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After what happened to Stadia's developers on February 5th, 2021, mere days after Phil Harrison sent a positive e-mail about their bright, creative future, I don't believe a damn thing he said about Six Axis not being mandatory. The Factor 5 CEO blaming himself for Lair's failure is warranted, but after heaeing how Sony pushed out the Six Axis at all costs against Factor 5's desperate wishes and wise warnings, I blame Harrison. And given how Phil Harrison fucked up Xbox One's launch as well, on top of Stadia, one can't help but wonder: how does this dude keep getting work?
@@Walt_Xander94 The motion controls for most games basically boiled down to "shake the remote," "point the remote at the screen," or "swipe the controller in a specific direction." You honestly played most games using the face buttons + analog stick moreso than the motion controls.
Marc Wilhelm was my professor briefly and I asked him what happened with LAIR and he got sad and said something like "The director insisted on making the FOV go down when the dragon was picking up speed to "give the impression they were going faster" He also voiced Kano in French MK9, worked at Crystal Dynamics, and literally never stopped wearing punk band shirts.
I'd also like to point out that this design choice literally makes turning motion sickness inducing. Director insisted on that +lurching the camera angle on every turn to make things "cinematic" Meaning that essentially every player would want to vomit when doing the main action in the game, going fast and lurching a dragon around the screen like it refused to stay in the center.
"and felt the open world concept was a bit risky and ambitious" What a different world the game industry was back then. Nowadays, open worlds are all the rage.
Didn’t Sony also pressure quantic dream into integrating PlayStation move into heavy rain and that’s why there’s only one dlc for heavy rain even though 4 were planned. So Sony has a history of pushing experimental tech onto their developers at the cost of quality.
Dude, that's Sony's whole MO when it comes to hardware. Look at MiniDisc or UMD. I am STUNNED Blu-Ray became as big as it did, because that just looked like a lumbering behemoth when DVD seemed more affordable.
@@JamesOhGoodie MiniDisc was very popular in Japan, but it made sense there. By time it became popular in the US it was quickly overshadowed by other options(CD-Rs and portable mp3 players). UMD was okay, but really proprietary. I never felt they were bulky, but I'm a girl that uses a big purse so it wasn't an issue for me. Personally I preferred the casing because I didn't have to worry about scratches as much. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were neck in neck. Putting it in the PS3 is what truly solidified its dominance. The format you missed was Betamax.
Frankly it was the entire 7th gen that was guilty of this. PS3 had Sixaxis/that other wiimote knockoff i forgot the name of, 360 had connect and of course the wii had its motion controls. Sony was probably the worst though with its misunderstanding of the american market, incredibly difficult to work with architecture and forcing something like sixaxis on top of hell to work with hardware.
Sony: "We didn't force them to use motion controls." Sony: Refuses to release non-motion patch. Sony: Doubles down on motion controls by releasing god awful guide for how to play with motion controls.
Man I can’t believe I used to be a PlayStation fanboy during the 7th gen. Sony butchered so many studios just like EA did (but like half a decade earlier) and made so many terrible decisions with the PS3. I remember subconsciously disliking so many of the games that released that generation that I simply dug out my PS2 and Wii (which was backwards-compatible with GameCube) and dedicated years to playing nothing but older previous-gen games. Hell, the only reason I would ever bother booting up my PS3 after that was to play some of those buggy, half-assed HD Collections that Sony shat out rapidly from 2010-2012. Sorry for the rant, I had to get that all off my chest.
I remember while playing saints row 2 and thinking “man the flying is shit” and then I realised the sixaxis motion control was turned on and it took me like several months to finally realise that 😂
Wait, we could've had Rogue Squadron games on Wii along with light saber duels using wii motion plus, the one thing everyone imagined themselves falling in love with after seeing the wii mote, and Lucas+Nintendo said NO?! Light saber + wii motion plus is all you needed and that would've sold a million copies alone based on just that!
Nintendo didn’t say no, Factor 5 did. They thought Nintendo’s push for motion controls would be their death knell. How they didn’t see the Wiimote/Lightsaber potential is beyond me.
Wow! This explains so many weird things about Lair. I can remember thinking, "how can you screw up a game about riding and fighting on dragons!?" Also it is very rare to hear a lead dev actually admit his own fault in the games failure, though to be fair Sony was very much in full swing pigheadedness when the PS3 got rolling. Theres mountains of dumb business behavior that came out of Sony during that generation. Also its funny how when the studio making the game isnt enthusiastic about it, it reflects in the over all tone of the game.
My homeboy got a ps3 and we both were so hyped about Lair. I remember going to his apartment and asking him how was it. "Here, try to play it." Was his reply. Yeah that 6 axis controllers killed it.
Nah, seems like it could've been pretty damn cool. Could've even been a game like Valkyria Chronicles, but with the whole "animals representing nations" kinda deal. I would've played that.
Damn, Animal Wars looks like it could be awesome. Cute anthropomorphic animals slaughtering each other in one of the most brutal wars in history would have been awesome and hilarious. Some of that concept art looks really cool
My college professor, Albert Chen, was one of the designers on this game. Pretty sure he hated or at least greatly disliked working on that game cause he would rarely talk about it, preferring to talk about the two Star Wars Rogue Squadron games he worked on. One of the few things I remember him saying about Lair was that, besides designing, he was also in charge of hiring more designers and getting them rapidly acclimated to the project with documentation he'd made.
