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PlayStation.com Forums :
Action & Adventure :
Lair (PS3) :
Is Lair really "unplayable"?
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Is Lair really "unplayable"?
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Obsessed
Posts: 1138
Registered: 02-02-2007
Message 1 of 26
Viewed 3,498 times
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Many people have come on these boards claiming that this game is terrible because of the control scheme, most stating that it is "unplayable" because the motion controls are so broken. People say the dash and 180 don't work or that it will do one when you're trying to do the other. People say that the lock on system doesn't work, and that the camera angles are terrible. People even complain about how the dragon reacts when you run him into a wall, or that there's no radar so you can't see your enemies. I've written this in an attempt to stop those claims and hopefully help the people making them understand this game a little better.
Now, here's the truth: Lair is only as good as the person playing it. It is a difficult game, made more difficult by the fact that it uses a completely new control scheme. If you jump into Lair expecting to learn it as easily as a FPS you are going to be very disappointed (and frustrated). It takes time, effort, patience and intuition to get good with these controls, and failure to alot the necessary amount of each will result in a very unenjoybale experience. Basically, if you rush it you're going to suck at the game and it'll be no fun. Remember, you've likely never used motion controls before, especially not ones as sensitive as the SIXAXIS, so it will require experimentation on the part of the user to figure out how to get the best performance out of it.
The SIXAXIS controller is incredibly sensitive, and Lair is the first game that's done anything to showcase that. This, in itself, is the problem. If you experiment a bit with it you'll notice when you're doing the basic motions (motions like banking, that nobody can deny is functional) that you only have to make the most miniscule of movements for it to respond. There is next to no dead zone in the controller, so the slightest movement left or right results in a very slight movement from the dragon. This works great when you're enjoying a leisurely flight, but as soon as things heat up it causes problems. Now, the problem is not with the controller or the game, it's with the player.
Let me very briefly explain something that happens with less experienced gamers. We'll use the third person online shooter SOCOM 2 as an example. It uses a traditional control setup, in that the analog sticks control your character's aim and his movement. Now, unlike most games it has two very important functions that are done by pressing the L3 and R3 buttons (thumbsticks). The one reloads your gun, while the other changes your rate of fire. This system is great, I love being able to reload that easily. However, what will happen (and there is a much more frequent occurrence of it with less experienced players) is during a firefight people will get excited and start making mistakes because, very simply, they are way too tense and your muscles don't respond the same way when you are tense (and then you start making mistakes). So people will make a mistake like pushing one of the thumbsticks during a firefight, which will make them reload right in front of an enemy and they will likely get killed. Hence, a lot of people complain about the reload button being assigned to one of the sticks because of accidental reloads mid-firefight. This is no fault of the game's though, and those of us who like using the stick to reload hate it when other people complain about the controls, because for us the controls work perfectly and there is clearly no problem with them.
Now, keeping this in mind let's consider Lair. Here is a game that uses a control scheme that is 100% unfamiliar to anyone and everyone (with the exception of those of us who took the time to learn it in the past few weeks), and it uses hardware that is far more sensitive than anybody expected it to be. Nobody can deny that the basic functions like banking and diving or climbing work the way they're supposed to. Even the reviewers who trashed the game mercilessly said that those parts of the game work fine. The problem always seems to come when you are expected to do more than just soar around looking pretty. Here's where this tendency towards unnatural actions during moments of intensity comes into play. I'll break it down for each part.
The Dash/180
I think this is the most misunderstood (and thus the most hated) of the features in this game. Many complain that they either can't get it to work, or that attempting one results in the other happening. It does happen, I've had it happen to me before, and the confusion comes not from any inconsistensy in the programming, but it comes from the incredible sensitivity of the SIXAXIS and a person's inability to repeat the exact same motion perfectly every time. The movement that the game requires you to make is very specific, and as a result it becomes difficult to figure out what that movement is and master it. Experimenting with the controls sometimes gets confusing (as is the nature of experimentation), especially if you get it right and aren't sure why. If you keep at it and pay attention to what you're doing, eventually you will find that sweet spot and practice it enough so that you get every dash/180 perfectly.
