boxing which doesn't work the natural way but needs an explanation of how to raise or low your arms to execute punches high or low. These are all interactive entertainments that need some explanation.

It's nice when games, often smaller ones, are that intuitive, but I don't see why Lair should be expected to be such a title. From what I can gather all those who said the dragon was slow turning around missed the training bit where the player is told to flick the controller up to do a 180. I've seen it in gameplay vids, where the player is performing a long turn and on screen the tip appears, but they don't take any notice. I do wonder if the first reviews saying motion control sucked had some influence on later reviews? One person says the turning circle is dire and that sets expectations in other reviewers, who then find the same thing and stop there rather than exploring further. I also wonder if reviewers, like many gamers, think themselves so experienced that rather than waste time with manuals, they just jump in and do their reviewers with a whole lot of preconceptions?

It'd be interesting to see what the guide says and how it relates to review comments. Sony should make it public at this point, now the damage of reviews has been done but they've still got people's attention (if it's info not in the game's manual, and if it's not, why not?). Are there really important things the reviewers just missed that make a huge difference? Either way is a boo-boo by Sony. If this guide just covers stuff the reviewers already know, it's just a waste of time, yet if it provides essential info, it was a major oversight to send the game out to review without suitable instruction!

There's also a worrying precedent here for creative industries to not be original. Again, it depends on what the problems really are. But if the motion controls aren't that bad and just need people to get the hang of them, and yet the universal reaction is criticism of them, it's strong encouragement for developers not to innovate. If Factor5 had shunned motion control and cloned their SW controls, they'd be far better off, even if the game was even more SW in a dragon skin.

I'd also say that now is the age of invitation betas or even alphas! Playtesters, for whatever reason, seem to let dross out the door. Either they're being ignored or they're not picking up faults that gamers will. Titles should have real gamers experience during development. Perhaps something like a selection, maybe 10,000 gamers, who are official testers, who get private access to early builds to playtest them at home? This would provide substantial feedback on what works and what doesn't from the market's POV, and they're the people you're trying to please. If you think a weighty, unresponsive dragon is a cool idea, but games hate it and what immediate response, you drop your idea and go with what the masses want, always. This isn't art but business! If Factor5 had had all this reviewer feedback in the middle of the game, they could have made changes that fixed glowing issues. It'd perhaps be hard to balance user input with designer ideas. Design by committee its ghastly and you don't want 10,000 people all trying to make the game their own! But you can't afford to spend tens of millions on a product only to have it crash out. Feedback from the people you're going to sell this game to seems a smart move.

There's always great little things you can learn from guides or manuals,but they should never be a requirement to enjoying the core gameplay.
The game itself through clever and imaginative ways should introduce you to everything you need to know.
For example I never used a guide to Bioshock,and on my first play through I probably didn't play the game as well as I could have if I had read in detail about everything. By the end of the game I had discovered enough to go back and and play the game a second time in a smarter way. But I never needed a manual to play through it and enjoy it,even though I didn't understand every last detail.
Games can be layered in that way. But the core gameplay itself should be intuitive.
Edit; And if we are strictly talking about implementing a new method of control,then you make it optional and let the consumers decide if they want it. And if you decide to force it,you better be damm sure it works well. I'm not hearing to many complaints about Warhawk.

 

[BoardBonobo]

Or... a game that doesn't accurate respond to user input isn't fun to a lot of gamers and fans are getting mad and attacking the messenger?

And the fact that console games now get regular updates\downloadable content, doesn't that make fixed reviews a little bit obsolete? It seesm to me that most people get fixated on either a win or lose scenario and now that the games(sic) more fluid they aren't able to respond in way that's suitable. With the latest firmware update on the PS3 Lairs controls are now far more responsive. Doesn't make it a different game, but does make a large part of the review obsolete.

Revelation! Games aren't for fatties! How dare an obesse person try to have a job as a game reviewer!

Opps, maybe 2/3rds of American's shouldn't play this game... THAT explains all the bad reviews: American's are fat and just cannot understand the game.

Oh come on! He's holding a manual and looks like he's just had his first encounter with a woman! How can anybody look that happy just because he's found something he can read?

Off topic: This whole area is a breeding ground for a thousand research projects and a life times worth of arguments. And is basically not worth it.

