...they'll get the Lair Reviewer's Guide free of charge!

Someone should send Factor 5 a "How to Develop Good Games" guide in return.

In all fairness, they pulled off miracles beyond mediocrity when it came to audio on the Nintendo 64... Well, so did Konami, but it was certainly rare...

Factor 5 are technical wizards and that's pretty much it.  After how abysmal the non-flying bits in Rebel Strike were I didn't have hopes too high for this game.

And I think Rare did the best stuff with sound (and graphics) on the 64... Conker is still kind of impressive today.

Good for them. I don't think that a technological accomplishment that happened ten years ago has anything to do with Lair being piss poor.

Sad...Caught between Bioshock and Metroid Prime on one side and Halo 3 and Mario Galaxy on the other, one gets the feeling this is serious desperation on Sony's part.

"Our game is ART, dammit"
"No, your game is shit...DEAL WITH IT!"

Dunno if the "rare" was unintentional or not, but surely Rare, even moreso in my opinion, had the N64 hitting notes it just shouldn't have been able to.  Factor 5 did develope some sweet compression tech for the system though.

Also, judging from the review, it seems Lair might've been much better had Factor 5 not forced motion control - or at least gave the option for analog.  I think Sony might'a had a lot to do with the decision to be an exclusively motion controlled game.

The first part makes a lot of sense, the second part is just funny.

When does the PS3's first "big gun" or "killer app" come out anyway? What is it? MGS4?

Damn, a game that makes you do more than just press buttons...I can't believe it, that's so hard to move the controller around!

So, what game is this, again? Drakengard 3?

It's the remake of Dragon Strike.

plain stupid.

just because game turned out mediocre doesn't mean they don't know anymore how to develop good games.
tried Turrican series on Amigas?
thought so.
hopefully their next game will turn out better.
they do have great technological experience with consoles.

How old is the Turrican series on Amigas?  That's really not the best proof that they know how to develop good games still.  What was the last game they made before Lair?  Was it Rebel Strike on GCN?  Before that was Rebel Leader?  If that's the case, then they probably do need a HtDGG guide.  They seem to have a technical prowess, I'll give them that.  Maybe from this defeat they will learn a thing or two and move forward to make a great game.

If anything, it is probably partially Sony's fault if Sony rushed them or coerced them into adding Sixaxis control.  I'll probably give the game during the next gaming rut so I can give it a fair shot without being rushed or unfairly comparing it to the previous or next best thing.

sure but judging the company by one mediocre game and saying they don't know how to develop games is weird...

Plain stupid = not being able to take a joke.

don't take it so hard jimmy, it was a joke partially on my part as well.
just seeing people bit%(# about factor 5 isn't really justified.

Well in my opinion sites like IGN don't know how to review most games properly as it is, but yea, this is a little absurd.

Can we judge them on Rebel Strike as well?  If so, that's two!  And considering how long they take in between games, that's a substantial amount of the time they've existed as a company.  I really wish they could do better at the gameplay bits, as I looked forward to Rebel Strike a lot and then was very let down.  Lair looked extremely cool too, so it's kind of sad to see that apparently all they finely tuned were the technical stuff and not what really matters in a game.

I believe that Factor 5 also had a hand in Dragon Quest 8 (at least the graphics), so I can't find it in me to hate on them too hard. Besides, I'm pretty much convinced that Sony had a hand in ruining this game just as much by pushing for their tacked-on motion sensor gimmick.

Not that it means much to me. A PS3 isn't in my foreseeable future. LOOK PURTY THO!!1

Factor 5 (San Rafael/USA) != Level5 (Fukuoka/Japan)

Exactly.

Level 5 rules. Factor 5 sucks.

Gee, you don't say...

Oh wow. My mistake. Yeah, eff those guys.