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Play reviews Lair
- Thread starter Wollan
- Start date
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I like Play. Compared to all the negativity and mudslinging in forum threads it's refreshing from time to time to read something that's, if anything, too positive.
Though they really do like to utterly overrate games. I'd have given OS a 10 as well... after 7 or 8 hours. After twice that and later... not even close.
Though they really do like to utterly overrate games. I'd have given OS a 10 as well... after 7 or 8 hours. After twice that and later... not even close.
AltogetherAndrews
Member
Durante said:
Well, they obviously aren't taking the "critical journalism" approach, which is refreshing considering that this is, after all, entertainment. But sometimes their excitement tends to make them completely ignore flaws that readers would likely want to know about.
FortunateSon
Banned
Speevy said:
It really looks like an "F".
AltogetherAndrews
Member
This would be one of this incredibly rare occasions where I actually agree with Speevy, down to the last :lol
Lair is a mess.
Lair is a mess.
Death_Born
Banned
g23 said:
The dragons might be "inventive," but they're still DRAGONS. AKA the most used fantasy creature of all time. So, basically, Lair has dragons with armor. Not exactly the pinnacle of artistic design. If they really wanted to be amazing, they could have invented a new creature altogether. However, the graphics are amazing. Now I'm jealous.
AltogetherAndrews
Member
Dies Iræ said:
As opposed to what, industrial design?
Speevy said:
? i'm not even joking. Yeah they could have easily turned lair into something like this:
but they made an amazing looking game with outrageous creatures. It really feels like a world you would be afraid to be in instead of some wacky generic fantasy setting.
AltogetherAndrews
Member
And in that regard you're correct; it's certainly not soft fantasy. But I think it's horribly unbalanced, and cluttered.
Death_Born
Banned
g23 said:
Wait...Lair isn't a generic fantasy setting? I see castles, armies, dragons that breathe fire, guys with armor and swords riding dragons...am I missing something here?
WickedLaharl
Member
shidoshi said:
EternalGamer
Banned
Segata Sanshiro said:
Well, given that Sonic 360 got such a glowing review, we can't even say that. I wanted to believe them on that review, as I would have loved to play another good Sonic game. Then I played the demo...
And thanks to Shidoshi for correcting the scale: Play's scale clearly is 6-10. :lol
I like the mag for other reasons, but if I was ever going to rely on a single source for a purchase decision, Play would definitely NOT be it.
AltogetherAndrews
Member
Death_Born said:
I haven't seen many games that look like Lair. They may share settings and objects, but it's fairly unique in a design sense.
Death_Born
Banned
WickedLaharl said:
That actually looks like a real magazine cover...
Dreamcast 2 confirmed!!
lair's creature design is really strong. i remember hearing that they're working with stop-motion effects talent from the film industry. and it shows. it's kind of amazing that gafers have seized on 'bad art' as the standard knock against this game. it's completely off in the first place, and you'd think xbots would be wary of a slur that's been unfairly applied to so many xbox games.
Death_Born
Banned
AltogetherAndrews said:
Actually I think the giant enemies are probably one of the most unique things, you don't see many games like that *coughColossuscough*
Anyway, there's too little information to decide whether it's unique.
AltogetherAndrews
Member
drohne said:
The designs are awesome, but as I said above I find the overall image to be poorly balanced. It's as if there are several very strong art departments working on different sets and objects, but without a strong artistic direction to tie it all together and make it a uniformly attractive game.
Teknopathetic
Member
"lair's creature design is really strong. i remember hearing that they're working with stop-motion effects talent from the film industry. and it shows."
:lol :lol
:lol :lol
AltogetherAndrews said:
I'm not sure what to do with this reply. There's no design quality to the game - it's all very generic in my eyes: cookie cutter dragons flying around some LOTR backdrop. Design? More like fancy pants shaders than anything original. The game looks very "gray" to me. It's the next generation plague.
nincompoop
Banned
Speevy said:
Death_Born
Banned
shidoshi said:
You know what would be cool? A thread where everyone photoshops their dream magazine cover and posts it.
Son of Godzilla
Banned
g23 said:
Holy shit that's one of the worst goddamn screens anyone's ever taken of anything. IGN should be ****ing proud of themselves.
The biggest artistic criticism against Lair seems to be the following
How many polygons do you reckon exist in this dragon?
How many effects are going off in the background?
If I flew lower, would I see that glistening, gigantic salt water simulation?
Are there hundreds of soldiers in the distance, readying their swords for me?
This stuff is UNPRECEDENTED in one seamless game.
And it's still ugly.
Ugly, ugly, ugly.
Ugly.
How many polygons do you reckon exist in this dragon?
How many effects are going off in the background?
If I flew lower, would I see that glistening, gigantic salt water simulation?
Are there hundreds of soldiers in the distance, readying their swords for me?
This stuff is UNPRECEDENTED in one seamless game.
And it's still ugly.
Ugly, ugly, ugly.
Ugly.
Big Shirtless Ron
Member
like you're genuinely interested... :lolKarma Kramer said:
BradVanDam
Member
Speevy said:
why you purposely want it to fail?
Death_Born
Banned
Betcha can't guess which one is from LOTR!
AltogetherAndrews
Member
And since when in the hell did LOTR design values become a bad thing? Seriously, there is plenty of valid criticism to be leveled against this game, but bitching about it resembling something that is generally referred to as quite awesome in terms of design, that doesn't make a ton of sense.
Great artistic talent, poor artistic direction. Either that, or Factor 5 is still toying with the overall visual presentation of the game.
MetatronM said:
Great artistic talent, poor artistic direction. Either that, or Factor 5 is still toying with the overall visual presentation of the game.
AltogetherAndrews
Member
meh, double post or something
Drinky Crow
Banned
on one hand, casey loe is usually a credible reviewer with a healthy sense of skepticism. on the other hand, he's writing for halverson's geekwank rag. if the hysterically massive delta between heather campbell's play review of twilight princess and her startbutton.com review of the same game is any indicator, my money suggests that halverson won't pay up if the games he's tagged for greatness aren't properly treated and observed. i'd read that 9.0 as a 6.5/7.0 and suspect a more, er, halversonian origin of that horrible line about "gliding over a starlit ocean to opera".
AltogetherAndrews
Member
Speevy said:
I do, but no one ever listens to me.
PistolGrip
sex vacation in Guam
The art direction is great for a fantasy dragon game 
Anyway HD trailer is amazing. Has the best water effects in a game IMO.
GET IN MY BRAVIA!
creatures look all sorts of awesome.
Anyway HD trailer is amazing. Has the best water effects in a game IMO.
GET IN MY BRAVIA!
Drinky Crow said:
Well, I'd say that you're wrong, and I think I might have a bit more knowledge on this topic.
Also, we have Heather Graham working for us?! Why the f**k did nobody tell me this?? I'd have been begging her for sex daily if I knew that I knew her e-mail address already.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Lair is a strange looking game, but I agree that it really could have ended looking like that new Conan, or something cartony like WoW, or something even worse, if they didn't went with this kind of realism. A lot of it looks like LOTR, obviously, but there's not too many games that achieved that kind of gloomy realism, at least none that I can think of.
I don't understand how under any circumstances that third shot he posted can be considered garbage, or in fact, anything other than impressive.MetatronM said:
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