Tomb Raider on the PS1- A Review From A Nobody

    I remember it like it was yesterday, Christmas Day 1997. My father previously borrowed an issue of Gamepro Magazine from my brother and I in order to get the scoop on the hottest games coming out. That Christmas we received Nascar '98, Fighting Force, which I have fond memories of playing even if it didn't hold a candle to my beloved Streets of Rage, and My first introduction to the Tomb Raider Series, Tomb Raider II. I would later acquire original Tomb Raider at a rummage sale, and despite the awkwardness of jumping back from Tomb Raider II to the original, have since come to appreciate the original as probably the best in the original Tomb Raider series, even if the Second one is still my favorite. I have only in recent years acquired the rest of the series on the PS1 and PC, so my main experience with the series revolves around the first two.

    Brought up in the comfort of the british aristocracy, at 21 years old Lara's life was forever changed when when her plane went down during a skiing trip to the Himalayas. Forced to survive by herself, Lara would walk into a local village 2 weeks later. After her experience, lara was hooked on adventure, and, not even being disowned, and cut off by her own family would stop her Tomb Raiding adventures, publishing the journals of which would bring her fame and fortune. Though the game's manual makes it seem as if Lara had only ever lived a life of comfort and had never been adventuring before, the story would later have a revision of sorts with the addition of young Lara in Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation.

    The opening cinema shows Lara being enticed, by a lady named Jacqueline Natla, into finding an ancient artifact known as the Scion, an artifact rumored to give immense power to the person who wields it. This, however is not going to be an easy task seeing as the Scion has been split into three pieces, and spread throughout the ancient world. The game's story is unfolded through the use of CGI cinemas and in-game sequences. Though storytelling in 1996 gaming had a minimal focus outside of RPG's, Tomb Raider's story is fairly cinematic compared to other games released in that time period.

    Lara's quest for the Scion will span fifteen levels in four locations which include ruins in Peru, Greece, Egypt, and ending in the lost city of Atlantis. The game's design is spectacular. The levels, though daunting at first still show some of the best blending of exploration, puzzle elements and action based gameplay of that era of gaming. Core did an exceptional job in the level designs of this game, and the quality still shines through to this day.

    I may as well just get it out of the way. The most incessant amount of whining I have heard levied against Tomb Raider by it's detractors over the years pertains to the game's controls. I'll be the first to admit, Lara is insanely hard to control. Her controls mirror games like Resident Evil where pressing up is the only way to move forward, regardless of the camera angle. This “tank” control scheme, as it has been dubbed, has an extremely high learning curve, and her jumping system also has an extremely high learning curve. However, controlling Lara is, obviously, not impossible, and the game does offer a very well made training mode for new players to get a handle on the controls.

    Though, when you think about it, going back from modern control schemes to Tomb Raider's controls put you at the same disadvantage those of us who jumped from 2D control schemes we were used to into new 3D control schemes at the dawn of the 3D era. If you are too young to have experienced the 3D revolution, but want to know what it was like, go play Tomb Raider.

    One must also take into account that Tomb Raider started development, and was released before analog gaming really took off. That being said, eight way run controls with the D-Pad, or even analog controls like those found in Mario 64 would not work for this game. You may wonder how I could make a claim like that, but you must keep in mind that all the levels in Tomb Raider are on a square-based grid. The control is more formulaic in nature to take advantage of a square grid. By using Lara's ability to look around, and scoping out the jump in front of you, you can determine if you can make the jump with a simple forward jump, or if you need a running jump. This requires a little bit more discernment on the player's part than the average platformer game does, but Tomb Raider, in general requires you to put a lot more thought into everything you do.

    The difficult controls also combat a problem that plagued 3D games with a third person perspective for years, bad camera angles. Tomb Raider does have it's share of bad camera angles, but as I stated previously, you don't actually have to see the jump to make the jump. Lara's ability to look around means you can plot out your jump before you even start moving with the confidence that you are going to make it, even if your jumping blind. I'm not excusing bad camera angles, but as an early 3D game, they were still working out simple mechanics that we take for granted in today's gaming. When jumping in Tomb Raider, it doesn't matter what the camera does, because there is only one way to move forward. Even if the camera shifts to a completely different view, mid-jump, Lara will still make the jump. The tank controls may not be ideal, but they do have their advantages.

    Compared to modern games, the controls themselves also have an open feel to them. Lara does not automatically grab ledges. You have to manually hold a button in order for her to grab them. This can make the complicated controls feel more complicated, especially if you are used to modern games that automatically grab ledges for you. I however, like this aspect, because it lets me have complete control of everything Lara does. I understand the merits of having characters automatically grab ledges, but it sometimes leads to control issues when trying to do things like drop down to a lower ledge in modern games that use it. To let go of a ledge in Tomb Raider, I just let go of the “X” button, and she drops.

    In many modern games, sometimes, just trying to fall down to the ledge below is made more complicated, because characters usually turn around and grab the ledge. I realize these design measures in modern games are to prevent you from accidentally plummeting to your death from falling off the ledge which can be a very common occurrence in Tomb Raider, but I still prefer to have complete control. The grab feature isn't perfect in Tomb Raider, but it still works great. Due to the square gird, you nearly have to be lined up perfectly with a ledge to grab it. There is some forgiveness for not being perfectly square to a ledge, but the game is still a lot less forgiving about it than most. This can often times lead to Lara plummeting to her death because you were not lined up just right to the ledge, and again lead to frustrating back-tracking because of the save crystal system.

    I've been playing Tomb Raider for a little over 17 years now, and yes, even I sometimes fumble over the controls here and there, however, modern control schemes didn't come to us over night. It took years of refinements and tweaking of established control schemes to get to where we are today. It also took the release of dual analog controllers, not available at the time of Tomb Raider's release, to finally get a good balance of camera, plus movement controls. That being said, this game has an extremely high learning curve when it comes to the controls, it always has, but that's just one of the things one must take into account when going back and playing the original Tomb Raider series. You are forced to learn the tough controls under fire, as the game doesn't let up as soon as you start. If you've been spoiled by the soft touch of analog controls, going back to d-pad controls means you might literally play this game until your thumb bleeds. Not an attack on the controls, but if you've lost your oldschool callus, your thumb will be aching. Plus, there may be other reasons why you'll be gripping your controller tightly which I'll get into later.

    The bad thing about Tomb Raider's level designs are that often times, it's not clear what to do, or where to go next. This is one of the biggest complaints against the entire series, the game doesn't hold your hand, and you will find yourself getting completely lost, and backtracking through an entire level, trying to figure out what to do in order to progress. In fact, complaints over this design choice were voiced so loudly, and the backlash against it so great that even to this day, developers have completely sterilized their games of tough puzzle elements, making modern puzzle elements in adventure games so easy, they not only feel insulting to your intelligence, being so watered down, but they practically show you the solution from the second you enter a room, making you wonder why they even bothered adding puzzles to begin with.

