We here at Game|Life are in the habit of writing things and then totally forgetting about them. And so it was with no small degree of surprise that we recently came across our first hands-on of Lair, from Tokyo Game Show 2006.
Here's the full text. Note how all the game's problems were fully evident a year out from launch, and that the feature that could have saved it was actually in consideration.
Lair, though. Lair couldn't be called "same as before" by any means, mostly as it's a dragon-flying game controlled entirely with the PS3's motion sensitivity. It doesn't feel so hot. Although I like the concept, the dragon's control is far from intuitive.
To put this in perspective, when I played the first Wii demos at last year's TGS, there was an airplane-flying sim. Everything I did with the controller translated into movement on the screen -- if I flipped the controller around, the plane would loop-the-loop. Well, this didn't happen with Lair's dragon. Rather than give me an intuitive, nearly interface-free method of control, it just confused me into having to experiment and figure out how to get the thing to turn itself around.
Anyway, we'll see if it's even necessary: the game's senior producer told me that while it's entirely controlled with motion sensing right now, they'd been getting a lot of requests for traditional joystick controls. I think I'd be happier with that.
TGS: Game Impressions Roundup [Wired]
