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Official LAIR thread
- Thread starter Captain N
- Start date
DCharlie
Banned
okay - at end of no. 1
story is insipid, voice acting is okay, graphically it`s a mixed bag - one minute great, the next minute average-to-good, the sixaxis so far is surprisingly fine - although the battle at the end of level one using specific 6axis functions was a bit of a let down.
but the biggest thing, that will stick out like a sore thumb to everyone else.... and i`m sure that this has been said several times....
this is friggen rogue squadron with a new skin. I can`t see where i have to target? oh that`s okay, because the dragons will appear in red just like they do in RS when you use the targetting view...
Next stint...
story is insipid, voice acting is okay, graphically it`s a mixed bag - one minute great, the next minute average-to-good, the sixaxis so far is surprisingly fine - although the battle at the end of level one using specific 6axis functions was a bit of a let down.
but the biggest thing, that will stick out like a sore thumb to everyone else.... and i`m sure that this has been said several times....
this is friggen rogue squadron with a new skin. I can`t see where i have to target? oh that`s okay, because the dragons will appear in red just like they do in RS when you use the targetting view...
Next stint...
Bearillusion
Banned
How about you just play it and give you impressions later?
I'm going to push enter now. Should be good, wish me luck.
Still there?
I'm going to push enter now. Should be good, wish me luck.
Still there?
DCharlie
Banned
well, at level 3 i`m giving up for the night - will conclude some thoughts over the weekend. Level 3 saw a huge upturn in graphics, but the gameplay remains questionable.
Surprisingly, the controls seem fine - i`ve not had cause to do a 180 beyond the first training mission, so that`s been quite cool.
Anyways ...
Surprisingly, the controls seem fine - i`ve not had cause to do a 180 beyond the first training mission, so that`s been quite cool.
Anyways ...
Bearillusion
Banned
Wollan how's the framerate? Is it better at 720p then 1080p?
I wish they would put a demo up.
I wish they would put a demo up.
I don't have 1080p so I can't tell. It can drop quite a bit when you drop down to the troops but the framerate is never game breaking. Actually it's pretty much identical to what I saw last year (1080p @ TGS) though the game seems to have more blur effects and overall 'retail polish'.
AgentOtaku
Member
Lobster said:
.....
Looks like the unbiased, non-MS funded reviews are starting to come out:
http://www.sonydefenseforce.com/?p=122
:lol :lol
http://www.sonydefenseforce.com/?p=122
:lol :lol
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Framerate is A LOT smoother in 480p. I never thought it was terribly bad in 720p either (even though it did have tons of drops), but in 480p it's pretty much locked 30FPS from what little I've played in that resolution.
You're on that part where it looks like it's a cutscene and someone tells you to dodge it? You have to move the controller VERY quickly to either left or right. Make a lateral movement to the left/right, don't just tilt it, and do it as soon as the voice starts to tell you to. I died there twice myself, and yeah it's a bit of an annoying spot.Mesijs said:
Psychotext
Member
Classic. Was waiting for that.Razoric said:
Marconelly said:
Yeah, just finished it. Wasn't that hard, and there actually was a checkpoint before the bossfight. I was just bitching.
I enjoyed it quite a lot. I also enjoyed the mission on the bridge.Can anybody tell me how many chapters there actually are, as I'm quite curious about it.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
There's 14 missions, 15 if you count the training one which appears as the first icon on the mission selector screen.
DCharlie
Banned
well, i`d disagree - vastly improved over TGS where , when me and the 25+ people i was there with all so the same thing : screen tearing , single digit frame rates when turning. But we had the conversation already !
Then again, the frame rate -is- pretty noticable, but as you say - its not game breaking to be honest. But it does take a lot of the technical shine off the game. It really reminds me of SotC in that respect.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Mesijs, you need to shoot those chain-looking cables first. Also if you don't mind, HS official thread needs your attention
Lobster said:
That question's been answered before. It really depends on what type of dragon you're accustomed to.
The game comes pretty close to your Sean Connery DragonHeart kind of dragon. So in that sense: yeh, it's like flying a dragon.
However, if you've spent of of your time mounted on the back of the Eragon or Dungeons & Dragons type of dragons, you'll notice the dragon in Lair has quite the wider actionradius, turnradius and is a bit slower.
I prefer the slower model in daily life, traffic from and to work is slow as hell anyway, so the faster, more deluxe model was a waste of money IMHO.
and yeh; going from and to work is mostly one straight line
I don't even own an PS3 but I must say regardless of the reviews it's getting I really wish I could play this game.Free roaming air combat is tough to get right and I would like to see how close Lair is to nailing it.I get the impression that if Factor 5 ever had the chance of making a sequel it would be an awesome game.