"17:30 The Superman Returns Sequel movie never came out so the game obviously didn't ether" Tell that to SpyHunter No Where to Run's game based on The Rock movie that never came out
"What Happened?" Is quickly becoming one of my favourite series to watch on TH-cam. I've binged watch the playlist a few times already, it's enjoyable watching gaming fails!
In short: Napoleon sold the land on cheap for several reasons. 1) To quickly fund his war against the British 2) So he didn't have to worry about it during said war 3) He fully intended on coming back and re-conquering it after said war. Fortunately for us, he lost and was exiled for the final time.
Basically, Napoleon had the Midwest for strategic purposes. Haiti was involved, but then the Haitian revolution happened, making the strategy with owning the Midwest go away, so he sold it to the US to cut his losses.
That one's all Sega's fault. The devs presented this fantastic demo for Sonic running on Crytek and Sega said "put it on the WiiU because we had a deal with Nintendo." Despite the fact that Crytek's engine wasn't built for the system.
Man, SEGA really did Big Red Button dirty. I doubt that the game would have been amazing, but I imagine it would have been passable and unremarkable, vs the infamous mess we got. Funnily, out of everything that the Sonic Boom sub-franchise made, the TV show was actually the best thing. It was pretty good for a licensed kids show.
It's the worst when marketing has so much say in how games are developed, then those decisions become the reason they fail. See also, Fuse by insomniac games.
The fact that Sony not only survived the PS3 launch, but somehow turned it around by the end AND spent this generation way ahead of everyone else is nothing short of a work of god.
Not really, sure the PS3 launch was a disaster, and gave Xbox a lot of market share, but we are still talking about PlayStation. They will have to make several mistakes to sink the brand's popularity, the previous consoles were super succesful after all. In this generation, Xbox wasn't very appealing to gamers and Nintendo failed to appeal the casual crowd from the Wii, Sony had it easier than the previous gen.
@Nathan-DTS thays what you think and its fine im not a big exclusive guy like there's a few i like but as of now nothing to make me buy another console for
Love the series. Have you ever considered doing a "flipped" version of What Happened where you cover things like unlikely success stories and against all odds type scenarios that came out on top? That would be great to see!
The biggest irony of it all is that Factor 5 avoided the Wii to not have to deal with motion control, and Sony ended up wanting to promote "if possible" the Sixaxis. I feel bad for them.
17:18 Kid Icarus: Uprising is one of my favorite games. I have no idea what would have happened if, instead of Masahiro Sakurai and his team working on Uprising, Factor 5's offer to revive the series was accepted instead.
The concept was cool (Rogue Squadron with Dragons Riders), but everything else was pretty damn uninspired. I would love a series where dragon rider knights fight against a Magitek Empire...but this game was not it.
This was one of the most painful episodes to watch. So many missteps that, if they were avoided, could've changed gaming history for the better in so many ways.
I think my favorite part of this is when sony denied forcing the sixaxis stuff on the lair group saying that "It is something that should be decided by the developer in tune with their creative vision for the game" but had forced them down a set piece level based game when the developers... vision was open world.
I'll say it, I really enjoyed this game, even pre patch. I wont deny that it has issues, but the concept, massive scope, often gorgeous visuals, incredible music, and that you're flying freaking dragons really helped me look past most of its flaws enough.
Even the developers themselves knew the motion controls were shit, but the marketing team's response was essentially the equivalent of telling reviewers "no, the motion controls are good actually, you're just too stupid to use them properly."
The use of Crash Bandicoot 3's castle level tracks and Stewart Copeland's Spyro the Dragon Wizard Peak track is (Chef's Kiss). As someone who kept changing the sixaxis controls to quicktime events in option menus, Lair killed any intrest I had in 2006... Was so glad it died within a 3 years.
@@SirBlackReeds You see, I believe this has to do with Marvel's CEO, Ike Perlmutter demanding that the Fantastic Four and the X-Men wouldn't appear on any type of Marvel related media. Y'know, movies, games and so on. A nice search regarding the game's troubled development would help you explain the bigger picture of the game.
I remember playing this game. And despite fighting with the motion controls, I managed to master them and even enjoy it. What grinded my gears, though, were the escort missions. There were... so many.
6:03 That sounds awesome! Honestly, doing this just playing as the dragon without the rider sounds very close to my dream game! (Sony demands changes) .... WHY?!?!
I rented Lair when it first came out and despite the wonky controls, I still enjoyed it. I only remember one or 2 frustrating levels with the controls. Maybe it was just the graphics, but 16 year old me was pretty amazed.
The Little Nemo movie would be a pretty good fit for this channel. It had many famous people like Hayao Miyazaki, George Lucas, and Richard Williams attached to it at some point (who describe the development as hell) and its massive flop had lingering effects on TMS for decades.
@Wet Johnny I won't argue that the script itself is bad, but I think the characters sell the movie. At least the first movie. We don't talk about the second movie.
I remember that. Kind of reminded me of Panzer Dragoon. Too bad it got canned, because it looked pretty fun and i'd love to see a spiritual successor to Panzer Dragoon. Or even a full-on remake of PD Saga since apparently, all the assets were lost. I'd love to see that game remade on PS4 or something. But at least we got Nier: Automata. Which turned out to be one of the best games I have ever had the pleasure of playing both in gameplay and story. So it wasn't a total loss.
the unfortunate thing about lair is that it really wasn't all that bad! With the patch, the gameplay was pretty fun, the story was serviceable and the world the game built around the dragons and the war was really cool. it was a bit short and could use some of the cut features but it's a real shame circumstances put the devs where it did.
