go back and look at previews and hands on of almost any game reviewed... they are almost ALWAYS positive. they are more a marketing tool than any indication of the game's progress
so I always take them with a huge grain of salt.
No no no. Re-review Lair AFTER reading the new manual
- Thread starter RobertR1
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go back and look at previews and hands on of almost any game reviewed... they are almost ALWAYS positive. they are more a marketing tool than any indication of the game's progress
so I always take them with a huge grain of salt.
True. I don't remember any "hands on" pre-release impressions for any game ever being negative. Not sure if it is just a "gentleman's agreement" or an actual policy.
By the way, what's up with all the Lair apologists? If you like the game despite the reviews, good for you. You've done the smart thing: played it for yourself and made up your own mind. But you don't need to go around on Internet Forums evangelizing the game and trying to convert people.
By the way, what's up with all the Lair apologists? If you like the game despite the reviews, good for you. You've done the smart thing: played it for yourself and made up your own mind. But you don't need to go around on Internet Forums evangelizing the game and trying to convert people.
Basically the deal is this:
Gaming journalism is based on hype.
Creating hype = good for the publisher\dev and good for game journalist (nobody wants to read about average stuff, which is why the average score on gamerankings is 75% and not 50%)
Good for the publisher = they will keep sending you free games = good for game journalist.
Hey wait a second here guys .... are we 100% sure the reviewers had their ps3 hooked up to HDMI?
Good points on the typical previews/reviews and on the one in question.
Seemed to be a game which could have used a few more months of dev time to polish things up as from the sounds of things, there are some levels/sequences which are not only well done, but best in class etc etc.
I hate to see games/ideas not live up to their potential when they are oh so close.
Besides the obvious PR disaster with the "review manual", sony released the mastering the beast video on PSN.
Well it didn´t really sell the game as such in regards to controls, that will still take a demo, but the ingame footage sold me on the looks, i think this game looks pretty good.
Well it didn´t really sell the game as such in regards to controls, that will still take a demo, but the ingame footage sold me on the looks
, i think this game looks pretty good.ihamoitc2005
Veteran
I don't think it's accurate at all to claim that pre-release impressions are always positive because the reviewers want to continue to receive review material from the publisher. For one, if a pre-release impression is negative, it will be in the interest of the publisher to change that opinion by following up with improvements.
What happened in Lair, I believe, is very specific. The reviewers all saw the potential of the game *if* it were closed off properly. The preview levels (e.g., the bridge battle and the sea serpent fight) are impressive in their own right, but they were also work in progress. Most were happy with the experience and gave positive preview feedback.
It's unfortunate that Sony went ahead to release the game shortly after. Part of the game is thus left in "pre-release" state. I guess some reviewers were shocked to realize that, and marked it down fiercely.
However, in my view, these reviewers also failed miserably in their writeups. They went all over the place and talked about irrelevant and strange reasons that sometimes even contradict themselves.
The result is a mess.
The game is a 6 in my book at this moment. The control is spot on, but it was not fully debugged in 1 level (The "bombing run" mission). The game will be brilliant if given more testing, polish and fine-tuning. The sense of scale, some of the assets and the very smooth/satisfying dragon flight experience are memorable.
EDIT: This also partly explains why the Lair review scores span so widely... The game is less developed in some ways and yet very "next-gen" in others.
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Don't you think that game companies need to employ more cynical journalists to play through their games before release!?
And why oh why did Factor 5 scream about 1080p!? The framerate would have been so much better at 720p...locked even (like resistance - insomniac are clever).
Plus all previewers said they liked the motion controls....but switched on release...which is a shame, if only they were told that not everybody is going to want to bother with them.
Assuming that Lair is rendering at 960*1080 with 2xaa and treating the multisample buffer as a full 1080p frame, the actual work is almost the same as it would be with 1280*720p at 2xaa. In other words, using a 1:1 720p resolution probably wouldn't help the speed that much.
AH ok...thanks. Still.
A shame indeed...
I think it wouldn't have helped in this case. It's too late in the cycle (Too little time to react).
Just like Warhawk, the project/product manager of Lair should have cut the scope to focus their resources on a few key things (e.g., game play) much earlier on. Some of the special effects (e.g., zooming in to dropped enemies, all/many of the disruptive cut scenes) were not needed.
My guess is all the pieces came together very late in the cycle, so it gave very little chance for any control mechanism to kick in. Please note that all these are just my speculations.
I'm pretty sure that's not the case though. IIRC Lair is rendered at 1920x1080...hence the PR cries of "1080P!"
Apparently edge reviews suck at video games if they cant control very well.
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