I bought it used last night and played it for a little over 2 hours...even the clerk tried to convince me not to buy it.
Then i asked him had he played it and he said it flys like a bus...
hmm a fire breathing dragon that doesnt turn on a dime eh? worse case i can bring it back and put the $$$ to heavenly sword right? so i bought it.
when i finally had time to play it; I only put it down because I had a doctors appointment very early this morning. Tho brief in play I found it to be refreshing and a nice diversion from the norm. I'm actually looking forward to hitting the skies again tonite.
I'm glad i didnt let the reviews sway me from buying it... i havent had any controls problems to speak of. maybe if people stop shaking the controller like a British nanny they might enjoy it? oh well.... if you couldnt tell... i liked the game.
I dont agree by any means that it's a 2 out of 5 or sub 5 out of 10 game. WTF were they on? did they try the training missions or RTFM??
Then i asked him had he played it and he said it flys like a bus...
hmm a fire breathing dragon that doesnt turn on a dime eh? worse case i can bring it back and put the $$$ to heavenly sword right? so i bought it.
when i finally had time to play it; I only put it down because I had a doctors appointment very early this morning. Tho brief in play I found it to be refreshing and a nice diversion from the norm. I'm actually looking forward to hitting the skies again tonite.
I'm glad i didnt let the reviews sway me from buying it... i havent had any controls problems to speak of. maybe if people stop shaking the controller like a British nanny they might enjoy it? oh well.... if you couldnt tell... i liked the game.
I dont agree by any means that it's a 2 out of 5 or sub 5 out of 10 game. WTF were they on? did they try the training missions or RTFM??
Shrimpboat
Banned
Jtyettis said:
Sounds like the reviews sites are trying to outdo each other with bashing Lair, too bad. I guess it makes good reading for the 360 fanboys, which is a bigger group.
Shrimpboat said:
Nah, the two world review-age slaughter is even worse. Gamespy gave that one a 1/5 (lower than Lair's 1.5/5). It's just these two games fell further from their expectations than any others recently. It's good for them to take out the skinning knives once in awhile so it doesn't seem like their average score is 70%.
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
Just checking something...Lair is 720p native, right?
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
Matters to me. Finishing my review.
Kobun Heat
Member
fuck you. next you're going to tell me that when you wrap a tow cable around the warbeast's legs they took that from star wars too? gb2 gamefaqsDCharlie said:
MachoInfinity
Member
KTallguy said:
What an idiot.
I beat the first three missions.
The game is, to be quite honest, a mess. It's a total mess. None of the elements ever truly come together and work well enough for them to warrant being in the game, other than the music, which is GODLY. Oh my GOD is it so good. This game better sell well enough, otherwise Sony might think it was fucking Debney's fault.
Anyway, the controls: why? Really, I mean, why? Motion controls are just so imprecise here and it's so annoying. I didn't have any problem getting the dragon go to where I wanted it to go, but I couldn't play sitting down and it was constantly a struggle. It just wasn't natural to control. Regular controls would make the game significantly more enjoyable.
I found the combat system to be just so muddy and confusing. The tutorial system, to begin with, is so broken. This is what happens:
*hmmm, I'm just flying around*
"Oh, a hint!"
*PRESS L1/R1 to...*
And then it vanishes. It was on the screen for maybe two seconds. It's like the controller is violently shaking on the screen, buttons and sticks are flashing, it's tilting, what the hell, I can't see anything, whatever etc etc. Jesus. So I do the tutorials, which, btw, you have to go back to on your own-- and separate game tutorials are like things from StarFox 64 era of game design. Anyway, I got it under control in the air. The lock on was working pretty well for me, though instead of having both L1 and R1 be lock on, I would make L1 lock on and R1 cycle. That's just me.
I could get the 180 to work after some practice, though I feel it's a bit of an unnatural motion as you have to hold it for a second or two. I'm blasting things or whatever, doing my waggles and whoops, etc etc.
And then I hit the ground. Wow. What an absolute disaster. The camera swings around and wigs out like nobody's fucking business, the framerate drops way too often, you just button mash, the dragon has no sense of momentum. It's just a total mess. I hate going on the ground. As soon as you get near the ground the camera swoops overhead and there's like excessive motion blur and whatever. It's a mess.
Graphically I still think the game is very impressive. Sure, the terrain in the future looks a bit like unending feces, but...the fact you can even see that far is totally mindblowing. I am not happy with the framerate.
The objectives are so unclear and annoying I can't even put it into words. Take, for example, the first mission, when Jevon or whoever is yelling OH NO THE MILLS, LOOK AT THE MILLS.
