Once again I have to apologize for this being late. I was stuck in Boston this weekend with no internet, which makes doing things like updating a bit hard. I was told the place I'd be staying would have internet. Apparently, 'stealing neighbor's wireless' is what 'internet' meant. Which becomes a problem when they decided to password their router.
And the answer to my title is "When it controls like a sluggish tank." Just ask the people who played Lair. Or more accurately "didn't understand the controls" according to Factor 5. Now, personally, I'm not sure how many ways you can misunderstand unresponsive controls, but Factor 5 seems convinced you can. They even sent out that little info packet on how you were supposed to enjoy the game. Now granted, not everyone HATED the controls, but the fact of the matter is, the game got some pretty bad reviews, and were it not for the stunning visuals, it may have been even worse. Now, like every good company with a reputation to uphold, Factor 5 took the high road of insisting it wasn't their fault there were issues with the game.
So when I heard about this I was in shock. This is about as close to a company coming out and admitting that they're wrong that you can really expect from anyone that didn't make a product that lights people on fire. But in reality, I think what they did was brilliant.
Now we can have copies of Lair floating around boasting an updated control set. Its a chance for a second life, it gives Factor 5 the best chance for a return on their investment. Now, I'm not saying that normally devs should release an incomplete game. But honestly, this sounds a lot better to me than the way titles like Capcom's Dead Rising were handled. Dead Rising has a design flaw that makes text nearly illegible on SDTVs. When Capcom was asked what the solution was, they told customers to buy HDTVs. At least here, F5 is trying to make things right.
Just so you don't think that I think that Factor 5 did this totally the right way, let me say this. Motion control is not an exact science yet. Multiple games have experimented with varying degrees of sensitivity adjustments, and even Nintendo would tell you that there is not yet a perfect formula. And, of course, if the controller has to detect more than one axis, it becomes that much more complicated. In fact, most Wii titles offer some kind of supplementary control scheme, a built in safety in case the motion doesn't work as well in practice as it seems in theory. So for a company to do a complex control scheme, their first on any console that uses motion control, with NO secondary control scheme or real sense of sensitivity adjustment, is not a wise idea. That they are attempting to come out with an 'alternative' way of playing it so far after its release seems to signal to me one of two things. One, they saw all the negative press and wanted to redeem themselves by fixing the most glaring issue everyone had. Or, to take the point to a more extreme, they realized they released something that didn't work and are trying to make amends. But the alternative is that Factor 5 NEEDS to make a profit here for some reason, so they're going against their original vision of 'motion controlled dragon fights' in favor of something more, you know, playable. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe its some level of option A. But in either case, this is the sort of situation that shouldn't have ever even made it past Beta-testing. Or even Alpha-testing. If your control scheme is described as 'unresponsive', don't spend $5 million hyping the title. Spend the money fixing whats wrong. Good games can (usually) sell without too much hype; but to hype a game that ends up being bad is a pretty poor idea for an image conscious company.
|