Sony pushing motion controls is just like them pushing touch screen and rear touch pad controls on the ps vita for all their launch games. All those games are barely playable because of that.
Ideas for future episodes: Final Fantasy XIII Final Fantasy XIV (1.0) Final Fantasy XV (Kind of interesting that the last 3 FF titles all had troubled development cycles) Ultima VIII and IX Metal Gear Solid 5
Man this is depressing. Rogue Squadron was one of my favorite series. I loved being able to fly X-Wings along side a bunch of your ai teammates. I would give anything for a reboot or a hd remake of those games. It's the same reason why I still play Empire at War.
I totally forgot about that Kid Icarus thing. I wonder how the series would be if that actually went through. Also curious how the people who pitched that feel about Uprising.
Judging by it coming out in 2006, I look to the gritty reboot of Sonic the Hedgehog that came out in the same year. We should be thankful that Kid Icarus game was cancelled because it would've been a total angst fest for the Hot Topic crowd. It would be seen as on par with Duke Nukem Forever, Golden Axe: Beast Rider, or the 2005 remake of Altered Beast for the PS2. As in a failed attempt to bring back a long-dormant franchise that failed miserably that kills the franchise once and for all.
One detail I remember from the Unseen64 video on the Factor 5 Kid Icarus was that (IIRC, it's been a while since I seen the video) when the Brawl Pit redesign was revealed and Nintendo requested that Factor 5 used it, they obeyed only as far as using it for the prologue before a timeskip happens and Pit receives the Factor5 redesign. Might just be me, but that seems like a genuinely salty move from the devs in my eyes.
You ever consider doing a Wha Happun compilation episode for games that *almost* existed? The original Fallout 3, Project 1313, stuff like that? Could be a good addition imo!
I'm from northern California we always pronounce San Rafael San Refel that was a trip to hear it pronounced that way you said it all correct and proper lol
Oh Jesus, that episode would be a documentary length video. Can't talk Justice League without covering a bit of Avengers + Man of Steel (which originally wasn't supposed to be a launch for a DCEU. Instead it'd be followed up by Man of Steel 2) and covering A LOT of Batman v Superman.
Great video. So that's Silicon Knights AND Factor 5 who came to a sticky end after leaving Nintendo in the early 2000s... Any plans to cover the demise of Rareware?
They should have just focused on Animal Wars. That could have been the an huge IP that could have took off, mabye even implement the Motion Controls as a optional aiming helper, but that was so sad how nothing came from it. Hopefully someone picks up the pieces from the idea.
I like how at least in this case people admitted to being in the wrong, and there are sparks of good humans. Like the kid, that was dope. Loved the video as always!
This is really sad for me man. I was one of the people that got this on launch. I was suuuuper into the idea, and actually got used to the Dualshock controls. It's not my favorite game, but I definitely remember it fondly. One day, I'd love to see something like it's vision be made real
Would definitely love to see that, too! Although, there's already plenty of public statements, resources, and videos documenting what happened to that already. Some of which was published by SE themselves under the current FFXIV team! For those who may not already know: the project primarily suffered from mismanagement and misappropriation of time and computing resources. If I recall correctly, in the current FFXIV director and producer's Famitsu column, "Yoshida Uncensored," he stated that back then SE was known for making games with high visual fidelity. As such, there was pressure to make FFXIV 1.0 as graphically intense as all of their *single player* titles at the time. That ended up causing the game to chug on anything less than a $1000~$2000 computer, and ultimately caused them to break their promise of launching 1.0 on PS3. An example of their mismanaged resources is the infamous "flower planter" asset, which was a 3D model of a barrel full of flowers that had more polygons than the current character models in the game. Likewise, the GUI was borderline unusable, and ironically could only be practically navigated using a controller. NoClip has a pretty good, and quite popular 3-part documentary on FFXIV. The first part covers 1.0, and is definitely worth a watch. Likewise, the aforementioned "Yoshida Uncensored" compilation is very interesting, in which the current director and producer, Naoki Yoshida, candidly talks about the events leading up to FFXIV: A Realm Reborn.
And all it would've taken was one patch release to move it from abominable to salvageable, which would've been more than enough. The hubris of Sony to say "nah, we're not fixing the problem - we're gonna teacher the reviewers how to work around it" is fucking insane.
Factor 5: *Didn't want to work with Nintendo because of Wii motion controls, thinking gimmicks instead of graphics would spell doom for both of them, so goes with Sony instead* Sony: "Hey, can you guys implement motion controls into this game? K thx" Also love how Sony threw F5 under the bus and then abandoned them when the game failed because they refused to let F5 release the patch day one. Absolute scummy bullshit
Not even gonna lie, I enjoyed the game when I first got my ps3. Literally all it took was the fact that I controlled a dragon that could be death from above and a terror on land. The controls threw me off for a bit, but I was a kid who just wanted to wreck shit as a dragon: I didn't mind, and eventually got it down to a science. Even went through the trouble of unlocking everything and getting the best rank per level. It's a damn shame how this all went down.... Makes me real sad.
It still shits me how many of these stories seem to hinge on dev-kits not being given to studios. _"Build a game for our hardware."_ "Okay. Can we get the one thing that gives us an accurate impression of how your hardware performs and how to fit our work into it?" _"Hmmm... Nah."_
this video is the only What Happened that actually upsets me... I feel GENUINELY bad for Factor 5! they had such a good backlog and got screwed so hard.
