Okay. So, Lair blows. Everyone is talking about it. We get it. And Factor 5 admitted it. Sort of.
But then, director Julian Eggebrecht goes ahead and says this, “The Sixaxis motion control itself feels a lot more organic and free-form than the rigid controls of other flight games and does much better for casual players, as we saw in focus tests. It does seem to alienate some reviewers who are at the top of the hard-core crowd and seem to have a passionate hate for all things motion.”
Ah, yes. The reviewers hate motion controls. I should have known.
It is clear how much they hate it when you check out the reviewers for a game released at the same time on a competing system. Metroid Prime 3. Let’s see what they had to say about motion controls for it:
“Indeed, as far as we’re concerned, the Texas-based studio has made Wii’s best game.”
“Metroid Prime 3’s new Wii-enhanced control scheme is so good and so responsive that by comparison the original title and its sequel feel clumsy. In fact, using the nunchuk’s analog stick to control Samus through environments as you point the Wii remote to target with speed and accuracy obliterates just about every dual-analog control setup currently available. If there is a game that proves the potential of the Wii remote for first-person experiences, this is it, and our hat is off to Retro for stepping up to the challenge when others couldn’t or wouldn’t.”
“Prime 3 makes better use of the Wii remote and nunchuk’s motion-sensory equipment than any “hardcore” game to date.”
“Not only do the new controls respond quicker and with more precision than any dual-analog-helmed FPS ever created, but the gesture system works brilliantly, too.”
- IGN
You’re right. These people gave your game a shitty review, and they said such horrible things about MP3. I mean…can you believe that they gave you a 4.9, and - in a similar fashion - they gave Metroid Prime 3 the low low rating of 9.5…Oh…wait…on a scale of ten…that isn’t low at all.
Oh, right. You’re completely ridiculous. It isn’t the motion controls the reviews don’t like. It is motion controls that DO NOT WORK that they hate. Metroid works. Lair does not.
As a sidenote, I don’t understand why everyone is calling the energy cells in Metroid Prime 3 a fetch quest and complaining about how they had to “go back” for it. You run across most of the energy cells as you progress naturally through the game. I think I had to backtrack for two, but I was going to those same areas for other goals too. If these gamers were capable of planning multiple things at once, they wouldn’t be complaining about this being a fetch quest.
I actually got the “end result” of this “fetch quest” before I even knew I needed it. I actually didn’t know I used it. Fraser told me when it came up. :P