DemonSwordsman
Banned
Wow you xbots are pretty pathetic. LAIR is gonna be an amazing game no matter how much you troll it.
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Play reviews Lair
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Valkyr Junkie
Member
It looks great in motion people. Sheesh.
UntoldDreams
Member
Speevy said:
I believe you used the word ugly 6-7 times in a row. (I wasn't counting)
I dunno I think I could understand why people would say this is unappealing art direction for them. (There are people that enjoyed Zelda Wind Waker art style after all)
However, I don't think it would be fair to decry it as "ugly ugly ugly" either. That's a subjective opinion at best.
Drinky Crow
Banned
shidoshi said:
care to explain heather CAMPBELL's score and treatment delta in her two twilight princess reviews, then? i'm aware that startbutton is a metajoke, but if she can't address the legitimate flaws in the game she brought up in her "gag" review when penning her play review, i'd love to know why!
Drinky Crow
Banned
the art direction is ridiculously noisy for a game that focuses on battles of scale, where many of your enemies are often mere pixels in the distance. really, if any game should have favored anti-aliasing over glossy shader effects, this game is it.
EternalGamer
Banned
Drinky Crow said:
It definitely sounds like a line written from someone who gained their aesthetic sensibilities solely from watching years of bad anime. But I don't think that it is the a perspective limited to Halverson alone. I've met that type and they are, unfortunately, legion--the same ones that would defend the box claim of Odin Sphere as comparable to "great works of literature."
Nevertheless, Halverson or not, it is definitely a line that is trite and hokey enough to make you legitimately question the perspective of the person writing the review based solely on that one sentence alone.
1080p @ 30 FPS with framerate issue which apparently has been "fixed". I will be the first to call shenanigans on that claim. Is this the same as claiming Ninja Gaiden Sigma has no framerate issues at 1080p @ 60 FPS?
I don't know about Lair though. I want to like it, but the art style just does not stir up any intrigue from within me. Some of those screenshots are really bad too. I can hardly distinguish the face of the dragons in some of them.
And certainly after reading this comic from Penny-Arcade:
I just can't convince myself to buy this game. Especially after seeing some of those videos of those dragons spitting fireballs.
Here's to hoping a demo will convince me!
I don't know about Lair though. I want to like it, but the art style just does not stir up any intrigue from within me. Some of those screenshots are really bad too. I can hardly distinguish the face of the dragons in some of them.
And certainly after reading this comic from Penny-Arcade:
I just can't convince myself to buy this game. Especially after seeing some of those videos of those dragons spitting fireballs.
Here's to hoping a demo will convince me!
Drinky Crow
Banned
as i said on another forum which shall not be named, f5 are the kings of lod management algorithms and brush implementations. on the other hand, they're so wrapped up in engine development that they miss the details: good explosions, proper aerial physics and dynamics, and interesting incidental special effects in general. lair, like the two rogue squadron gamecube games, will be a screenshot generator first and an interesting, dynamic game experience a distant second. the holistic illusion of technical prowess their game engines post really don't hold up under the scrutiny that comes with real interaction. i can't shake the feeling that this is yet another gussied-up scene demo.
Drinky Crow said:
Well, let's be honest - I can't speak for her, I can only speak for myself. So, I have to admit that I don't know the difference, and I also haven't read her review on startbutton for myself.
What I might offer as a possible solution is that when doing work for a "professional" review versus a "non-professional" review (and I'm not speaking directly to the actual quality levels of either side), you're much more likely to not be overly harsh about certain elements of a game unless they derserve such harshness. Say, for example... Blue Dragon. What I've played of it, I don't care much for. If I'm reviewing the game for a site where outrageous personal opinions are the selling point, I might say "this game is old-school boring trash." If I were doing the review for Play, however, I'd spend much more time giving the game a chance and writing a fair (yet honest) review of it, because it's my job to do that.
From what little I know of the situation, that would be my first guess. Again, though, I can't speak for Heather or from experience having read both of her reviews for Zelda.
Drinky Crow
Banned
Y2Kev said:Damn you drinky. It's actionbutton. I spent like 5 minutes looking for startbutton.com.
And that's 5 minutes of my time I won't have to think about jessica biel.
heather campbell. actionbutton. whatever! i'm on the 4th of 6 guinnesses!
EternalGamer
Banned
Drinky Crow said:
Right behind you. But in my case it is 3 of 6 and Sam Adam's Boston Lager.