Anyone who played heavenly sword and had to suffer through controlling the arrows via 6 axis would know for a fact, 6 axis was mandatory. 6axis felt like crap.
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That Patch thing screams that the sixaxis controller was heavily pushed on them by Sony....
If I had to guess, the Sixaxis thing wasn't officially mandated, but "heavily suggested" to the extent that it might as well have been a mandate.
Yeup. “It was always their CHOICE... we just would have punished them if they didn’t choose how we wanted them to.”
Corporate-speak.
That's basically what it sounded like, yeah.
LordQuadros sounds about right
And only short enough of a straight order for it to not be worth much in court.
After what happened to Stadia's developers on February 5th, 2021, mere days after Phil Harrison sent a positive e-mail about their bright, creative future, I don't believe a damn thing he said about Six Axis not being mandatory.
The Factor 5 CEO blaming himself for Lair's failure is warranted, but after heaeing how Sony pushed out the Six Axis at all costs against Factor 5's desperate wishes and wise warnings, I blame Harrison.
And given how Phil Harrison fucked up Xbox One's launch as well, on top of Stadia, one can't help but wonder: how does this dude keep getting work?
Funny how they ran away from Nintendo's motion controls, only to end up forced to use Sony's motion controls.
Kowkarot Atleast Nintendo’s worked.
They weren't running from the motion controls so much as the low specs for the Wii.
@@GeneralBolas
Fun fact: Factor 5 designed the Cube. So the Wii is like double the child of Factor 5.
I was thinking the same thing
@@Walt_Xander94 The motion controls for most games basically boiled down to "shake the remote," "point the remote at the screen," or "swipe the controller in a specific direction."
You honestly played most games using the face buttons + analog stick moreso than the motion controls.
Marc Wilhelm was my professor briefly and I asked him what happened with LAIR and he got sad and said something like "The director insisted on making the FOV go down when the dragon was picking up speed to "give the impression they were going faster"
He also voiced Kano in French MK9, worked at Crystal Dynamics, and literally never stopped wearing punk band shirts.
I'd also like to point out that this design choice literally makes turning motion sickness inducing.
Director insisted on that +lurching the camera angle on every turn to make things "cinematic"
Meaning that essentially every player would want to vomit when doing the main action in the game, going fast and lurching a dragon around the screen like it refused to stay in the center.
This reminds me that I used to get really sick while I was playing half-life 2 for some reason, so it was probably the fov.
"and felt the open world concept was a bit risky and ambitious"
What a different world the game industry was back then. Nowadays, open worlds are all the rage.
@@thepassingstatic6268 Nah back then only MMOs did the live service thing.
It's almost like the tech allowed that to happen.
@@Web720 GTA3 was on PS2 my dude.
Didn’t Sony also pressure quantic dream into integrating PlayStation move into heavy rain and that’s why there’s only one dlc for heavy rain even though 4 were planned. So Sony has a history of pushing experimental tech onto their developers at the cost of quality.
Dude, that's Sony's whole MO when it comes to hardware. Look at MiniDisc or UMD. I am STUNNED Blu-Ray became as big as it did, because that just looked like a lumbering behemoth when DVD seemed more affordable.
@@onometre nah, blu-ray ultimately showed itself as the better format. HD DVD would've had a chance if it was a part of X360 from the start.
@@JamesOhGoodie BluRay makes sense but I hated umds they were too bulky
@@JamesOhGoodie MiniDisc was very popular in Japan, but it made sense there. By time it became popular in the US it was quickly overshadowed by other options(CD-Rs and portable mp3 players). UMD was okay, but really proprietary. I never felt they were bulky, but I'm a girl that uses a big purse so it wasn't an issue for me. Personally I preferred the casing because I didn't have to worry about scratches as much. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were neck in neck. Putting it in the PS3 is what truly solidified its dominance. The format you missed was Betamax.
Frankly it was the entire 7th gen that was guilty of this. PS3 had Sixaxis/that other wiimote knockoff i forgot the name of, 360 had connect and of course the wii had its motion controls. Sony was probably the worst though with its misunderstanding of the american market, incredibly difficult to work with architecture and forcing something like sixaxis on top of hell to work with hardware.
Wow, this might be the most depressing episode yet! Thanks, LucasArts!!
At least they admitted it
Too many cooks in the kitchen.
Sony: "We didn't force them to use motion controls."
Sony: Refuses to release non-motion patch.
Sony: Doubles down on motion controls by releasing god awful guide for how to play with motion controls.
Man I can’t believe I used to be a PlayStation fanboy during the 7th gen. Sony butchered so many studios just like EA did (but like half a decade earlier) and made so many terrible decisions with the PS3. I remember subconsciously disliking so many of the games that released that generation that I simply dug out my PS2 and Wii (which was backwards-compatible with GameCube) and dedicated years to playing nothing but older previous-gen games. Hell, the only reason I would ever bother booting up my PS3 after that was to play some of those buggy, half-assed HD Collections that Sony shat out rapidly from 2010-2012.
Sorry for the rant, I had to get that all off my chest.