    But the great thing about Tomb Raider's level designs are that often times, it's not clear what to do, or where to go next. In other words, the bad thing is, the game doesn't hold your hand, but the good thing is, the game doesn't hold your hand. I, myself have spent countless hours being lost in Tomb Raider, probably more than most of those who levied complaints against the series in it's heyday, and while, I do agree, it is frustrating being absolutely stuck in the game, spending hours upon hours trying to figure out where to go next only to have the simple solution pop up, there is something that is still so completely satisfying about finally figuring it out by yourself, without help. It's a tough form of satisfaction, that you rarely see in gaming anymore. And after years of playing Tomb Raider, and learning how to scan and search every inch of a level, I have found that very few games have been able to stump me since. I remember when Uncharted 2 first came out, I had a friend who was stuck on one of the puzzles for a week. I came over, and within five minutes, solved it. I'm not saying that I haven't been stumped since(Shadow Man 2, and Primal come to mind), but because of the complaining, heavy puzzle focus in adventure games is a thing of the past, the exception being games like Zelda.

    Another complaint is with the puzzle objectives, yes, there is a lot of key grabbing, switch throwing, and block puzzles. The term and eventual hatred for “Block puzzles” came from the backlash against Tomb Raider. When you understand that Tomb raider has a unique blend of action, adventure, with a heavy puzzle focus and the puzzle elements have tons of thought put into them. It's not the means of unlocking the objective that is important (like throwing a switch or moving blocks a certain way), it's the journey in between. Each lever is itself, a giant puzzle, unlocked through solving smaller puzzles. Core design, took a lot of time designing every level in the game, there are no half hearted puzzle elements in Tomb Raider, they are all well designed, well thought out, and the levels are designed as one big puzzle. Those who would criticize this game for it's objectives being simple switch pulling, key gathering, and block puzzles tend to overlook the sheer amount of thought put into the level designs of this game.

    Tomb Raider isn't all puzzles, the game sines in it's action and adventure elements which take place within the puzzle elements. As you may expect, in typical Indiana Jones fashion, the ancient ruins are also filled with all sorts of booby traps, often sprung on you without warning. One can complain that this does lead to many cheep deaths, but the element of surprise adds to the tense atmosphere of the game, and the atmosphere is my favorite part of the game.

    Each level, aside from having heavy puzzle focus, is rife with death traps, and all sorts of baddies just waiting to pounce on you at any given moment. Some enemies are easy to see and kill from the beginning of a level, but others are scripted to show up as you accomplish objectives. Pulling a switch or grabbing an item is the easy part, it unlocks the next part of a puzzle. However, it also unlock consequences in the game. Just when you think you're safe, pulling that lever often times brings enemies your way, in areas you thought you had already cleared, or it springs a trap on you. You, honestly, never know what to expect.

    Add that with the fact that Lara is completely alone to explore, the game has a sense of tension that rivals games in the survivor horror genre. You honestly, never know what to expect next, and you rarely feel safe in the game. You're alone and you're in a hostile environment with surprises around every corner. I have often found myself staring down a hallway in the game knowing full well that I have to go down the hall way to progress in the game, but telling myself that I don't want to, there's something down there, I know it. A feeling that easily rivals games like Resident, Evil and Silent hill. Sometimes you find yourself holding onto your controller for dear life which adds to the pain to your D-pad thumb.

    The there are so many unexpected surprises just waiting around every corner, whether it be an enemy lying in wait; or Pierre, the litterbug, who stalks Lara through most of the levels of the game, popping in at the most inconvenient times and disappearing just as fast; to, and how could I not mention, one of the most memorable scenes of the game, and one of the most iconic scenes in that whole generation of gaming, the Tyrannosaurus Rex popping in to say hello. That's right, we have a T-Rex.

    The music and sound effects also add to the tension. Lara is usually surrounded in silence with some ambient sounds. You can hear everything in the environments around you, which adds to the lonely feeling in the game, sometimes you can hear enemies around you, a growl breaking the silence, and causing butt puckering, yes, I did just say that, as you run to the high ground for safety, so you can get a vantage point to see where the sound it coming from. Other times, at selected moments, one of the soothing themes starts to play, and adds almost a sense of wonder as you explore the ancient environments presented in the game. It does really give you the feeling like you're the first person to see these environments in thousands of years. However, generally, when you hear music in Tomb Raider, that means trouble is coming your way. Something bad is happening, and you're filled with a sense of danger and all you can think to do is run and hope you make it to the safety of the high ground. You don't even know what you're running from yet, but the build up of tension is done so well, that fast paced symphony music gets your adrenaline pumping and causes the aforementioned butt puckering.

    The voice acting in the story elements is, surprisingly, well done. When you take into account that it was released in the same year as the original Resident Evil which is notorious for it's so-bad-it's-good voice acting. Tomb Raider's voice acting was spectacular for it's time, and still holds up pretty well to this day. The music, composed by Nathan McCree, and performed by an orchestra, can be both soothing, and depending on when it hits in the game, pulse pounding. As stated, it is used sparingly in the game, leaving the player to mostly hear the sounds that Lara makes, and those of the surrounding environments.

    With the hordes of baddies thrown your way, Core hasn't left lara defenseless. Though the original Tomb Raider has a smallest arsenal of all the Tomb Raider games, There is still enough fire power provided to take on every enemy the game throws at you. Lara has her default pistols, with infinite ammo to boot, Automatic pistols, uzi's, and the mighty shotgun, the last three mentioned requiring you to collect ammo for throughout the game, often times hidden away in secret areas which are the reward for fully exploring the levels. As the game progresses, the enemies get tougher, and your arsenal, and your dodging abilities become more and more important. Lara will often times find herself surrounded by enemies, and in order to have as little damage possible, the player is required to master, what I call the Lara dance. Jump, dodge, roll, and keep moving while the enemies are swarming around trying to kill you. When you do it right, you take little to no damage, but when you zig when you should have zagged, you'll take more damage than you should forcing you to use a health pack, which you also collect along the way.

    Graphically, even for it's time, the Tomb Raider series was never considered a top tier example of PS1 graphics. The framerate generally moves a a consistent level, with some stuttering in large open areas, but it's not enough to effect the gameplay. The textures are pretty pixelated, and Lara, who's character model in the first Tomb Raider is only made up of roughly 350 polygons has some triangular features. If you're a snob about early 3D graphics, then this game isn't for you, not because you can't deal with the game's visuals, but because I can't deal with the annoying whining of those who put graphics over gameplay. It is design and gameplay that take precedent over visuals, and avoiding a game because it's ugly is not a good reason to avoid a game at all. There are also a lot of clipping issues in the game, however, this can actually be used to your advantage, allowing you to clip the camera through a door to see into a room you can't get to yet. Sometimes this can actually help you when you are trying to figure out where to go next. The Tomb Raider series didn't come into it's own, graphically, by PS1 standards until Tomb Raider III. Blocky ugly textures, pop-in, clipping galore, and a number of glitches, Tomb Raider's Visuals get the job done, but were never top tier graphics on the PS1.

