Make no mistake, more than a few shins were scuffed and whimpering tears were shed over the critical reception of Lair. For the last two weeks it’s been pretty much Factor 5 versus the world. The world said Lair was mediocre, Factor 5 seemed intent that it was a Halo/WoW/Final Fantasy killer.
Now instead of fanboy rants and hurt feelings, we finally have a voice of rationality and objectivity. A voice I think we all can expect. He’s attained near rock star status after the release of his media darling Bioshock….ladies and gentlemen…I give you: Ken Levine on Lair! He was recently featured on a podcast aired on Gamerswithjobs.com where he gave more than a few opinions, but most notable was his shpiel on Lair. It starts off a bit off topic, but he wraps it together nicely.
"Is there a game, with the exception of Wii Sports, that you’ve been thrilled that there’s no option to go back to a regular d-pad? I think you’re seeing a lot of this lately. Aren’t there a lot of games where you’re just like, ‘Dude, can I just use the d-pad or the analog stick?’ Ever since the DS came out I feel that there have been a lot of games like that. They’ve been so impressed by their control mechanic that they just really, really want you to play with that. Sony had an expensive lawsuit with that rumble company so they sort of seemingly at the last minute threw in this motion control stuff and they have to follow through on that; from a corporate standpoint they need to follow through on that. I think Lair came out of that to some degree. I think there may be an excellent game in there… but the [motion control] limitation is painful right now."
There you have it. It’s not exactly a defense, and it’s not exactly, "ZOMG! Lair is the suk! LOLcats FTW!!! Simpson’s did it first!" Cool, calm, and rational. (Yes, that’s meant to be ironic.)