I remember while playing saints row 2 and thinking “man the flying is shit” and then I realised the sixaxis motion control was turned on and it took me like several months to finally realise that 😂
One side of the story. They sounded generally incompetent on the ps3
Wait, we could've had Rogue Squadron games on Wii along with light saber duels using wii motion plus, the one thing everyone imagined themselves falling in love with after seeing the wii mote, and Lucas+Nintendo said NO?! Light saber + wii motion plus is all you needed and that would've sold a million copies alone based on just that!
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii for you..... PROBLEM SOLVED.
Nintendo didn’t say no, Factor 5 did. They thought Nintendo’s push for motion controls would be their death knell. How they didn’t see the Wiimote/Lightsaber potential is beyond me.
@@nameless-user How to prove you didn't watch the entire video without saying that you didn't watch the entire video.
Hindsight is 20/20 summarizes this comment section
At least we got to 🎶 *_RIDE SOLO, LIKE HAN SOLO, YOU'RE HAN SOLO, I'M HAN SOLO, SOLOOOOOO~_* 🎶
Wow! This explains so many weird things about Lair. I can remember thinking, "how can you screw up a game about riding and fighting on dragons!?" Also it is very rare to hear a lead dev actually admit his own fault in the games failure, though to be fair Sony was very much in full swing pigheadedness when the PS3 got rolling. Theres mountains of dumb business behavior that came out of Sony during that generation.
Also its funny how when the studio making the game isnt enthusiastic about it, it reflects in the over all tone of the game.
My homeboy got a ps3 and we both were so hyped about Lair. I remember going to his apartment and asking him how was it. "Here, try to play it." Was his reply. Yeah that 6 axis controllers killed it.
Is anyone else disappointed that Animal Wars never became a thing? Just me?
Nah, seems like it could've been pretty damn cool. Could've even been a game like Valkyria Chronicles, but with the whole "animals representing nations" kinda deal. I would've played that.
Ye me to. Cute animal waging cruel war against each other is has very different polarising aspect that might be cool
Not just you. It sounded like a really cool concept.
@@slyfurgospel2749 There's always Armello, should scratch that itch fairly well.
It looked cool. Sony come accross as being little bitches this whole video. Refusing a cool religious angle cos it was too 'controversial' too
When's Drake and his 99 fuckups gonna get his due?
after 98 what happened's
Somebody else kinda already covered it tho aint it?
@@chafacorpTV Yes it was Projared, but he covered mainly the gameplay and how shitty it was. And well we know what happened to him...
I got 99 Dragons but my Drake ain't one
Hey, Drake may have had 99 fuck ups, but Projareds 1 will trump all of em.
Damn, Animal Wars looks like it could be awesome. Cute anthropomorphic animals slaughtering each other in one of the most brutal wars in history would have been awesome and hilarious. Some of that concept art looks really cool
someone needs to pick it up
Fugue on the battlefield could end up being similar enough, just with an anime art style.
Animal wars idea made me think of Hogs of war. I loved Hogs of war, so it's too bad that animal wars was never made.
The closest we got were Tooth and Tail, Stories: Path of Destinies, and Fuga: Melodies of Steel.
Just play the WW2 stage of Conkers Bad Fur Day lol
I'm not used to developer studio heads owning up to their mistakes!
I knew that if I believed hard enough Lair would get a video.
Same here. It made sense that this would happen one day. Can’t wait to watch the rest!
I wish I wish with all my heart, about a video of dragons that fell apart
I can finally rest in peace now.
My college professor, Albert Chen, was one of the designers on this game. Pretty sure he hated or at least greatly disliked working on that game cause he would rarely talk about it, preferring to talk about the two Star Wars Rogue Squadron games he worked on. One of the few things I remember him saying about Lair was that, besides designing, he was also in charge of hiring more designers and getting them rapidly acclimated to the project with documentation he'd made.
"17:30 The Superman Returns Sequel movie never came out so the game obviously didn't ether"
Tell that to SpyHunter No Where to Run's game based on The Rock movie that never came out
@nicholascooney MAIN yeah
"What Happened?" Is quickly becoming one of my favourite series to watch on TH-cam. I've binged watch the playlist a few times already, it's enjoyable watching gaming fails!
wha happun: the Louisiana Purchase
one of these days I'm gonna learn what the heck went down there
Considering we bought that land, technically, illegally, it would make an interesting Wha Happun
Wheres Pamperchu you shit?
In short: Napoleon sold the land on cheap for several reasons.
1) To quickly fund his war against the British
2) So he didn't have to worry about it during said war
3) He fully intended on coming back and re-conquering it after said war. Fortunately for us, he lost and was exiled for the final time.
Nice arm where did you get it the things that dont exist store consider yourself blocked have fun in hell disliked
Basically, Napoleon had the Midwest for strategic purposes. Haiti was involved, but then the Haitian revolution happened, making the strategy with owning the Midwest go away, so he sold it to the US to cut his losses.
Every story begins with a phrase: “We didn’t get the dev kits so we had to estimate the hardware...”
Wha Happun: Rise of Lyric. We need to see more of Sonic's descent into the dank Pthumerian depths.
That one's all Sega's fault. The devs presented this fantastic demo for Sonic running on Crytek and Sega said "put it on the WiiU because we had a deal with Nintendo." Despite the fact that Crytek's engine wasn't built for the system.
It can literally just be a that video from Game Grumps where Barry breaks down the flaws frame by frame in the OPENING CUTSCENE!
Man, SEGA really did Big Red Button dirty. I doubt that the game would have been amazing, but I imagine it would have been passable and unremarkable, vs the infamous mess we got.