    When you take into account that Tomb Raider was in development for three years prior to it's release, putting the start of it's development in 1993, you start to realize exactly how revolutionary it's level designs were. There was next to nothing for Core Design to draw inspiration in the 3D realm of gaming. In fact, Tomb raider was the standard bearer for what used to be dubbed the action-adventure genre of gaming. Despite the fact that Tomb Raider has only been given credit for “cementing women characters as viable lead characters in games” by the mainstream gaming press, Tomb Raider also had a profound effect on 3D gaming as we know it. Was it THE most influential game in 3D gaming? No, but it definitely played it's part, and was one of many games responsible for the 3D gaming revolution.

    1996 was a landmark year for 3D gaming, and a year that, arguably, helped shape the games we play today like no other year in gaming history. By 1996, the next generation of home consoles was in full swing with the release of the Nintendo 64 which took analog technology, and shrunk it down into a thumb stick. Id software dropped a bomb on PC gamers with a little game called Quake that one could argue with it's online functionality, use of a Voodoo 3D accelerator (the ancestor of modern graphics cards) in GL Quake, releasing the source code to the average gamer which opened the door to tons of user modifications (like the original team fortress), and licensing of the game's engine to other developers that Quake was probably the the most influential game that year, and one of the most influential games of all time. Tomb Raider is just as worthy to be mentioned in the same sentence as both Quake and Mario 64, because it, as well, had a huge effect on gaming, regardless of the fact that later backlash against the series, and this weird historical revisionism that has been going on as of late, has robbed it from it's rightful place in gaming history.

    The Bottom Line: The original Tomb Raider is still and will always be a classic with it's excellent mixture of action, exploration, and puzzle solving in a sometimes wondrous, and often times tense atmosphere. It may not get the credit it deserves, but it's one of those games that every gamer should at least give an honest try. The learning curve is high, and as it should the game gets harder as it goes along, with the final levels being borderline insane with what is thrown at you. You'll die a lot, you'll struggle with the controls, but you may even come to appreciate the masterful design, and the unique atmosphere. If you've never played it, you should, and don't wimp out and play anniversary instead.

    Tomb Raider, since it's release has been ported to almost every platform under the sun. From the PS1, to the Saturn, the mac, and the PC (which also had an expanded edition, Tomb Raider Gold), to even the Nokia N-gage (for all five people who ever bought one. You can also still find it on Steam, and with the remaster coming out, you will be able to play an updated version soon.

    And if you happen to like heavy puzzle elements in you action games, I thoroughly suggest my favorite Core Design PS2 effort, Project Eden, which also had a PC version. It's not for everyone, has quite a few technical issues, and is more focused on exploration and puzzle solving than action. Most will find it a little boring, and lagluster in the action elements, but gamers with an open mind will be able to appreciate it as will those who still own a PS2 multitap, because it has 4-player coop support. Project Eden is a flawed, yet still very engaging title for those who can get into it.

Slave Zero on the Dreamcast- A Review From A Nobody

    I've always appreciated Slave Zero for the exact reasons most people at the time of it's release disliked the game. At it's core, Slave Zero is an unapologetic straightforward action game who's main focus is action over everything else. The level designs are mostly straightforward corridors filled with baddies to destroy with only the slightest hints of exploration added. The corridors usually open up into larger areas that act as rooms just to destroy more enemies.

    With a few exceptions, being missions that have specific objectives, the game mainly consists of starting at point A, destroying everything there, then continuing through corridors while destroying enemies, to get to point B where you destroy all the enemies there. The sense of scale in the game is impressive, as Slave Zero is a 60 foot tall mech that towers above buildings, and most enemies, and the concept and art direction hit on two things I am a sucker for: blowing stuff up in a giant mech, and a cyper-punk/Blade Runner style atmosphere. The combat in the game is excellent. Unlike the average mech title, Slave Zero is incredibly agile. He moves fast, jumps high, and the gunplay which consists of switching between two weapon types, ballistic and energy, while strafing, and also hitting enemies with rockets.

    I love the feel of the combat in this game. There's something to be said about taking on waves of enemies while juking and jiving around their rockets, and forcing them to eat yours instead. The movement and aiming feels really good in this game, despite the Dreamcasts' single analog stick and some major framerate issues in the Dreamcast port of the game that really do put a damper on the combat in the later levels of the game.

    Slave Zero was released on the Dreamcast around a month after the system hit, and is a first generation game with some poor first generation optimization. People who really want to play this game should check out the PC version on GoG. It is also available on Steam, but in order to get the Steam version to run, you'll have to find all the fixes (which users have posted in the game's discussion section) yourself to get it to run right on a windows 10 or newer system. I really wish Steam would force some kind of compatibility on older games like this.

    I've never played the PC original, so my only experience is the Dreamcast version. PC gamers speak highly of an infamous PC gamer demo of the game, I, however, was not a PC gamer until much later, so my first exposure to the game was a review of the game in an issue of Gamepro magazine which first piqued my interest in this game. I can't find the issue they reviewed the game in, but off memory, I want to say they gave the game a four out of five, but don't quote me on that one. Sure enough, I hunted down the issue in an online archive to save myself the time of digging through multiple tubs, and they did give it a 4 out of 5. I can't remember the name of someone who just told me their name, but I can sure remember a gamepro review from over two decades ago.

    The Dreamcast version of the game, despite it's major framerate issues in some areas of the game, is still a game I have always enjoyed for what it offers. It's simple, yet action packed. A lot of the reviews at the time bashed it for being a shallow, action-focused title, but that's really the beauty of Slave Zero, unapologetically, this is a shallow action game that tosses deeper level designs or gameplay concepts to the side to excel at the action elements.

    The beauty is, not every game has to be a deep ordeal. Sometimes you just want to jump into a 60-foot mech and start blowing stuff up for instant gratification, no thinking required. I have always appreciated the straight-up action focus of the game, the beautiful simplicity and the fun of the gunfights. Slave Zero isn't trying to be Half-Life, or even Shogo, it's trying to excel at action and atmosphere, and that's what I've always really liked about the game. It's not for everyone, especially not the Dreamcast port, but those who can appreciate a straight up action game will find enjoyment out of this game.

    Five Hundred years in the future, the SovKahn rules the corporate Dynasty over the mega city S1-9 with an iron fist. A small band of rebels filled with the descendants of an ancient warrior clan who have dubbed themselves the Guradians have managed to get their hands on a single Slave unit, giant mechs grown from embryos and fused with dark matter, and chosen one of their own, Chan, to permanently fuse with Slave Zero and fight his way through fifteen levels, defeating the Sovkahn, and his minions of evil Slave mechs. The story isn't particularly deep, but it is told through cutscenes throughout the game, most of which are just a means of giving players the level objectives.

    I may have oversimplified the design earlier when I said it was just run, shoot, run, because there are occasional mission objectives thrown in, like having to protect the rebel base from attackers, protect embryos from attackers long enough for the rebels to steal them and my personal least favorite, one convoy mission where you have to protect a convoy of ships while traversing the sewers. Failing to protect any of these ends with an instant game over. Luckily, the game isn't one that kicks you back to the title screen when you fail, it just reloads the last checkpoint which is at the last area loaded, so you only have to replay each section from the start at game over.