Drinky Crow
Banned
shidoshi said:
what you describe still seems fairly unprofessional -- you aren't obliged to make mooncalf fanboys happy about their predetermined purchases if you can intellectually justify and articulate your dislike of a game. as a pro game reviewer, you should know when you're playing crap, and be able to assemble a good argument as to why that's the case. this is why halverson (and his polar opposites, the game informer cadre) are such disingenuous, useless ****s.
however, the delta between heather graham-campbell's two reviews is measured not in inches but ****ing parsecs. literally -- the play review is fluffy, indiscriminate praise heaped on the game ("yay zelda, now edgier") and the actionbutton.com metagag review is a monstrous deconstruction of the game that can't help but resolve as "wow, this game is nintendo's shittiest effort in ages."
and again, i've observed casey loe as a fairly astute, cynical fellow, even when caught up in his animu biases. (we'll forgive the ff7 wankery as the folly of youth.) maybe lair is a 9 out of 10; maybe play's stupidly inflated scale suggests that the game isn't as good as a 9 in other magazines; and maybe, just maybe, halverson had an editorial hand in the final print review and score. halverson's pretty nice to anyone who gives him an interview, a scoop, and a handjob: and eggbrecht's always been chummy with him. given halverson's history of gross fanboy unprofessionalism, who'd be shocked?
Drinky Crow
Banned
Y2Kev said:
yeah, i normally hate tim rogers, but actionbutton.com hits my snark buttons just right. most of those reviews are just industry metajokes, but they also manage to make some good points within the context of the game they're reviewing, as well. except for the reviews penned by erik-jon rossel-waugh. those are just embarrassing.
Death_Born
Banned
Marconelly said:
Well, for one, compression ruined the detail. Also, what's that stuff in the sky? It looks like there's an ocean in the sky and the land is upside-down. Too much action in one picture.
MidgarBlowedUp
Member
I'm backing Speevy up on this thread.
NovemberMike
Member
Yep. If too much is going on, it becomes hard to understand what you are supposed to do (cue the brilliance of the original Zelda's cave-with-a-sword-in-it).Death_Born said:
Drinky Crow
Banned
$60 is a fair bit to spend just to "try" a game with a dubious pedigree, especially given how abysmal the two rogue squadron games were. i'll probably bum it off white man at some point.
Let's all just wait for other reviews to appear. So long as there's some sort of unified consensus on a general score range (~8) then we can agree it's probably a good game. Otherwise it's very, very funny to see everyone get flustered on this thread, especially the Xbots.
And saying that Lair has no artistic merit? Gah. It's jumbled, certainly, but thank god sheer majority overwhelms the freakin elitists here on GAF
And saying that Lair has no artistic merit? Gah. It's jumbled, certainly, but thank god sheer majority overwhelms the freakin elitists here on GAF
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Did Play magazine really give Sonic a 9.5? That's gotta be a joke.
FormulaOne
Member
The real next generation game has arrived and it's called Lair.
Drinky Crow said:
It's obvious a lot of them are reactionary pieces meant to be polar opposites to the "mainstream" opinion of a particular game, but damn if Rogers isn't dead on with this Phantom Hourglass praise and the shit he flings at previous Zeldas in comparison.
Liabe Brave
Member
Teknopathetic said:
Laughter might not be warranted. I believe the "stop-motion guy" involved is Phil Tippett. His presence might not make the game any good, but his puppetry/animation skills are godlike.
Slavik81 said:
I thought the first N64 game was a lot of fun, but the series really degenerated after that. I don't know, but despite all the for-the-time-next-gen razzle dazzle, Rogue Leader seemed SMALLER for some reason. Smaller levels, fewer of them, and the wonky physics that was excusable in the sub-30 FPS N64 game just stuck out like a sore thumb on the Gamecube.
But what do I know? I think Lair looks pretty cool.
FormulaOne
Member
Speevy said:
Given your console pedigree and recent post in which you defend Viva Pinata by calling it a "Nature Management System" I would have to question your real motives.
FormulaOne
Member
No_Style said:
Last time I checked, framerate issues are one of the things that are usually addressed near the completion of the game. And I doubt this procedure has changed. Here's a tip, all games have framerate issues before they go gold and they're usually fixed in the majority of releases. I really don't understand why you think it would be different for Lair just because it's a 1080p game. Factor 5 aren't amateurs and they won't sacrifice frame rate just to fill the screen with as many polygons as they can push.
FormulaOne
Member
Tideas said:
Certain people have a gift that enables them to extrapolate gameplay, graphics, framerate, physics and especially sound from a single screenshot of the game. We call these people "Kreskins" and they are revered for their abilities on NeoGAF.
Segata Sanshiro
Member
Christ almighty. Did I just wake up in the year 2505 or something?Tideas said:
Since you seem to have not bothered parsing what people have posted in this thread, allow me to make a quick summary:
1) Play Magazine gives Lair a 9/10
2) Some people say that Play Magazine's reviews are dubious, seeing as how they gave Sonic 360 a 9.5/10, or the much-maligned Rebel Strike an A-, just as examples. Play is known for their enthusiasm; this is a tremendous asset to their magazine, but it does have the side effect of making their review section an essential whitewash of fanman exuberance.
3) Some disagreement about Lair's artistic merits
4) Drinky Crow
Inasmuch as discussion of the review is concerned, all people are saying is that Play loving it has little bearing on the game as Play LOVES EVERYTHING.
If anything is being attacked here, it's not Lair...it's Play Magazine's reviews.
That was my attempt. Let's see if I'm screaming in the desert or not. Since it's you, Tideas, I'm not predicting heavy showers.
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