Me: WHAT MILLS WHAT THE FUCK MILLS I CANT SEE SHIT WHAT IS THE ARROW POINTING AT OH GOD THE ARROW JUST DISAPPEARED WHAT AM I LOOKING AT
Game:
*PRESS DOWN TO GO INTO DRA*
Me: FUCK!!!
So using the objective marker mode makes things significantly better, but in the air everything STILL looks too similar, and god forbid the object you are looking for is on a dark red background. Oh god.
I just found myself looping around entirely too frequently to go after objectives I couldn't find. There's way too much stuff going on.
And there's a ton of WTF stuff in the game, like loading the pause screen or the way levels end. It is so amateurish.
Factor 5 is designing a game that would have been absolutely gangbusters in 1997.
The game is, to be quite honest, a mess. It's a total mess. None of the elements ever truly come together and work well enough for them to warrant being in the game, other than the music, which is GODLY. Oh my GOD is it so good. This game better sell well enough, otherwise Sony might think it was fucking Debney's fault.
Anyway, the controls: why? Really, I mean, why? Motion controls are just so imprecise here and it's so annoying. I didn't have any problem getting the dragon go to where I wanted it to go, but I couldn't play sitting down and it was constantly a struggle. It just wasn't natural to control. Regular controls would make the game significantly more enjoyable.
I found the combat system to be just so muddy and confusing. The tutorial system, to begin with, is so broken. This is what happens:
*hmmm, I'm just flying around*
"Oh, a hint!"
*PRESS L1/R1 to...*
And then it vanishes. It was on the screen for maybe two seconds. It's like the controller is violently shaking on the screen, buttons and sticks are flashing, it's tilting, what the hell, I can't see anything, whatever etc etc. Jesus. So I do the tutorials, which, btw, you have to go back to on your own-- and separate game tutorials are like things from StarFox 64 era of game design. Anyway, I got it under control in the air. The lock on was working pretty well for me, though instead of having both L1 and R1 be lock on, I would make L1 lock on and R1 cycle. That's just me.
I could get the 180 to work after some practice, though I feel it's a bit of an unnatural motion as you have to hold it for a second or two. I'm blasting things or whatever, doing my waggles and whoops, etc etc.
And then I hit the ground. Wow. What an absolute disaster. The camera swings around and wigs out like nobody's fucking business, the framerate drops way too often, you just button mash, the dragon has no sense of momentum. It's just a total mess. I hate going on the ground. As soon as you get near the ground the camera swoops overhead and there's like excessive motion blur and whatever. It's a mess.
Graphically I still think the game is very impressive. Sure, the terrain in the future looks a bit like unending feces, but...the fact you can even see that far is totally mindblowing. I am not happy with the framerate.
The objectives are so unclear and annoying I can't even put it into words. Take, for example, the first mission, when Jevon or whoever is yelling OH NO THE MILLS, LOOK AT THE MILLS.
Me: WHAT MILLS WHAT THE FUCK MILLS I CANT SEE SHIT WHAT IS THE ARROW POINTING AT OH GOD THE ARROW JUST DISAPPEARED WHAT AM I LOOKING AT
Game:
*PRESS DOWN TO GO INTO DRA*
Me: FUCK!!!
So using the objective marker mode makes things significantly better, but in the air everything STILL looks too similar, and god forbid the object you are looking for is on a dark red background. Oh god.
I just found myself looping around entirely too frequently to go after objectives I couldn't find. There's way too much stuff going on.
And there's a ton of WTF stuff in the game, like loading the pause screen or the way levels end. It is so amateurish.
Factor 5 is designing a game that would have been absolutely gangbusters in 1997.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
I'd say the most native resolution for Lair is 720p. It renders in 1080p through a method that's somewhat of a hack and is half native rendering half upscaling. It looks better than way in 1080p than it would if it would simply be upscaling, but it doesn't look as good as if everything was natively rendered.AlphaSnake said:
The game's performance in 720p does not in any way suffer from it's support of 1080p. In fact it performs better the lower resolution you select, so it's not like it always renders in 1080p and then it scales that down.KTallguy said:
Y2Kev said:
Are you sure you're not mistaking the frame-rate dropping on the ground parts for the "slow-motion" effect they put in there? I mean, there's *some* dropping there, just like there is in all parts of the game, but that effect kicks in a lot when you're tearing through soldiers.
Also, I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but generally once I've gone through a mission and I go back to replay it, it's not as frustrating because at that point I generally know where to go, what to do, and how to do it. I have feeling that unless they're dying and having to restart, not too many people want to "suffer" through a replay, when it's actually a smoother experience the second time around.