    The game doesn't allow you to save anywhere, but it does let you save a the beginning of each section. My suggestion is to have at least two rotating saves in the game, alternating which one you save for each section in case you accidentally save yourself into a corner. If you barely scrape by in one portion of the level, you start the next section with the exact same amount of life, and the exact weapons you had. This can lead to you starting the next section with one hit, and sometimes you start out an area with a couple of enemies firing at you to start, or you took a downgraded weapon into the next area, and the tougher enemies require the upgraded weapons to do more damage.

    After repeated failures at the level it is sometimes advisable to reload the previous section, and play it more carefully, and pick up either the upgraded weapons, or the downgraded weapons that could be more useful in the situation, like the rail gun instead of the lightning gun upgrade.

    Not running two saves caught up to me pretty hard when first playing through this footage when I finally hit mission 12 where I foolishly stuck with a machine gun instead of the single shot explosive cannon. In this mission you have to protect an embryo from enemies trying to destroy it as your allies fly in and pick it up off a train. I was playing on normal difficulty, but even then the enemies were bullet sponges by this time in the game. This room features the worst framerate issues in the Dreamcast port. Normally the framerate issues don't make it hard to aim, but this one spot in the twelfth mission is the exception.

    The framerate got so choppy, and the machine gun I was using to take down the sponges wasn't getting the job done by a long shot. I was about to give up on the normal difficulty and restart the game on easy, because, back in the day, a lot of PC to console ports were straight ports when it came to difficulty. A game that is easy using a Mouse and keyboard, is quite a bit more difficult using a controller with little to no aim assist in the game.

    The framerate would drop down to a slideshow in this room. Before I chose to start over from the beginning on easy difficulty, I decided to check my other VMUs for my old save from almost two decades ago, and sure enough I was also stuck on Mission 12 in that save, but I did run two saves on my old game. In this save, I had the rocket launcher upgrade, and the lightning gun, and I managed to beat this room in my first try. Just changing the weapons helped me succeed. This is why it is important to run at least two saves in the game in case you need to go back to the previous level and collect different weapons, or start with more life.

    The game's framerate issues and sometimes insta-fail missions are really the two bigget complaints I can wage against it. Generally, I can play an old console game that has framerate issues no problem, and for the most part, the framerate in Salve Zero wasn't an issues except in a couple of areas. I will say that this footage looks worse watching than when playing. The later levels in the game have some major framerate issues, yet I was able to play through them just fine. This might not be the case for others, but years of playing N64 games means I can handle choppiness pretty well.

    However, the framerate issues are why I can't suggest the Dreamcast port to most people out there. If you are the type of person who can tough through choppiness, you might enjoy the Dreamcast version if you find it for cheap. For everyone else, there is the PC version, which actually has background music, and is cheaper in every form, even picking up the physical PC disk is cheaper than the average asking price for the Dreamcast version, so even if you don't trust digital games, you can still find the PC version cheaper physically.

    Graphically, I've always loved the atmosphere in this game. I am a sucker for blade-runner aesthetics, that dark tech-noir visual style in huge futuristic cityscapes is always appealing to me as is the scale and size of being in a giant robot blowing stuff up in a living, breathing city. The whole look of the graphics in the game takes me back to my early PC gaming days.

    I was relatively late to PC gaming outside of playing a couple of games on my dad's PC (Alien vs Predator) when I was nineteen or twenty years old, someone gave me a hand-me down HP Office computer with a 533mhz Pentium 3, 512kb of ram, Maybe DDR, I can't fully remember, and it had an AGP slot. I didn't really understand the big hype of graphics cards. The few PC games I owned either prior looked great to me as far as I was concerned.

    However, on my birthday one year, I was at walmart with my brother, and there on a shelf was an ATI Radeon 9000 graphics card. Yes, there was a time in which you could buy GPU's at Walmart. My bro picked it up for me for my birthday, and it wasn't until I finally booted up Shogo (which was a $10 game that came with Septera Core in a double pack), and finally saw the game running at high resolution with texture filtering, either bilinear, or trilinear filtering that I finally understood what the fuss about graphics cards was.

    Slave Zero reminds me of that entire era of PC games. It's graphical details and art direction look great for the Dreamcast, even if the framerate has issues, but the whole look of the game is a nostalgic throwback to PC games in the mid to late 90's. I take one look at this game, and I just think Voodoo 2, even if I never owned an actual Voodoo 2 card. If you want some alternative examples of what PC games of that era looked like aside from Quake or Unreal, look at games like Slave Zero. The game just has that nostalgic look of PC games of that era. Just the visual look of the game is nostalgic to me. Obviously, the major framerate issues of this console mar the graphical presentation overall, but I still love the look and atmosphere in Slave Zero.

    The controls actually feel pretty good to use if you are either used to other Dreamcast shooters, or used to N64 first person shooters. By default, you use the face buttons to move, and the analog stick to aim, but it feels a lot more accurate to me using the Dreamcast analog stick than the N64's. The aiming is by default inverted aim, which doesn't bother me, because I still play inverted. It also shouldn't be a big deal N64 shooter vets. There are other control schemes you can pick from that might change the aiming if you cannot handle inverted, but I didn't test any of them for this review.

    Overall, the controls feel pretty good, and I was able to hit more accurate rail shots in this game than I am in Quake III on the Dreamcast using the controller. It does take a bit of getting used to press up on the D-pad to jump in the game, but I didn't have a lot of problems hitting the jumps in the platforming elements in this game. I found myself adjusting to it. You also have to hold left on the D-pad and pull the right trigger to change your weapon, or hold right on the d-pad and pull the left trigger and wait for your crosshair to turn red to do things like pick up a different gun, or pick up a tiny human, and pressing the combination again to then throw that human as they make a satisfying red splatter on the wall.

    Overall, the controls feel great when aiming and moving, with the only hitches being the inverted controls for some, the awkwardness of having to hold a d-pad button and press another button to do things like change your weapon, and there are times where switching from your ballistic weapon to your energy weapon will cause a glitch where Slave Zero will make the animation like he changed the weapon, but you won't be able to fire the weapon, because for some reason, he grabbed nothing. You have to change the weapon once more until he pulls out the proper weapon. This can sometimes get you killed. There are also some other weird glitches like getting stuck on walls, or jumping up into walls that rear their heads, but I was always able to wriggle out of them. It's just annoying when you get stuck there, unable to move for a bit.

    From a sound perspective, the effects are well done, even if sometimes the sound of shooting is cut out, the voice acting is decently done, but the Dreamcast port doesn't have the background music that is present in the PC version. It has a silent ambiance to it which makes it feel more atmospheric, but having the same tunes as the PC version would have been nice. I don't know if was laziness on the developer's part, or deadline issues, but the only music in the game is in the opening, and ending credits. Unfortunately, the rest of the music in the game was cut.