This isn't the sole problem with the dash/180 function, though. Remember that the controller is incredibly sensitive, and if you shift around and make the movement accidentally it will still register and make your character perform the action, even though you don't want to. This also plays against you in the act of attempting to perform one of the moves. This is something that has been entirely overlooked in every post I've seen so far, so I feel that it needs to be stated very clearly. If you are trying to do a dash, and the dragon does a 180 instead, the most likely reason is that you were too abrupt with your wind up or when you brought the control back to it's resting place. If you are trying to perform the downward snap that's required to get a dash out of your dragon, but you lift the control a little too quickly to gain the momentum needed for that snap, then the very sensitive SIXAXIS controller will pick up that movement and do a 180 before you've even made the downwards motion. Likewise, if you are trying to dash but mess up the movement, then quickly raise the controller back to try again, your dragon will likely do a 180 because you moved the controller back up too quickly.
Self awareness is key here. You need to be able to analyze your own movements so that you can tell whether or not you're confusing the system.
Camera Angles/Lock On
This is one that you'll get used to over time. The biggest culprit in unwanted camera shifts is the lock-on system, so I put them together. I'll admit there is a flaw here, and that flaw is that neither the tutorial nor the manual does a good job of explaining how to use it. It all boils down to a very simple principle, actually: don't lock on unless you absolutely have to. I don't mean "have to" in the sense that you're approaching your target and unless you lock on you'll have to turn around and try again. I mean "have to" in the sense that you CAN NOT rip and tear a rhino or a turret without locking on. Nor can you do takedowns or fight other dragons. If you are shooting at a target you should almost never lock onto it. The only things I lock onto in order to shoot them are the warbeasts, and that's about as far as anyone should go.
The best way to shoot at targets, specifically multiple targets, is to not touch the R1 or L1 buttons at all (ie don't lock on). Your dragon's fireballs will lock themselves onto the target you are looking at. You'll notice that before you lock onto a target and get the red targetting icon over him, you will see a very similar white icon hovering on top of the target. If that white icon is showing (and even a little before it shows up, as long as you are looking at the target) any fireball you shoot will track to that target. You'll need a decent feel for the basic controls to get good at aiming from one target to another, but it's very doable and all it takes is some practice.
Glitches/No Radar
Well, first off there IS a compass. It points to your current objective. When it's yellow and pointing up you're going the right way, when it's red and pointing anywhere other than up, you need to go in the direction that it's pointing (down being behind you). If the compass isn't there it means you're in the right spot and you need to start looking for stuff to kill. There's no radar to show you where your enemies are, and as far as I know dragons don't come equipped with GPS so I'm not sure what the complaint is there, but if you're really stuck you can go into rage mode and your enemies show up in red. If you're STILL stuck you could learn what the dragons look like to identify which ones are your enemies. The lighter grey dragons that shoot blue flame are ice dragons, the brown guys that shoot red flame are blood dragons, and if you know which one you're going after you should have no problem oicking between the two
Now, the final issue that everyone seems to be complaining about is the fact that your dragon gets glitchy when you run him to close to a wall. There's a very simple explanation for this, and that is that you're flying an animal with it's own mind that has the ability to make it's own decisions, and running it into a wall is something that it's going to decide it doesn't want to do, whether you like it or not. Like I've said before, you couldn't make a horse run itself off a cliff, I doubt you'd be able to run a dragon into a wall and break it's neck. When you get close to a wall the dragon decides that you're out of control and takes over until he feels safe again. If you try to steer him back towards the wall while he's trying to avoid it he bucks and flails around and no progress is made. I don't see why there should be any problem with this feature.