Funnily, out of everything that the Sonic Boom sub-franchise made, the TV show was actually the best thing. It was pretty good for a licensed kids show.
It's the worst when marketing has so much say in how games are developed, then those decisions become the reason they fail.
See also, Fuse by insomniac games.
The fact that Sony not only survived the PS3 launch, but somehow turned it around by the end AND spent this generation way ahead of everyone else is nothing short of a work of god.
Not really, sure the PS3 launch was a disaster, and gave Xbox a lot of market share, but we are still talking about PlayStation. They will have to make several mistakes to sink the brand's popularity, the previous consoles were super succesful after all.
In this generation, Xbox wasn't very appealing to gamers and Nintendo failed to appeal the casual crowd from the Wii, Sony had it easier than the previous gen.
@Nathan-DTS even as a xbox user the old ceo really did fuck this gen up the new ceo guy really bought it back from the grave with all stuff he added
@Nathan-DTS thays what you think and its fine im not a big exclusive guy like there's a few i like but as of now nothing to make me buy another console for
@Nathan-DTS working on it
@@Overload151 it doesn't help that Nintendo never puts their games on sale
Love the series. Have you ever considered doing a "flipped" version of What Happened where you cover things like unlikely success stories and against all odds type scenarios that came out on top? That would be great to see!
Mario + Rabbid would be a perfect example.
The original idea for Lair sounded really cool. I'd have played that.
The biggest irony of it all is that Factor 5 avoided the Wii to not have to deal with motion control, and Sony ended up wanting to promote "if possible" the Sixaxis. I feel bad for them.
17:18 Kid Icarus: Uprising is one of my favorite games. I have no idea what would have happened if, instead of Masahiro Sakurai and his team working on Uprising, Factor 5's offer to revive the series was accepted instead.
I liked Lair, but it took waaaay to long to get used to the controls. And it needed more dragons!
Or when u try to whip foward and u do a 180 in the air. Or vice versa.
Meow
The concept was cool (Rogue Squadron with Dragons Riders), but everything else was pretty damn uninspired. I would love a series where dragon rider knights fight against a Magitek Empire...but this game was not it.
Lesson learned; If you are successful in developing exclusives for Nintendo platforms, don't leave them. Seems like that is a cursed move.
Silicon Knights and Rare say hello.
@@andrebrynkus2055 Exactly my thoughts
Sucker Punch would suggest otherwise.
This was one of the most painful episodes to watch. So many missteps that, if they were avoided, could've changed gaming history for the better in so many ways.
Factor 5: Let US patch the game
Sony: NOPE
Sony: let's gonna sale a Reviewer's guide !
the worst part is that, aside from being super gray and dreary, that gameplay and story actually looked really cool
I think my favorite part of this is when sony denied forcing the sixaxis stuff on the lair group saying that "It is something that should be decided by the developer in tune with their creative vision for the game" but had forced them down a set piece level based game when the developers... vision was open world.
I'll say it, I really enjoyed this game, even pre patch. I wont deny that it has issues, but the concept, massive scope, often gorgeous visuals, incredible music, and that you're flying freaking dragons really helped me look past most of its flaws enough.
Even the developers themselves knew the motion controls were shit, but the marketing team's response was essentially the equivalent of telling reviewers "no, the motion controls are good actually, you're just too stupid to use them properly."
i would love to see a What Happened to Advent Rising, a pretty obscure xbox sci fi game that tried to capitalize on the popularity of Halo.
And there was supposed to be like a contest for it right? With a $1 million prize that ended up cancelled.
Fucking loved that game. It was like Mass Effect combined with The Matrix.
I... I remember actually liking that game and sad there wasn't a sequel..
I didnt get very far in advent rising but i remember the beginning was really cool, I'd definitely buy a remaster
Factor 5: *makes a new engine for Lair*
Bethesda: SEE! CHANGING ENGINES MAKES YOU GO BANKRUPT!
Also Bethesda: Nothing wrong with our... Uh.... 10ish year old engine? Hey it keeps being updated so nothing can go wrong, right?
@@ArcturusOTE QUICK MEN MORE GLUE AND TAPE, OUR ENGINE IS BOTH FLOODING AND SMOLDERING AT THE SAME TIME! WHERE'S TODD?!
Todd: It just works.
The use of Crash Bandicoot 3's castle level tracks and Stewart Copeland's Spyro the Dragon Wizard Peak track is (Chef's Kiss).
As someone who kept changing the sixaxis controls to quicktime events in option menus, Lair killed any intrest I had in 2006... Was so glad it died within a 3 years.
It's pretty sad that this game killed off such a great studio.
Would love to see a Wha Happun episode regarding Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite!
Stumble has a really good video on it if you're curious.
th-cam.com/video/bRHtYvM7HuE/w-d-xo.html&
@@felman87 Yeah, I already saw that before.
@@SirBlackReeds You see, I believe this has to do with Marvel's CEO, Ike Perlmutter demanding that the Fantastic Four and the X-Men wouldn't appear on any type of Marvel related media. Y'know, movies, games and so on. A nice search regarding the game's troubled development would help you explain the bigger picture of the game.
@@SirBlackReeds Eh, not sure. I don't know much about him. But I think Ike's name was mentioned on Infinite's Trivia segment on TV Tropes.
Matt delivered. th-cam.com/video/Jk2WiXMNALk/w-d-xo.html
I remember playing this game. And despite fighting with the motion controls, I managed to master them and even enjoy it. What grinded my gears, though, were the escort missions. There were... so many.