    The Bottom Line: Even though I have always thoroughly enjoyed Slave Zero on the Dreamcast, with it's technical issues and the fact that the Dreamcast version is more expensive than the PC version in digital and physical form, I can't suggest the Dreamcast version of Slave Zero to everyone. If you are collecting specifically for the Dreamcast, or have nostalgia specifically for the Dreamcast version of the game, then it's worth picking up for cheap.

    For everyone else, check out the PC version of the game. It's simple, straight up fun. Even the Dreamcast version is fun to play despite it's issues. It's visuals and gameplay are a nostalgic throwback to late 90's PC gaming or early Dreamcast gaming, and overall it's an enjoyable experience. Some people loved this game, other people hated this game, but I've always had fun with it every time I've put the disk into my dreamcast. If you're looking for a game you can jump into, and enjoy without a lot of deep thought required, then Slave Zero is a fantastic choice.

The Munchables on the Wii- A Review From A Nobody | Not all Third-Party ...

    I was first introduced the The Munchables thanks to a video review on Gamepro.com which piqued my interest. I love quirky, niche titles, and the Gamepro editors' enthusiasm for this game won me over at a time when I had no interest in the Wii, dismissing it as a shovelware system with a few good Nintendo-made games, and a stupid control gimmick. I wasn't anti-Wii per say, I just didn't care about the system in the least which was a common view that most traditional style gamers took at that time. However games like those traditional Nintendo titles, the Munchables, and even playing De Blob with a friend's nephew at the time won me over to the system. When I finally picked up a Wii (the one that came with Mario Kart, because you couldn't pay me money to care about Wii sports), I made sure that The Munchables was one for the first games I picked up for the system.

    The Munchables, being developed by the same team as Katamari, takes the growth gameplay of Katamari Damacy, where rolling things up eventually grows your Katamari into a massive ball capable of gaining access to areas that were previously unaccessible, and puts an eating spin on the formula where your main character, either Chompy or Munchy grows bigger by eating enemies, and gaining size levels until they are able to access new areas in each map.

    The peaceful planet of Star-Ving has been invaded by Don Onion and his diabolical army of Space Pirates who have stolen the Great orbs which would feed the planets inhabitants, The Munchables, who as the game's manual says are “Greedy and Hungy creatures.” Now it's up to Chomper and Munchy to recapture the legendary orbs by eating all the Tabemon invaders as possible.

    The Munchables is a testament to the fact that a game doesn't always have to be challenging to be an incredibly addictive experience. The Munchables is an easy game to beat, being aimed at children, however, it's gameplay and design is addictive enough to pull in gamers of all ages. The simple concept, yet fun gameplay will addictively draw in everyone no matter their age. This game is hard to put down whether you're 6 years old, or 60.

    Not to be played on an empty stomach, the core gameplay is simple, players start as either Munchy or Chomper, and eat enemies to gain levels, and grow larger in size which allows you to gain access to new parts of the level usually blocked by obstacles that can be eaten once you gain the required level to do so. Larger enemies that are at a higher level than the player can be dash-attacked to be broken up into smaller enemies that can be eaten. The levels end whenever you complete the final objective which is stated at the beginning of each level. There are power ups that can aid the player in eating more enemies, and also an exploration element where there are a set number of Acorns hidden throughout the maps to be found, finding all of which unlocks a new accessory, or clothing item, for your Munchable. Some levels will throw in some additional objectives like hunting down and eating 20 ghosts in a haunted mansion, or finding and eating statues.

    After you complete the lower levels in each area, you are then thrown into a boss fight against bosses like Brocco Lee or Rice baller. Rinse and repeat this cycle 8 times, and you beat the game, unlocking the mirror mode, and a new character to play as. The bosses do have a little strategy to them, even if they are easy. The game does a good job at explaining the boss strategy mid-game for those bosses where it's not instantly obvious what to do. The final level even has a boss-rush scene where you re-fight all the previous stage bosses before taking on the final boss The King Pumpkin.

    Being only eight levels long, the game is short, but the addictive gameplay always draws you in to play “just one more level” meaning you will probably beat it very quickly. One you beat the game, the Mirrored mode is unlocked which is a mode that, as the name suggests, mirrors the game maps, but adds a time limit to complete each level, acting like a time attack mode. Overall, the short length doesn't hamper the experience, because it's addictive gameplay mean it's always fun play through it again. Finding all the acorns, and the time attack mode also give it a little more length if you're a completest type of gamer.

    Graphically, the game looks good for a Wii game, it definitely fits the colorful, cutesy, look of being a kids game. The varied locales from a forest to a desert to even a haunted house are aesthetically pleasing while the cutesy characters and objects in the game have that slight luminescent glow to them that was common in Wii games. The story segments were made to look like colored paper cutouts to give them almost a storybook look. Visually, by Wii standards, there isn't much to complain about here. The game looks and runs well overall.

    While there is some Wiimote waggling in the game, it's put to a minimum here. The nunchuck is required for this game, and the only time you have to waggle is for jumping, and on those occasions you get hit by an enemy, and have to waggle the controller to get back to normal. Flicking the Wiimote to jump is similar to the jumping mechanic in De Blob which I played before The Munchables, and while it is far from the most accurate way to handle jumping, it works OK, and feels a little more accurate than it does in De Blob. For those who despise motion controls, they aren't over-implemented here, and everything else in the game from scarfing down enemies, to the dash attack to the Z-Targeting feels natural to pull off.

    The music in the game is excellent. Some tracks are quirky similar to the tunes in Katamari, and other tracks fit the atmospheric theme of the level like the music in the haunted house. The tunes are well composed, and all-around fit the cartoony aesthetic of the game. The sound effects from the dash attack to the chomping effect as you gobble up enemeies also fit the aesthetic and sound like stock cartoon effects. The characters don't speak, but the narrator during the story portions of the game is also well acted. There's really nothing to nitpick at here, unless you're a parent who's fed up with quirky, cartoony sounds.

    The Bottom Line: The Munchables may be derivitive of Katamari, but it uses the same evergreen, always fun, “growth” formula, and is an incredibly addictive game that appeals to gamers of all ages. Don't let the fact that it's a game aimed at kids dissuade you from enjoying this must-play Wii title. If you're collecting for the Wii, I wholeheartedly recommend putting The Munchables in your collection. Just don't play it on an empty stomach. I can just imagine mom's yelling at their kids after playing this game, “What do you mean you're hungry, you just ate dinner. I'm gonna take that game and trade it into gamestop if you don't stop telling me you're hungry after every-time you play it.”

Nascar Rumble on the PS1- A Review From A Nobody | Mario Kart Meets NASC...

    I know it's strange to say, but at one time, EA actually excelled at Racing games. Long before they became a beacon of mediocrity and loot crates, EA was capable of making some incredibly fun and creative titles like Nascar Rumble. Nascar Rumble is what you would get if you took Mario Kart, combined it with EA's yearly released NASCAR racing games, and added the shortcut-ridden tracks of Need for Speed III: Hot pursuit. Nascar rumble is a nascar take on the Kart racing formula. This game isn't a Kart racer, it's a stock-kart racer.

