i rented LOLair

[drohne]

and two missions in it's basically the worst game ever. rogue squadron was already pretty bad. but add a stultifying interface, unresponsive motion controls, and stupid minigamey objectives -- then you've really got something extraordinary. the visual detail is pretty amazing, particularly coming off LOLo 3, but it's hard to appreciate the graphics when you're swinging a control pad all over the place in some desperate attempt to point your dragon at whatever it's supposed to be pointing at...which is rarely very clear.

i wonder if blockbuster would refund me if i take the disc back now and say it doesn't work -- which would almost be true

[demi]

I usually take back games to the rental place (Family Video) and say it doesnt work, they give me a free rental

[drohne]

i can't return it

this game is fascinatingly awful

just played another couple missions, and you know, as much criticism as the controls have gotten, and as much as the controls deserve that criticism -- perfectly sound traditional controls wouldn't make this game fun. the real trouble is that everything feels semiautomated and minigamey. it's a bunch of minigames loosely connected by a clumsy flight model -- the ramming minigame, the fighting minigame, the breaking stuff minigame, the slow-motion soldier bashing minigame. even shooting things in the most basic manner seems to require a lock-on. none of the mechanics here yield any pleasure at all. how did they manage that?

[Smooth Groove]

I was tempted to get it at Costco since they allow returns for opened games.  Luckily, I remembered that Abrader was the only one that liked it.  So what's your final grade?  

[drohne]

if i was a beleaguered game reviewer, i'd definitely see lair as an opportunity to use one of those REALLY SMALL NUMBERS that seldom get aired

[Smooth Groove]

Drohne, did you ever learn how to pull off those aerial combos with HS?  The animation for those combos was one aspect of HS that I liked but they seemed impossible to pul off consistently. 

[drohne]

yeah, i actually used the aerial combos a lot, though afaik they're only really useful against whiptail. turn off motion controls in the first place -- then either stun an enemy or knock him down, hit triangle from speed stance to launch him, mash x to jump up after him, and then input the combo of your choice.

as for lair, it actually does a remarkable job of portraying these big chaotic battles...it just fails to make a game out of them. i swear it'd be more fun to just fly a camera around and look at stuff -- the wonky controls and broken targeting keep you from enjoying the spectacle.

[Smooth Groove]

So you actually think that Lair looks pretty good?  Almost everyone agree that Lair's not a very good game but I've been hearing different things about its visuals.  Some think it's butt ugly while others think that it's one of the best looking games ever. 

Lair's remote play feature sounds interesting also.  Too bad it's wasted on Lair, and some of the controls aren't even mapped to the PSP if you really wanted to play it like that. 

[drohne]

it's really impressive imo...though sometimes the extreme hdr and the limited color palette crush all the detail. but it's got really detailed terrain on a massive scale, populated by hundreds of dragons and soldiers and siege weapons beating the shit out of each other. i really wish i could find something to like in the gameplay, because the settings are kind of exhilarating in themselves

[demi]

Well at least you rented it and didn't buy it like all the other SAPS on this forum

[y2kev]

The music is good.

That's all you can really say. It has its moments...but then they are usually punctuated by that obnoxious "pump the sixaxis" scene when the dragon looks like it is getting its stomach pumped.

[drohne]

yeah. that's it exactly. the music is good. and there are moments when the music is doing something nice, and the visual chaos is unfolding impressively, and you're just sort of flying around -- and it feels as if you're playing a good game. then you actually have to do something and you realize you're playing lair. in any case it seems pretty short and easy -- if i manage to finish halol 3 legendary tonight, i'll probably pick it up again

[Van Cruncheon]

the music is astounding. it makes you want to keep "playing" -- air quotes because the game insists on trying to prevent such a thing -- despite, well, everything else about the game. i sometimes suspect that many gaffers love the shit games they do because they are accompanied by brilliant soundtracks. xenogears especially. no-one could love that game for any other reason. i am pretty sure that vp1's motoi sakuraba soundtrack enabled me to suffer through the dreadful intro, and i'm pretty sure the same is true for wild arms 1

[bork]

My good friends Leguna and Mann are like this.  It often seems like they're more hyped up for new games based on the music than anything else.  Leguna decided to buy Call of Duty 4 because of the orchestrated soundtrack by Harry-Gregson (sp) Williams.

[Smooth Groove]

My good friends Leguna and Mann are like this.  It often seems like they're more hyped up for new games based on the music than anything else.  Leguna decided to buy Call of Duty 4 because of the orchestrated soundtrack by Harry-Gregson (sp) Williams.

Did you like Bioshock's music?  I thought that it had one of the best soundtracks this year. 

[brawndolicious]

Didn't Williams start off in COD1 and then moved onto movie scores?

[bud]

i once rented that south park rally game for the ps1. it got pretty bad scores, but i ended up liking it, lol.

[recursivelyenumerable]

i sometimes suspect that many gaffers love the shit games they do because they are accompanied by brilliant soundtracks.

Doesn't explain the lack of love for Saga Frontier II and Unlimited Saga.  =(

[TVC15]

Hey, Drohne, what did you think of the visuals?  After trying it a few more times, I stand by my original claim of them not being very impressive at all.

[Smooth Groove]

But it really feels like you're controlling a Dragon!

[TVC15]

There are a few visually impressive parts of the game.  That being said the game completely fails to cash in on it's technical prowess with one of the brownest approaches to visual design in recent memory (perhaps of all non eastern-bloc developer time).  Grand visual spectacle oftentimes becomes flattened out because the color pallette isn't made to emphasize the distance between the character and the enemies/landscape (see:Halo).

The fire breathing attack effects are also worefully underwhelming, which is sort of a big deal for a dragon game.

[drohne]

i'm really impressed with the terrain detail and the amount of stuff going on, and i certainly don't think the art direction is bad enough to negate its technical achievements. i guess i don't share the widespread aversion to brown, bloomy games. the way the boats sit on the water is really cool -- THEY LOOK LIKE BOATS IN WATER. i think there might be some 'this game sucks so much i can't even enjoy its graphics' happening here...which is totally understandable

[Van Cruncheon]

oh, i wholly appreciate what lair is accomplishing on a technical level, although it isn't doing anything that couldn't be done in a differently complicated form on the 360. factor 5 are scene programmers through and through, and they at least know what makes a graphics developer's mangina moist, even as they couldn't design a game to save their fuckin' careers -- literally

[abrader]

LAIR remote play features blow and arent even worth testing.

I agree with the OP that if the game featured standard analog control, it wouldnt even be better - in fact I think it would be worse....

For me now the only thing lair has going for it is a different type of game to play in my collection.

I havent even played it since launch....too many games, and not even enough time to play the stuff I really want to finish.