When Good Games Go Wrong Part 1

Welcome to When Good Games Go Wrong (episode/issue/or whatever you want to call it 1).  In this post I will be critiquing a game, and give my ideas of what could or would have made the game a better experience.  And to kick the first WGGGW off we will start with none other than the PS3 exclusive Lair.

When we first heard about Lair it seemed like nothing, but good would come of the game.  Then we got the game and boy were we wrong.  There were enjoyable parts about Lair such as score (music for our less musical readers), the graphics at times, the scale of some bosses, and I mean who doesn't want to ride a dragon.  But all that good was completely overshadowed by some horrible, I mean truly horrible negatives.  The sense of speed was poor, poorly scripted story, poor cinematic execution, weak combat, lack of mission variety, but the biggest I mean absolutely biggest problem with Lair was the controls. The Six-axis only controls for Lair was a terrible idea (and even with the patch for analog controls the game still requires you to revert back to six-axis to get past certain parts of the game).

Now after most gamers experience a game like Lair it's over for them.  But I unlike most gamers happened to find a glimmer of hope in Lair.  And with the following changes I think Lair could definitely make a comeback.

1. Let's get this out the way first.  USE ANALOG CONTROLS.  MAKE SIX_AXIS CONTROLS OPTIONAL.  As I said earlier the Six-Axis controls was the biggest problem with Lair.  If the implementation of Six-Axis must be included in the control scheme, then only use it to compliment analog controls.  For example, use the analog controls to steer and turn, but you could use Six-Axis (6Axis from now on) to perform the 360 degrees turn by turning the controller left or right.  6Axis could also be used to boost your dragon through the sky, simply move the controller forward towards the screen and your dragon will boost.  And finally 6Axis could be used to ram enemies the same way it's used in the game.  No more 6Axis than that.

2. Add more creative missions.  Infiltrate the enemies base, well that's all I can think of for now, but that's the developers job.

3. Add more Rohn gameplay.  Ok this is going to be broken down into steps as well.

3.1 Rohn should be able to get off his dragon and fight.  I'm not saying he has to be Kratos, Ryu, or Dante but let me fight.  He could be like Altair from Assassin's Creed this would add a change of pace to the game, and possibly longevity to the single player campaign.

3.2 As I said earlier adding missions like infiltrate the enemy's base, and what better way to do it than with Rohn.  He could use his little hook claw thingy to scale walls in a Lost Planet kind of way, climb buildings like Altair, and stealth kill his way through the enemies base again changing the pace of the game.

3.3 Dragon Call.  You should be able to leap to your doom and press a button on the controller and have your dragon swoop down and save you.

4. Dragon Combat.  This needs an overhaul.  tapping X or Square to fire an infinite barrage of fireballs gets old quick.  Here's a quick and simple control scheme to try out.  X = charge (let's you enter 1 on 1 battles), Square = Hand to hand combat when in 1 on 1 mode (or on the ground), Triangle = Flame, Tap Cricle for fire ball (hold Circle for large fireball), L2 and R2 hover mode, L1 Dragon vision, R1 Lock On.  Boom simple controls giving you more gameplay.

5. Open World.  Yes I said it this game should be open world and you should have to fly to the places for you missions.  This means that the map needs to be pretty big since the scene of speed needs to be increased, and there needs to be a much greater variety of environments as well as a day and night cycle, and possibly a weather cycle.

6. Online Multiplayer.  Call of Duty style 16. vs. 16 multiplayer battles where both armies are fighting to take over the others base.  And when one team is winning over the other the winning teams army pushes the other back.  Again you can land on the ground and kill the other teams soldiers aiding your army.  After so many kills a player will be able to call in ground support and send the bull things in to aid their side of the battle.  There should also be a point in which (depending on the stage) a boss character might come and start attacking both armies, and both sides must work together to defeat it.  Multiplayer would give the game longevity, and much more variety.

7.  Finally Lair needs an overall quality boost.  It needs more cinematic appeal, tighter controls, locked in frame rate since it was choppy at times (1080p @ 30fps with 7.1 Dolby is fine), a more engaging story (ancient times or modern day would work), better menus (menus had a 5 sec. delay to load up) and other little nit bits to make the overall experience seamless.

So with all those changes would you be willing to give Lair a second chance?  I would.  With all those changes I think Lair will be reviewed as an 8.5/10 which is definitely worth a buy in my book.