 

[-tkf-]

The game itself through clever and imaginative ways should introduce you to everything you need to know.

One of the points was that Players ignored the ingame tips as well. If the developers is dead set on introducing a whole new way of controlling a game and the people playing the game ignores the instructions i can see a problem.

If the example of Lair controls prior to FW 1.92 is true i can see a perfectly good reason why the reviewers didn´t like the game. On that note, i´m glad that the reviews normally doesn´t have a picture of the reviewer, "Greg" just doesn´t look like a guy i would normally take any gamers advice from.

 

[ninzel]

One of the points was that Players ignored the ingame tips as well. If the developers is dead set on introducing a whole new way of controlling a game and the people playing the game ignores the instructions i can see a problem.

If the example of Lair controls prior to FW 1.92 is true i can see a perfectly good reason why the reviewers didn´t like the game. On that note, i´m glad that the reviews normally doesn´t have a picture of the reviewer, "Greg" just doesn´t look like a guy i would normally take any gamers advice from.

I guess I feel motion controls, since they should mimmick natural movements, should be even more intuitive than standard controls,and therefor needs less tips than standard controls.
The core gameplay should just work,for anyone. My position is that simple.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The game itself through clever and imaginative ways should introduce you to everything you need to know.

I haven't played the game so can't comment on whether I agree with the reviewers or not, but from that video, it seems Factor5 did provide tips and people just ignored them.

I guess I feel motion controls, since they should mimmick natural movements, should be even more intuitive than standard controls,and therefor needs less tips than standard controls.

That's something people are unsure of with these newfangled motion cnotrols though. Personally I think they should be a very clear, natural interface. But Wii shows that people can be happy with non-intuitive, gesture-based controls. Perhaps that's limited to certain games, or certain gamers? No-one really knows what works yet. BnW tried gestures and showed gesture was a waste of time, and everyone used keyboard shortcuts. But we'd have never known if they hadn't tried! The sensible thing they did was have alternatives. In this case I Factor5 shouldn't have put al their eggs in one basket. From Eggbricht's description, I was always dubious. The attempt to make a game that felt like you were riding a dragon, which is slow and unresponsive, seemed to go utterly against what I'd expect gamers to want. Someone involved in this project should have said 'Look, Julian. That's a great, original idea, but what if folk don't like it? We should put in an alternative control scheme.' I'm surprised no-one made sure of that.

Still, without having catered for those who wouldn't take to their innovative, new, natural system, a guide explaining the system is the best thing they could do. I'm guessing the controller is handled more like reigns to the beast, rather than directly controlling it. The player's riding a horse rather than driving a car. If so, you'd need to be sure players are aware of needing to think like that, other preconceptions would totally change their experience.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

On that note, i´m glad that the reviews normally doesn´t have a picture of the reviewer, "Greg" just doesn´t look like a guy i would normally take any gamers advice from.

Really? That greg guy looks just about geeky enough to know what hes talking about.

 

[ihamoitc2005]

motion controls

I guess I feel motion controls, since they should mimmick natural movements, should be even more intuitive than standard controls,and therefor needs less tips than standard controls.
The core gameplay should just work,for anyone. My position is that simple.

"expert" gamers hate motion controls and do not like to learn new control because they are not "expert" anymore. This is why they do not like wii. Their 8yr old brother is better than them.

 

[StefanS]

"expert" gamers hate motion controls and do not like to learn new control because they are not "expert" anymore. This is why they do not like wii. Their 8yr old brother is better than them.

This is getting really ridiculous. Did some of you even bother to read the reviews or did you just glance at the score?

Among the major issues was the "automatic" target system which apparently caused the gamer to play some of the time-critical missions over and over again until it picked up the right target. And there were more gameplay issues which had zero to do with motion controller proficiency. Even without controls issues it still has glaring problems.