6:03 That sounds awesome! Honestly, doing this just playing as the dragon without the rider sounds very close to my dream game!
(Sony demands changes)
.... WHY?!?!
Dark Phoenix was so shit it couldn't even win a poll on examining things that were shit.
I rented Lair when it first came out and despite the wonky controls, I still enjoyed it. I only remember one or 2 frustrating levels with the controls. Maybe it was just the graphics, but 16 year old me was pretty amazed.
A rogue squadron compilation for the Wii would be a godsend today
Could you do a video on Cats Don't Dance? It flopped hard, but it's a cult classic now. I heard it went through two studios.
Treasure Planet in that same vain.
The Little Nemo movie would be a pretty good fit for this channel. It had many famous people like Hayao Miyazaki, George Lucas, and Richard Williams attached to it at some point (who describe the development as hell) and its massive flop had lingering effects on TMS for decades.
@@CCBrown92 Just Disney in the 2000s would be a good Wha Happun.
@Wet Johnny I won't argue that the script itself is bad, but I think the characters sell the movie. At least the first movie. We don't talk about the second movie.
Man, I loved that movie.
Rewatching it I can't believe I never noticed it was as musical : /
You should do one about Scalebound! :)
I dunno, if rumors are to be believed it's story may not be done and it may get revived on the Switch.
@@brianz1574 I would be happy if that happened :)
@@kyotheman69 Yes because E3 demos are completely accurate renditions of a final product and there's zero room for improvement
@@brianz1574 literally not true, ips owned by microsoft
I remember that. Kind of reminded me of Panzer Dragoon. Too bad it got canned, because it looked pretty fun and i'd love to see a spiritual successor to Panzer Dragoon. Or even a full-on remake of PD Saga since apparently, all the assets were lost. I'd love to see that game remade on PS4 or something.
But at least we got Nier: Automata. Which turned out to be one of the best games I have ever had the pleasure of playing both in gameplay and story. So it wasn't a total loss.
I think the worst thing about this is how cool of an idea it was
This just makes me wanna play Rogue Leader again.
the unfortunate thing about lair is that it really wasn't all that bad! With the patch, the gameplay was pretty fun, the story was serviceable and the world the game built around the dragons and the war was really cool. it was a bit short and could use some of the cut features but it's a real shame circumstances put the devs where it did.
Looking at the concept art of Factor 5's take on Kid Icarus makes me wonder how much inspiration Sakurai took for Uprising.
I would really love to see a “What Happened?” on Blade: Trinity.
Sony pushing motion controls is just like them pushing touch screen and rear touch pad controls on the ps vita for all their launch games. All those games are barely playable because of that.
Man, that background music feels so nostalgic and nice, it seems so familiar...
Is it crash bandicoot or Spyro or something?
Ideas for future episodes:
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIV (1.0)
Final Fantasy XV
(Kind of interesting that the last 3 FF titles all had troubled development cycles)
Ultima VIII and IX
Metal Gear Solid 5
The original Dragon Knight concept sounded so cool. Animal Wars could have been amazing too.
Man this is depressing. Rogue Squadron was one of my favorite series. I loved being able to fly X-Wings along side a bunch of your ai teammates. I would give anything for a reboot or a hd remake of those games. It's the same reason why I still play Empire at War.
I totally forgot about that Kid Icarus thing.
I wonder how the series would be if that actually went through. Also curious how the people who pitched that feel about Uprising.
Judging by it coming out in 2006, I look to the gritty reboot of Sonic the Hedgehog that came out in the same year.
We should be thankful that Kid Icarus game was cancelled because it would've been a total angst fest for the Hot Topic crowd.
It would be seen as on par with Duke Nukem Forever, Golden Axe: Beast Rider, or the 2005 remake of Altered Beast for the PS2. As in a failed attempt to bring back a long-dormant franchise that failed miserably that kills the franchise once and for all.
One detail I remember from the Unseen64 video on the Factor 5 Kid Icarus was that (IIRC, it's been a while since I seen the video) when the Brawl Pit redesign was revealed and Nintendo requested that Factor 5 used it, they obeyed only as far as using it for the prologue before a timeskip happens and Pit receives the Factor5 redesign.
Might just be me, but that seems like a genuinely salty move from the devs in my eyes.
what happened: omikron
David Bowie, that's what happun
So developers can fall for overhyped tech as well.
Man, its almost like open world games became an industry standard. This game would have been so crazy as the original idea
You ever consider doing a Wha Happun compilation episode for games that *almost* existed? The original Fallout 3, Project 1313, stuff like that? Could be a good addition imo!
Wrath of Cortex and Spyro: Year of the Dragonfly both had rushed development times! They might be interested to research
I've heard the story of Factor 5 many times and it never stops being sad. They were such a good developer and it's tragic how they went down.
I hope you start doing old publishers that couldn't make it to 3d or HD era. Like acclaim or LJN
6:43 I love the inclusion of the Crash Bandicoot Warped medieval music. Nice touch.
I am weirdly mad about Animal Wars?? I did not expect at all to get this mad about Animal Wars!!!
I'm from northern California we always pronounce San Rafael San Refel that was a trip to hear it pronounced that way you said it all correct and proper lol
Whats sad is nowadays lair would be possible the original way open world religious factions and such
And it's be on Switch
You're cranking these out and I couldn't be more happy. Do more of this about movies!!! Justice League DCEU looks delicious.
