PS3 Fanboy

Long, long, long overdue is the update to Lair's control interface, but on April 17th, it's finally arriving on the Japanese PS Store. The update not only allows a left analogue stick control scheme, but a better aiming function as well as two new dragons to mount and ride. Yep -- now you have the Wind and Poison dragons at your beck and call. But that's not all -- new custom themes will be available that change at random on startup. Will we see this stuff outside of Japan? Who knows -- if some of it's free, that stuff won't necessarily have to.

[via N4G]

From the publishers of fine titles, such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Jumper: Griffin's Story, and Saw: The Videogame comes yet another major game announcement. Yesterday, Brash Entertainment announced a deal with frequent Sony partner, Game Republic (Genji, Folklore) to make a game based on a "popular Hollywood film." Well, looks like another Sony partner is being swallowed up by the startup publisher. Factor 5, known to Sony fans for their notorious Lair will also be creating a title for Brash. We're sure that Factor 5 will live up Brash's legacy of quality titles.

"We do our due diligence on potential partners; we want to understand their in-house tech, and get to know their team and its capabilities. Factor 5 has a solid track record in creating licensed games that, in combination with their technology expertise, makes them an ideal partner," said Mitch Davis. "But what really cemented the collaboration was their passion for the IP and the world in which the game will live. Because that's when you are going to get really good games -- when the people who are making it are really enjoying the process."

"Typically, there are two issues developers have with making a licensed game. First, they tend to have shorter development cycles. Second, there are often very tight constraints on how you can portray the world of the IP, its characters and story. The resulting lack of creative freedom can be very frustrating -- especially when it's a world you are excited to explore," said Julian Eggebrecht, President and Co-founder of Factor 5. "But collaborating with Brash is much different, we're already working on a title that is more than two years out, and because the filmmaker is a game fan who is really excited about how we want to expand on the story of the film, we've been given a lot of latitude. It's been really fun to dig deep into this universe."

[Via press release]

You thought you heard the last of Lair, didn't you? While at GDC, a man we will call DugBuzz, states in his IGN blog, seeked out the Factor 5 booth and played around with their new build of Lair that incorporated an analog function. He made a comment about the guy who reviewed the game on IGN after playing the new version: "Greg needs to give them a new score. It was kind of clear that Factor 5 put in the extra effort a little begrudgingly, but the results were amazing. This might push me over the edge into the "must buy PS3" territory."

So there you have it. If you haven't played Lair, or rented it and had a bad taste in your mouth, should this analog patch (which also might fix other things -- just an assumption) come out, we'll let you know. It's then your call whether or not to try it out again, but if this guy has decent tastes, it might just make a potentially great game great. Get it?

It's no secret many gamers aren't very happy with Lair's SIXAXIS control scheme. And despite overwhelming requests by gamers the world over for Factor 5 to issue a patch to rectify the issue, months have gone by without any fix for this issue.

However, Factor 5's President Julian Eggebrecht recently hinted that a fix may finally be in the pipeline. "I can't say anything quite yet, but there might be something in the works there," he said. Additionally, he admitted the decision to only include the SIXAXIS control scheme was a mistake. "If you're on a platform where this whole motion control is something new and not being pitched as the main feature of the platform, you should probably give the choice between having different control schemes, there is absolutely no doubt about it," he added.

It's hard not to agree with Eggebrecht, but what a lot of gamers out there want is just a fix for what many believe is crippling controls for an otherwise decent game. Hopefully, Factor 5 chooses to give us what we want.

In a recent sit-down chat with Gamasutra, Factor 5's outspoken Julian Eggebrecht gave his impressions on the new DualShock 3, and answered a few questions that would interest those with a gaming history longer than ten years. About the new controller, Julian seemed pleased and wouldn't mind going back and implementing it in Lair. "I'd love to do a patch for Lair, to get the rumble in there. It just about didn't work out for us for Lair, because this is basically one OS past the one that we shipped with, which I think is a shame, because it's a natural fit, especially when you're ramming into other characters."

Eggebrecht was also quizzed about the classic Turrican titles, whether a hi-res remake of any of the old games would make their way onto the PlayStation Network or XBLA. Surprisingly, he seemed to have an answer prepared. " Yeah absolutely, both for XBLA and PSN, it'd be fantastic. I think that probably a high-res Turrican more based on the Amiga Turricans would be great on those platforms. We obviously have the Virtual Console out there on the Nintendo side, and that'd obviously work well for the Genesis and Super Nintendo Turricans. So yeah, we're talking!" We hope these talks turn to actions, as we'd love to see those games revived in HD, as we feel HD sprites are the sexiest things alive. With multiple exceptions.