The whole hardcore gamers' motion controller penis-envy is not even an argument, it's protective prejudice. Ask yourself honestly in with what kind of mindset you would set out to review a game: Yes, the review process is where you try to keep an open mind, the writing part is where you can get witty and opinionated (if that's your writing style). But during the review you're always putting yourself into the shoes of different gamer types. Moreover, you try to objectivy your POVs by talking to other people. So do you really think that a lot of the reviewers aka the ones that scored it below 70% failed to this? You really think they were that closed minded that they said "Wow, I suck at game X, therefore game X sucks"? Or that all of them couldn't handle motion control? So why does Warhawk get good scores? Following that train of thought Red Steel must be an excellent piece of SW, it only got low scores because the reviewers sucked (the very same reviewers who gave Metroid Prime 3: 90% scores).

But that's all besides the salient point: It misses the PR fiasco the review guideline really is.

I admit I haven't played the game yet, so I can't comment, if FW 1.92 fixes some of the controller sensitivity issues or not (which reportedly it does). But some of you are wearing blinders with regard to the other issues raised.
You want a rereview. Good, create a major update and ask for it. Don't tell people that they're too dumb to understand your genius. It will get you nowhere.

 

[Jaeyden]

Well said.

Anyone feel that this game might have just been held to a higher standard than most? Is it possible that it's a backfire from hyping an average/mediocre game to a AAA title?

From what I've read here, at GAF and in the PSforums...most players would put the game some where between 70%-80%. Gamerankings.com has the average LAIR score at 58.5%. That's a pretty large gap between review scores and player opinions.

Take "The Darkness" for example. Very little hype up until right before release. It's Gamerankings.com ave. score is 82% between both consoles. I thought this game scored much higher than it should have. It suffered from poor AI, clunky movement, broken game mechanics (auto aim sucked, creeping dark never worked, darklings worked half the time), poor graphics, framerate drops and tedious gameplay (shooting out all the lights). Somehow it is, on average, a 24% better experience than LAIR?

Maybe LAIR deserves the scores it got, but it's funny how the gaming public never cries out when games get higher scores than they deserve. <----And that happens all the time.

 

[cthellis42]

I thikn they should especially about being hardcore gamers. Sure, a hardcore gamer may get ticked off when 20% of the time your input is ignored by the game (as Julian noted).

As well, the complaints seem to be about finickiness with one or two maneuvers, rather than every command, or even the primary commands. (Such as the "pulling the trigger" mentioned earlier.) I think we've all suffered through games where one particular move or command is hard to pull off, or has crazy timing, or doesn't always do what you want it to... I don't recall any of those games pulling, like, three points off the final score.

Personally, I do think a lot of review houses are overreacting to many things--SIXAXIS control most of all. (But to other extents, dissatisfaction with the PS3 in general, and overreaction to the hype behind the project, which makes one want to sit and chew on other details because you can't actually "rate" those...)

I've most certainly read reviews where it just seems like they don't how how to play a game worth a damn (they complain about lacking features that ARE there, complain about difficulties I find trivial, etc.), and some of the comments I've read in Lair reviews here and about have smelled of that... which is not to say that abnormally HIGH scores that completely slough off any technical issues and laud glowingly anything else don't have their own smell, too. Needless to say, plenty of people say they PREFER gamepads to play all games, can't play fighting games worth a damn, can't grasp SIXAXIS control in Motorstorm with a damn, and--heck--some can't even handle Wii Sports games, either... which means I basically have to rent Lair and see what it's all about myself. (But this is ALSO not to say that I don't place the blame firmly in Factor 5's and Sony's lap for not also including a "conventional" control for the title as an option, since we are still mid-transition on people getting used to motion controls at ALL, let alone each individual attempt at it.)

At any rate, I'll just post my one kvetch and leave the rest alone; I know the other Lair post was locked for similar reason. I'll just end by saying I can't even conceive a control scheme being so bad once you're familiar with it that would rank a game (that otherwise seems to get praised enough in every other area) three points below the likes of Drakengard. (A game that starts off promisingly, then beats you upside the head with monotony--both in gameplay and, infuriatingly, the MUSIC--and craptastic level design.)