    The Mario Kart influence is obvious in Nascar Rumble. While racing you can hit powerup icons which give you offensive weapons to fling at your foes; ranging from the freeze which freezes your steering in whatever position you were holding when it hit you for some truly nasty results; the typical oil slicks which make your stearing slippery; the Joker Icon which will either give you a random powerup to help you, or usually just give you bad gas or an oil slick (in fact you have a better chance of getting something good out of an EA loot crate than getting something good out of the joker powerup); to things like the hammer and the shock-wave where upon landing a hit send your opponents flying through the air; to a storm that blocks your view and messes with your steering capabilities; and variety of others to be used against your unsuspecting foes including the most epic, and iconic powerup that is, rightfully, the most fondly remembered, the tornado powerup which allows you or your foes to send a devastating tornado up the track which sends everyone flying and tumbling through the air. Add in unlockables like new vehicles and tracks, tracks chock full of hidden shortcuts to find, and a great sense of speed onto all the satisfying powerups and you have the formula for one of the PS1's most fondly remembered alternative racers. This game is just a blast to play.

    The name of the game in Nascar Rumble is fast, fun, mayhem where the kart-racing powerup racing and sense of speed lead to some truly thrilling racing where you are battling your foes while trying to hit all the shortcuts in each track. It's chaotic fun where some races bog down into cars flying everywhere around you, as you navigate through, sometimes being caught into some spectacular crashes yourself. The triangle button is the reset button to put you back on the track, and you'll be pressing it a lot in this game. There's nothing quite like narrowly avoiding a tornado that is chasing behind you by ducking into a shortcut just off the main track. This game can be truly exhilarating in it's racing. It can also get extremely crazy if you set the powerups to mayhem, meaning there are extra, extra pickups in each map for maximum amount of chaos possible. Powerups can also be turned lower, or off altogether.

    As in Mario Kart, you progress by beating six racing cups of three tracks, with the option to play the wildcard cup which has random tracks, and the EA cup which requires you play through six races. One you beat the main cups in the rookie class, you onlock the Pro class where the cars are faster, and your AI opponents are tougher. Upon beating the same six in the pro class, you unlock the Elite class where the cars are even faster, and the AI opponents hit every shortcut, hit you with every powerup possible, and definitely cheat to beat you.

    The difficulty curve is gradual with each cup, but the elite class opponents are totally cheaters, able to catch up to you very quickly. There's nothing quite like getting hit with tree storms in a row, then two tornadoes, a freeze, and then two opponents with hammers that catch up to you quickly. When this game cheats, it cheats good. You don't have to go it alone, because the game lets you play the cups either by yourself, or in a racing team with one other teammate who is either controlled by a second player, or an AI friend which is a cool idea.

    There is a lot of racing to be had if you plan on unlocking everything in the game. Not only do you have to play through the racing cups three times for each difficulty. There are three extra tracks to unlock, like circus minimus which is best played with Mayhem level powerups for one of the most hectic racing experiences you'll ever have. One top of three extra tracks to unlock, there are hidden areas in various maps that contain wrenches, collecting which unlocks a special vehicle like an RV, a golf cart, a rocket car, and etc. So not only are the maps honeycombed with hidden shortcuts, but those shortcuts have even more hidden areas to unlock new vehicles. This game has secrets within it's secrets. There is a lot of racing and unlockables in this game. I guess you could always just put in a cheat code to unlock everything, but it's more satisfying to hunt down each secret on it's own.

    Graphically, the game looks great by PS1 standards. It may not look like much on a modern display, but what looks like weird dithering on a modern display is actually blended on a CRT TV to give each car a glossy, freshly polished look. You can still see it a little on a modern display, but it makes the cars have a glossy look on a crt which looked great for the time.

    Nascar Rumble also has a great sense of speed, even for a console as old as the PS1. Whether playing on the PS3 like I am here, or on the PS2 like I am here, the game moves fast which helps add to the feeling of chaos in the game. The game runs well, but the extra sense of speed does make the controls feel a bit slippery, and jittery overall, granted, I do play this game with the D-pad, because it just feels natrual to me, not owning a proper dual shock till I got a PS2.

    This is this is far from a sim racing game that punishes you for rubbing on the side of the wall, and you feel less like you are turning than sliding around the corners the whole time making the oil slick power up a lot less impactful. I generally found myself rubbing the wall in most turns, but without the normal punishment to my speed for doing so. There are times where clipping a wall can stop you in place, or even knock you backwards. Luckily, the fast reset button has, wisely, been mapped to the triangle butting, because you'll be using it a lot in this game. Overall the controls are responsive, if not a little slippery feeling overall.

    The engine sounds in the game sound great, as do the effects. The game does have an annoying, pointless announcer who's dialog does get old pretty fast, but you can go into the options and mute him. The music consists of generic sounding southern rock style tracks, and is by default set too low to hear under the sounds of the engines. You can also turn the music volume up. I usually just leave it at the default setting myself, but the option is there if you want to hear the tunes in the game. The sound design is OK overall. Some people may find the announcer to be incredibly annoying, I've just learned to tolerate him, because I'm always too busy focusing on the racing. I will say, one cool aspect of the sound design is that when you are going through a tunnel, even the announcer sounds like he's in a tunnel, it's a small thing, but it's a really neat touch.

    The bottom line: Even if you hate Nascar, Nascar Rumble is still a must-play alternative racing game on the PS1. Part nascar, part Mario kart, all fun. The racing is chaotic, and fun, the powerups are inventive, the tracks are well designed, and reward exploration with shortcuts. This game is just full, chaotic, tornado full of fun. The PS1 has some great cart racing games like Crash Team Racing, but if you want to play the PS1's best Stock-kart racing game, look into Nascar Rumble.

    And if Nascar Rumble interests you, EA did develop a PS2 sequel without the Nascar license called Rumble racing, which improved upon the original in a number of ways like improving the powerups, improving the handling and controls, which are still a little slippery, but not nearly as much; and the best addition: borrowing the stunt ability from rush 2049, where you could spin your car around and do some cool mid-air flips, and giving the player a turbo boost for successfully landing said tricks. Rumble racing is still one of the best alternative racing games on the PS2. If you're looking for great PS2 racing games to play, look into Rumble racing.

Lair on the PS3- A Review From A Nobody | It's not as bad as it was made...

 

    To anyone versed in the epic fanboy flame wars of the seventh generation, it only takes two names to send a shudder down their spine. Two abysmal abominations released in the era where Sony was in desperate need of killer apps to justify the steep asking price of the Playstation 3. Two games that upon release gave Xbox 360 fanboys ammunition against PS3 fanboys for years to come thanks to the abysmal scores these over-hyped would-be killer apps received. Those two games in question are Lair and Haze. Two games that, quite frankly, despite both being flawed games were a lot better than their review scores made them out to be.

    Like Haze, Lair received a lot of per-release hype, again, both Sony, and PS3 owners were hungry for big games to fill the gap between launch, and forum fanboys needed ammunition to fling at their Gears of War playing and Halo 3 playing opponents. Lair hit before Halo 3, and despite the epic hype, and huge anticipation by fans, came out to horrible review scores thanks to the poor design idea (either forced by Sony, or chosen entirely by Factor 5 depending on who you ask) to make the game motion-control only, without the option to use the analog stick to aim in the game.