Oh Jesus, that episode would be a documentary length video. Can't talk Justice League without covering a bit of Avengers + Man of Steel (which originally wasn't supposed to be a launch for a DCEU. Instead it'd be followed up by Man of Steel 2) and covering A LOT of Batman v Superman.
Anyone else hearing the crash bandicoot OST in the background😂
Ray Amukwaya That was my doing!
Great video.
So that's Silicon Knights AND Factor 5 who came to a sticky end after leaving Nintendo in the early 2000s...
Any plans to cover the demise of Rareware?
Loving the usage of Crash Bandicoot 3 and Rayman Legends music here.
i remember that gameplay trailer! makes me wish someone would pick this up and try to make it work
This game has one of the most amazing and simple ideas EVER and no one else has given it a try.
They should have just focused on Animal Wars. That could have been the an huge IP that could have took off, mabye even implement the Motion Controls as a optional aiming helper, but that was so sad how nothing came from it. Hopefully someone picks up the pieces from the idea.
Should've gone with Nintendo. That cancelled Animal Wars game could've made a badass Star Fox prequel.
It can be hard watching these videos sometimes... this is tragic on so many levels.
you showed footage of Marvel Versus Capcom Infinite ergo you must do a Wha' Happun on it!
Stumble has a really good video on it if you're curious.
th-cam.com/video/bRHtYvM7HuE/w-d-xo.html&
He delivered. th-cam.com/video/Jk2WiXMNALk/w-d-xo.html
I like how at least in this case people admitted to being in the wrong, and there are sparks of good humans. Like the kid, that was dope. Loved the video as always!
This is really sad for me man. I was one of the people that got this on launch. I was suuuuper into the idea, and actually got used to the Dualshock controls. It's not my favorite game, but I definitely remember it fondly. One day, I'd love to see something like it's vision be made real
suggestion for Wha Happun: Final Fantasy XIV 1.0
Would definitely love to see that, too! Although, there's already plenty of public statements, resources, and videos documenting what happened to that already. Some of which was published by SE themselves under the current FFXIV team!
For those who may not already know: the project primarily suffered from mismanagement and misappropriation of time and computing resources. If I recall correctly, in the current FFXIV director and producer's Famitsu column, "Yoshida Uncensored," he stated that back then SE was known for making games with high visual fidelity. As such, there was pressure to make FFXIV 1.0 as graphically intense as all of their *single player* titles at the time. That ended up causing the game to chug on anything less than a $1000~$2000 computer, and ultimately caused them to break their promise of launching 1.0 on PS3. An example of their mismanaged resources is the infamous "flower planter" asset, which was a 3D model of a barrel full of flowers that had more polygons than the current character models in the game. Likewise, the GUI was borderline unusable, and ironically could only be practically navigated using a controller.
NoClip has a pretty good, and quite popular 3-part documentary on FFXIV. The first part covers 1.0, and is definitely worth a watch. Likewise, the aforementioned "Yoshida Uncensored" compilation is very interesting, in which the current director and producer, Naoki Yoshida, candidly talks about the events leading up to FFXIV: A Realm Reborn.
The Rogue Squadron music in the background is something I love.
What did this studio do in a past life to possibly deserve such a spate of misfortune
"Damn, this Lair game is a steaming pile. Good thing we have Animal Wars, or we would be screeeeeeewed! ...What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
You know, if Sony had just let Lair be its own thing without as much meddling, Factor 5 probably could have survived this for a bit longer at least.
Thanks Matt for the memories with the Genji clip,I completely forgot about that series.Me and my uncle loves them.
And all it would've taken was one patch release to move it from abominable to salvageable, which would've been more than enough. The hubris of Sony to say "nah, we're not fixing the problem - we're gonna teacher the reviewers how to work around it" is fucking insane.
Factor 5: *Didn't want to work with Nintendo because of Wii motion controls, thinking gimmicks instead of graphics would spell doom for both of them, so goes with Sony instead*
Sony: "Hey, can you guys implement motion controls into this game? K thx"
Also love how Sony threw F5 under the bus and then abandoned them when the game failed because they refused to let F5 release the patch day one. Absolute scummy bullshit
Love this series. Keep up the great work, Matt
Can't believe you didn't even mention the absolutely amazing soundtrack
Not really applicable to the story being told.
@@MattMcMuscles Fair enough I guess, I just wish more people knew about it
Dude a rouge compilation for the Wii could have been legendary
Not even gonna lie, I enjoyed the game when I first got my ps3. Literally all it took was the fact that I controlled a dragon that could be death from above and a terror on land. The controls threw me off for a bit, but I was a kid who just wanted to wreck shit as a dragon: I didn't mind, and eventually got it down to a science. Even went through the trouble of unlocking everything and getting the best rank per level.
It's a damn shame how this all went down.... Makes me real sad.
Was binge watching all of your What happened vids last night and this morning so great timing for this to come out.
It still shits me how many of these stories seem to hinge on dev-kits not being given to studios.
_"Build a game for our hardware."_
"Okay. Can we get the one thing that gives us an accurate impression of how your hardware performs and how to fit our work into it?"
_"Hmmm... Nah."_
this video is the only What Happened that actually upsets me... I feel GENUINELY bad for Factor 5! they had such a good backlog and got screwed so hard.
Anyone who played heavenly sword and had to suffer through controlling the arrows via 6 axis would know for a fact, 6 axis was mandatory.
6axis felt like crap.