The end. Heh... (I'll be back when I've actually played the game. )

 

[mrcorbo]

The whole hardcore gamers' motion controller penis-envy is not even an argument, it's protective prejudice. Ask yourself honestly in with what kind of mindset you would set out to review a game: Yes, the review process is where you try to keep an open mind, the writing part is where you can get witty and opinionated (if that's your writing style). But during the review you're always putting yourself into the shoes of different gamer types. Moreover, you try to objectivy your POVs by talking to other people. So do you really think that a lot of the reviewers aka the ones that scored it below 70% failed to this? You really think they were that closed minded that they said "Wow, I suck at game X, therefore game X sucks"? Or that all of them couldn't handle motion control? So why does Warhawk get good scores? Following that train of thought Red Steel must be an excellent piece of SW, it only got low scores because the reviewers sucked (the very same reviewers who gave Metroid Prime 3: 90% scores).

I am stunned that people are finding it easier to dismiss the ability of an entire industry of professionals to do their job rather than accept the faults of one game. This is especially ironic when they are accusing game reviewers of clinging to their preconceptions.

 

[Arwin]

This is getting really ridiculous. Did some of you even bother to read the reviews or did you just glance at the score?

I could ask you the same thing, but then about the posts here. Most of the more 'respected' forum members here take issue specifically with the comments on controls.

Even in the major issue you are picking up, the problem is acerbated by the slow turning of the dragon in that particular review, where the reviewer either doesn't mention or does not know about the 180 degree turn. Where other reviews mention they had some problems pulling that off always (which is partly due to the dragon quite literally sometimes doing something on its own, because he doesn't like to fly into a wall for instance), this one doesn't even do that.

Also, there is some clear proof that not all reviewers understand the whole motion control thing. There's a huge difference between how I experienced Super Rub-a-Dub (finishing it on gold) and the IGN reviewer:

Closing Comments
Even if it were free, Super Rub-a-Dub would be too much of an investment for too small a payout. Dull and monotonous with little interactivity, the game is almost completely devoid of fun because of poor design choices and the worst example of Sixaxis support we've seen yet. Avoid it at all costs.

source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/781/781888p1.html

So do you really think that a lot of the reviewers aka the ones that scored it below 70% failed to this? You really think they were that closed minded that they said "Wow, I suck at game X, therefore game X sucks"? Or that all of them couldn't handle motion control?

Yes. And I base this on comparing my experiences with motion control to 'their' experiences (though note that I have myself been a reviewer for a while for several online magazines - and at this point I'd like to point out that none of them have had any formal education on how to review games ).

So why does Warhawk get good scores?

Because you can choose to play without motion control. That was clever of them. It allows Darwin to demonstrate the superiority of sixaxis.

But that's all besides the salient point: It misses the PR fiasco the review guideline really is.

Or at least it can be. I agree with you on that.

I admit I haven't played the game yet, so I can't comment, if FW 1.92 fixes some of the controller sensitivity issues or not (which reportedly it does). But some of you are wearing blinders with regard to the other issues raised.

I haven't seen many on this forum. Patsu, for instance, clearly points out what he thinks are weaknesses in this game, and many of them overlap with issues that crop up in other games. But where he, and I, and many others very clearly and specifically disagree, is when it comes to the sixaxis controls. This is an overarching trend, and it seems as silly to me that you cannot recognise that this might be a legitimate issue we have with many reviews, not just Lair's.

You want a rereview. Good, create a major update and ask for it. Don't tell people that they're too dumb to understand your genius. It will get you nowhere.

Clearly this last comment is aimed at Sony and Factor 5. I doubt they are reading this forum though.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

The artwork in this manual shows that they've had a pretty nice look for the game in mind, the designs are usually very good. But they've almost completely failed to realize it in the game, probably because of time constraints.

It would be interesting to know how this game would've fared if it had significantly more time to mature, for ironing out gameplay and graphics related isssues. But - considering that we're talking about full scale production time - the costs of just 6 full months of extra development time would probably be so much that even a better game wouldn't have the chance to break even in the end.
Sony has decided to rush it out to the market, and hope that the hype will sell enough of it; but the consistently bad reviews can discourage even their loyal fan base. And it's quite too late to help it, so this review guide will only hurt them even more...

 

[RobertR1]

The head of the game is claiming that he can do a move 8/10 times and that is perfectly acceptable. Anything after that is just noise.

The 21page manual is a PR disaster just as this game is turning out to be. Take the loss and move on. Spend the effort to promote a game that is reviewed well and will give you a good ROI on the PR money spent.

Better yet, release the game on PSN for $30 and you'll sell a good amount of copies.