onto the Lair impressions - I have played up thru chapter 4.
The good
+ First chapter is a tutorial that teaches you how to fly and gets you comfortable with it flying thru rings. The tutorial also isnt so long that you want to get the fukk out of there - its perfect...
+ The GFX are in true 1080P and IMO its the best looking thing I have seen this gen. I didnt expect it to be this good, and it looked horrible in the new videos on the Warhawk disk compared to how it looks on my TV in motion. I havent sat there and disctected still screens or anything, but everything looks great, the lighting looks real, and I can count nicely bumpmapped bricks on the wall of a tower like 1 mile away and it all looks so real i could just reach in my TV and touch it. Nothing else on any system this gen comes close to the overall visual impact of this game in moton.
+ Contrary to what I read, its not hard to use the dragon view to see your targets outlined in red...as far as it being hard to see in the 2nd chapter - why dont you try wearing an armored helmet, and riding on the bare back of a dragon flying into the sun with no extra hand to shield your eyes from the sun...its all so real i tried squinting to I could see better...instead of doing that just push down on the control pad to see theu the dragon eyes and hit your targets....
+ The game basically at the end of the day is nothing new - it plays just like rogue Squadron so far. Same exact mission format - quick in game cutscenes showing you a taregt, or enemies approaching and a leader telling you what to engage...having said that, I like that style of game and havent played one of these factor 5 shooters since the N64 days.
+ What is new is doing what I always wanted for the Wii - the tilt controls used in a fun way to control a decent true next gen game...thats exactly what LAIR is so far...it delivers the fun the Wii never gave me, and the best visuals seen to date. The game already gets its place in my perminant library on that accolade alone.
Here comes that bad;
- Game needed just a BIT more polish, but its still well done. There is some odd clipping at times when running on the ground. Really its the same kind of stuff I saw in all of Factor 5s other offerings for N64 and GCN. They have that odd game engine that runs like a RTS engine with flying....the game more than makes up for it by being georgous.
- The missions feel short for my tastes...I hope it picks up the length and spans many many chapters...right now it feels like the missions are over just when they get good.
- The game is nothing like Drakengard...while the game rates you on tons of enemy carnage, it wont let you grind, farm or go on kiling sprees outside of the mission scope. Its like ill be done with a mision in the sky, see like 1,000 guys still on the ground and totally want to land and demolish them on dragon back...and ill land, and get to killin when the game abruptly pulls me out of the fun and drops me into the end mission cut-scene and then onto the next intermission/mission
So yeah - tilt controls put to good use (game wouldnt be nearly as good with stick movement)....something new to learn and while its simple and straight forward, gets harder as you manage all of the buttons and find yourself reaction jerking to avoid enemies/shots as if they are real....the instinct feeling of pushing left twice hard with the reigns to sideswipe a dragon next to you feels so natural and real.
Before I was playing Warhawk with tilt controls off - this definately makes me want to try it out if the flying can be as fun.
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