    The results of this ill-fated design decision lead to abysmal review scores in the mainstream outlets. Ign gave this game a 4.9 out of 10 in a poorly written review where upon reading it, the only conclusion I could come to is that, in full Dean Takahashi fashion, it sounds like the reviewer, Greg Miller wrote his entire review after he couldn't beat the fifth level of the game. The review literally only mentions that level and none of the later much harder levels. He complains about the targeting system in the game, which I agree with, and then touched on the story a bit while complaining about the controls the whole time. I guess he gave the game one point for every level he was able to actually beat.

    Ign wasn't alone in destroying this game. Most magazine publications, and websites completely panned the game with a few average to good scores thrown in there. The forced motion controls scheme was too much for most gamers, and reviewers at the time. When Factor 5 later released a patch to allow players to use the analog sticks to aim, the damage was already done, and Lair had already became an infamous bad game in the gaming zeitgeist of the day.

    The analog patch is still available on the PS3's playstation store, and if you have any interest in ever playing Lair, I suggest you download it as soon as possible, because we all know time is ticking before Sony shuts the PS3's Playstation store down. I also suggest getting the Titan Map pack for Unreal Tournament III if you want to take advantage of Unreal Tournament 3's mod support which is the coolest, nearly forgotten feature on the PS3. I guess the reason I decided to review Lair first on this channel was to remind people that time is of the essence when it comes to getting the map packs, and patches for PS3 games. It's time to start downloading as many of these as you can before they are gone.

    For my first playthrough of Lair, I decided to play the entire game through using only the original motion control setup just to see what the original experience was like. After that, I went back and played random levels with the analog stick aiming enabled, and the analog aiming patch definitely improves the gameplay a lot. Without question, it was a mistake on Sony and Factor 5's fault not to include it day one.

    Lair had a rough development cycle. At first there were a lot of good ideas Factor 5 was going to add, and the game wasn't even going to resemble the final product. Long story short, in order to get something in ship-able form, they hunkered down and went with a trustworthy formula that had worked for them in the past.

    When it comes down to it, Lair is basically Rogue Leader with dragons. Learning the motion controls didn't take long, and the only time they became frustrating to use was in those bouts of slowdown that effected the aim. The game, in general doesn't run the best when played in 1080p. The slowdown doesn't effect the aiming all the time, but there were occasional periods where the aiming became almost impossible with the motion controls. Lair was meant to be a visual spectacle for the PS3, and as such the developers prioritized graphical fidelity over playability.

    I managed to play through the game in 1080p, and most of this footage is in 1080p because I was focused on trying to make the game look as good as possible for this video. However, it runs better at 720p which is what I suggest those looking for a more playable experience to play it at. In order to run it in 720p, you have to go into your system settings and turn off 1080p, and 1080i as options as there is no option to change it in game.

    Once I learned the controls I actually started to really enjoy my time with Lair. It really does follow a solid formula established in The Rogue Squadron/Rogue Leader series. The missions are objective heavy, and some have very strict time limits leading to constant failures, but also that made me want to give a failed mission just one more try. It really does hearken back to Factor 5's previous work. Some of the later missions in particular feel twice as long as they should be, and dying or failing right before the end of these missions can demotivate you from wanting to give it another try. I definitely shut this game off a couple of times after nearly beating the Deadmans Basin level only to die or fail at the end, but I found myself coming back within an hour to give it another try finally beating it with a huge, satisfying sigh of relief and a pretty good shoulder workout from shaking the controller up and down as fast as I can.

    I did get better at playing each level as time went on, learning the patterns, and seeing which objectives were more imperative to do first. The game will constantly pull you out of the action to show you a cut-scene of a new objective, or to show you how you are failing at the objectives. While I can understand this was done to add tot he cinematic flair of the game, what it really amounts to is the feeling that every couple of seconds you are pulled out of the gameplay, and when you return to controlling your dragon, you have to quickly regain your bearings. This can be especially annoying if you are in the middle of lining up a shot an enemy outpost that's destroying your ships, losing too many of which will lead to a mission over. Often times, the interruption lead to me overshooting the enemy outpost, and having to turn around while feeling excessive time pressure. The cinematic nature of the game can sometimes break the flow of the gameplay.

    I was also a little let down by the fact that most of the missions in the game were escort and protect missions, and there weren't any straight up dog-fighting missions, well dragon fighting missions. Escort missions are some of my least favorite, and some of the most frustrating mission types in any game. They even threw in a stealth mission for good measure, and even a strange story mission where you hunt for water, and fight a giant bug to get it. However, I was yearning for more dog fighting missions, and more missions that made use of transferring to the ground to take out hordes of enemy soldiers.

    The ground fighting feature is a really fun mechanic that I wish they had expanded on. It's a cool idea, and it's fun to land an kill hundreds of enemy peons. Eventually new combos to use can be unlocked to unleash on the enemy hordes. The dragon disarms are also pretty cool to see. When engaged, players are prompted into a quick time event to kill the enemy dragon, and it's rider. These are mildly entertaining, and add that cinematic flair the game was going for. You can disarm enemy dragons, or fighting them in a fighting-game mini-game which almost has a rock-paper-scissors feel to it.

    There are some ideas at play that seem cool on paper and are mildly entertaining the first time, but probably should have been trimmed out of the game because they disrupt the gameplay flow. An example of this is how your dragon can pick up and fling an enemy foot soldier as the game pauses to watch the poor soul rag-dolling across the map. The first time it's amusing, but after a while, it becomes yet another thing to interrupt the game. The ability to pick up an enemy footsoldier also interrupts the targeting system, and, as the Ign reviewer complained about becomes a source of frustration when instead of targeting a mission objective, like a large rhino, your dragon swoops down to pick up a foot soldier instead and the camera takes a disorienting position that makes it hard to even realize what just happened.

    Even after mastering the motion controls, or playing with analog controls, the game has a few technical issues that aren't game breaking by any means, but had they been ironed out would have improved the experience quite a bit more. The framerate is an obvious issue, as is the targeting system which, when you get it to work properly, can lead to some thrilling circling while firing on enemies. I wish they would have had time to rework the whole targeting system to a more workable form where the camera cooperates better. There are plenty of examples of prior games that got this function right for some truly excellent results. You definitely feel like you are fighting with the targeting system in Lair to get it to work right. A little bit of tweaking would have went a long way.

    The camera can also freak out, and be very disorienting at times, but not always. Generally, it follows the action well, but it can be very wonky at other times. The physics system in the game also has it's own peculiarity to it where if your dragon comes close to an object, or an enemy dragon flies too close to your dragon, it bounces your dragon up and out of the way from it. It's almost like there is a physics force field around the objects in the game that can bounce you aim away in the other direction. This can be frustrating when you are trying to aim at a specific target, and you aim is shot upwards in a completely different direction because an enemy flew too close to you.

