Sony brushes off Lair critics

This story originally appeared on our sister sitenext-gen.biz

07 Sept 07

The dragon-riding action game Lair from Factor 5 is one of the highest profile games for PS3 this holiday season, flanked by titles including Ratchet and Clank Future, Heavenly Sword and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

But since its release this week, Lair is averaging a rather abysmal review average of 57, with critics knocking the at times beautifulgame for technical glitches and poor gameplay and control.

Outgoing SCEA PR boss Dave Karraker told Next-Gen in a phone interview that despite poor critical reception, the flying lizard game isn’t necessarily grounded. "At the end of the day, I'll be interested in the consumers' response, because the consumer awareness for this title was so huge. I've spoken to any number of people who really like it, and there's other people that find it a challenge. What really matters is whether or not the consumers are having a good experience, because they'll tell us on the [PlayStation] blog."

Next-Gen has been unable to connect with Factor 5 for comments responding to the low review scores as of press time, but earlier this week, Lair director Julian Eggebrecht spoke to game journo Stephen Totilo via e-mail for MTV GameLife. Eggebrecht called development of the game “haunted,” with bizarre and sometimes tragic mishaps happening during the course of the game’s creation.

Eggebrecht tried to explain some of the game’s bad press, commenting on the tribulations of developing a first-generation PS3 game, limitations of Sixaxis motion control and a “hardcore” gaming press that possesses a “passionate hate for all things motion.”

Author: Kris Graft www.next-gen.biz