As for just glitches in general, it's a video game, that's part of the package. If you can show me a video game that doesn't have a single glitch in it I will be very impressed. The only real glitch I've noticed in this game is that occasionally when you fight another dragon the animations for the attacks don't actually show, the two dragons will just sit the until one of them dies. It's only happened to me two or three times though. If you claim this game is unplayable for something like that then chances are you're not reading this right now anyway. A game like Ultimate Alliance, in which it's possible for a door to glitch closed and become impassable (as happened to me) can be considered unplayable because of it's glitches. Lair doesn't have any of these.
The simple fact is that the game works fine. If it's unplayable then why do so many people defend it? It's not Big Rigs, the game is 100% functional, it's just difficult because you actually have to develop a feel for the controls. The fact the even one person has platinums in all 14 levels is a testiment to the fact that the game works the way it's supposed to, because you have to complete those missions FLAWLESSLY to get platinum, and it simply wouldn't be possible with a broken control scheme. So either leave the game on the shelf in the store or take the time to learn it, because people are getting sick of hearing "this game sucks because I can't play it".
The least people could do is stop hating something that has no effect on them. Like I said, I bought Ultimate Alliance and the glitches in the game made it impossible for me to advance beyond a certain point, simply because a single door wouldn't open. I paid $60 for the game and couldn't get more than about 1/4 of the way through, so what did I do? I searched for a solution, and when I found none I traded it in for a better game, because there's absolutely no point in complaining about one game you don't like when there are thousands of other games out there you could be enjoying right now.
-------------------------------------------------------- The closer you get, the more you look. 
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10-01-2007 02:41 PM
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Re: Is Lair really "unplayable"?
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Gamer
Posts: 856
Registered: 05-16-2005
Message 3 of 26
Viewed 3,471 times
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i read patches of this and my thoughts are.... *BRAVO!!!!* thank jesus for ppl with brains!
-_`do or do not, there is no try`_-
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10-01-2007 05:49 PM
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Re: Is Lair really "unplayable"?
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Obsessed
Posts: 1138
Registered: 02-02-2007
Message 4 of 26
Viewed 3,452 times
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I wasn't really expecting anybody to read the whole thing, I actually just wanted to write it all in one place so that I can link to it. I put it in sections so it can be easily skimmed through, and so I can add a bit more if I need to.
-------------------------------------------------------- The closer you get, the more you look.
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10-01-2007 08:02 PM
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Re: Is Lair really "unplayable"?
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Time Splitter
Posts: 1927
Registered: 02-10-2007
Message 5 of 26
Viewed 3,390 times
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I didn't read it but thats a very good text (I hope) 
Thanks DICY 
"Part of the reason I love Lair so much is that, aside from being incredible, it exposes the people who can't play it as the true noobs they are, because most people who pick it up have no problem playing it at all."
- by DICY
"People who complain about the controls are like cavemen who, because they don't understand something, must destroy it."
- by Hydrocram
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10-02-2007 01:13 PM
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Re: Is Lair really "unplayable"?
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Fighter
Posts: 690
Registered: 07-19-2007
Message 9 of 26
Viewed 3,284 times
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Great job on the post. Maybe we can educate people on the fun factor of this game and not the sensitive control scheme. I am one of those gamers that gets all intense during a firefight, inadvertently hitting other buttons and end up running in circles. I am getting better though.
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10-03-2007 10:49 AM
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Re: Is Lair really "unplayable"?
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Time Splitter
Posts: 1927
Registered: 02-10-2007
Message 10 of 26
Viewed 3,203 times
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Sounds like my dad when he's playing Resistance... and he's 67
Betelgeuse wrote:
I am one of those gamers that gets all intense during a firefight, inadvertently hitting other buttons and end up running in circles. I am getting better though.
"Part of the reason I love Lair so much is that, aside from being incredible, it exposes the people who can't play it as the true noobs they are, because most people who pick it up have no problem playing it at all."
- by DICY
"People who complain about the controls are like cavemen who, because they don't understand something, must destroy it."
- by Hydrocram
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10-04-2007 11:44 AM
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