    This can also lead to some jank when you are locked on to something like a war beast, and your dragon is stuck flying along the sides of a ridge, and can't seem to just fly up and over it. There are times where I was trying with all my might while locked on to turn left, while my dragon, being stuck following the side of the ridge, was going right instead. The glitchy physics can also knock you out of a dragon duel because you ran into a wall, so the game canceled it, throwing you back into the game without notice.

    Another thing that at first seemed janky to me until I realized it was done on purpose, but is never explained to you, is in those scenes where your dragon latches onto, say a generator to shake your controller rapidly up and down in order to destroy the generator or dam, getting shot by an enemy will knock you off the object you are attached to. At first I thought the game would just let the object go at random, when in reality, an enemy dragon or boat shot my off of it. At first I thought the game would just inconsistently let the object go, when in actuality, I was taking shots by the surrounding foes.

    I have also, though I didn't get footage of it, thrown footsoldiers through the map into the abyss the that exists outside the game world. I also found that sometimes it helped to switch to a faster dragon in missions where you had a distinct time crunch. The game has a stables option where you can swap to a different dragon if your current one is too slow, or too weak. The only problem is, the game doesn't display their stats for you, so it's hard to distinguish which dragon does what. I guess the best thing to do is experiment with each one in order to figure out the best dragon to use.

    All that being said, despite quite a list of technical issues, and glitches, I still really enjoyed my time in Lair overall. I wasn't a fan of the overwhelming amount of escorts missions, but the more I played them, the better I got at them. It has that same difficulty curve as Rogue leader which is still one of my favorite Gamecube games. The game can be tough, and yet, still very satisfying when you succeed, and not even the escort missions, and sometimes unfair time limits kept me from enjoying the game despite it's flaws.

    As I said, the formula Lair is based on is a sound one, and if you are a fan of Factor 5's Star Wars games, then you will probably find some enjoyment in Lair. It's definitely a more flawed version of the formula when compared to what came before, but I still found the game to be engaging enough to play through it. It pulled me into it's gameplay, and I enjoyed myself overall. The game is not without it's share of frustrations and flaws, but I enjoyed Lair, even when using motion controls for my first playthrough. If you can get past the controls (or just download the analog aiming patch from PSN), and get past the glitches, you might find some enjoyment out of this infamously, quote unquote bad game.

    It is a shame that the game did so poorly in the reviews thanks mostly to the controls. It's also a shame that some of the technical issues weren't ironed out before release, but Factor 5 definitely put a lot of effort into this game, and however imperfect it is, this isn't a bad game. Out of the two “terrible twins” of early PS3 games, I would say that Lair is definitely better than Haze, even if I still don't think Haze is that bad either. It was another game that had a lot of good ideas that just never quite came together before release. Free Radical should also have trimmed a lot of good ideas on paper out, and polished the gameplay more, cutting down on the large, but empty feeling levels, and getting the gunplay an AI better. Haze still has some fun bot deathmatches though, and the online was decent back in the day.

    Graphically, Lair definitely nailed the epic scale and scope they were aiming for in the game. The only thing they didn't nail was the framerate. Aiming for 1080p was a bit much for the PS3, but in early games, developers certainly didn't know the console's limits. It plays a little smoother at a lower resolution for sure. The art direction is unique, and the graphics were excellent for a first generation PS3 game. They also put a lot of effort into the story cutscenes. The story itself is pretty good, if predictable. No complaints with the voice acting either. If you are a story-based gamer, as opposed to being a gameplay-based gamer like myself, there is something here for you.

    The orchestral musical score is amazing and fits the epic feel of the game perfectly. You can tell they spared no expense when it came to the game's soundtrack. The sound effects from the cries of enemy soldiers, to the snarles of your dragon are also well done. There was a lot of care and effort put into the sound design of this game, and it shines through.

    The bottom line: Lair is definitely a flawed game that hit with a polarizing control scheme, and various other technical glitches. However, this game is definitely a lot better than the reviews made it out to be. I don't give review scores, but this is a 7/10 kind of game give or take a point or half a point. The hype for the game was huge before it hit, filling a void in time where Sony desperately needed more killer apps for the PS3 to justify the system's price, and to convince more people to buy the system. Which made it's low review scores even more embarrassing for Sony at a time where they couldn't even buy good press if they wanted to.

    Lair was never going to be a killer app. Even if it released day one with analog stick control, and all the technical glitches had been ironed out before release. Gaming had changed, and the days where a game like rogue leader could be a killer app for the Gamecube were long past.

    At the time mainstream tastes had changed, and the dawn of the online, and digital era was upon us. Games had also jumped up from a $50 asking price to $60, and we thought the future of strictly single player games was in question, outside of something like Gta, or Oblivion that is. Lair could be beaten in a couple of hours, and it's only online connectivity was leaderboards which are still up to this day.

    People wanted Gears of War, Halo 3, and eventually Modern Warfare. Most traditional single-player games were all but ignored by the vast majority of gamers in the PSWii60 era. First person shooters (predominantly modern shooters) and duck and cover third person shooters with a heavy emphasis on online play dominated the generation, and unless it was a big name franchise, most other traditional genres were put aside by gamers and developers. Whole genres, and sub genres of games more or less died, even if they had a strong showing on the PS2 from the previous generation.

    3D platformers are only just now starting to recover from the seventh generation where we were pretty much down just to Ratchet and Clank, and Mario. 3D space, or airplane flight games pretty much died outside of Ace Combat, and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X . This genre hasn't recovered from the seventh gen either. Even once strong names like Unreal Tournament 3 failed to do well enough to keep Midway Games from going out of business, despite selling a million copies.

    Development costs went through the roof, and developers had to go with whatever popular tastes were at the time just to survive. Tons of great traditional style single player games were ignored by the mainstream gamers, outside of maybe weekend rentals, and Lair, being a single player game with a single-player focus, even had it released in perfect form wasn't going to sell systems. Not even better games that hit like uncharted, and Heavenly Sword which came out later were console sellers. GTA4, and Metal Gear Solid 4 were console selling games with a predominantly single player focus, but the tone for the seventh generation was already set before Lair even shipped. Plenty of new single player IPs would eventually come it, but at the first couple of years of the Xbox 360, and PS3's life weren't kind to most traditional style games.

    Lair, for those who can look past it's flaws is still worth playing. It definitely plays a lot better with the analog sticks, so, again, make sure, if you have any interest in playing, or replaying this game to get your PS3 online to the playstation store and download the patch while it's still available, and the titan map pack for Unreal Tournament 3 while you're at it. This game is far from a 4 or 5 out of ten kind of game. Looking back on what we know now, I doubt most of the reviewers ever beat the game before they reviewed it. It it's lowest, Lair is a 6, because it's still playable. If you're a Rogue Squadron fan, there's still enough of that classic formula here to find some enjoyment out Lair. It's really not that bad of a game, and certainly isn't worthy of the cannon-fodder it was used as in online arguments. Haze? I can understand, but if Lair is the worst game you're ever played, you should probably play some more games.