Just Towell, a gaming journalist from Future Publishing thinks he has the answers as to why the latest PS3 blockbusters such as Lair and Heavenly Sword failed to impress. However, while Lair was a complete 'disaster', Heavenly Sword received some good praise it must be said. Towell's argument is broken down into 4 main areas - 1) unfinished business 2) poor use of SIXAXIS 3) Combat and 4) hype. All in all he derives at the conclusion that Sony should only hype games if they deserve it, make sure there is strong gameplay evident and if SIXAXIS controls are a must then there should be an option to turn them off.

Quote:
4) Hype
The final lesson is simple. If you've got a promising game, be careful what you say about it. There's a lot to be said for releasing a carefully-managed drip-feed of new screens and videos instead of shouting 'AAA TITLE!' from the rooftops. If the games hadn't been hyped up so much in the first place, we wouldn't have been so disappointed. But as it is, everyone's feeling dejected. Especially this guy:

"There have even been positive impressions at several game conferences for this beast and yet the final release is one of the largest steaming piles I’ve ever had to endure. After failing many of the missions an insane amount of times I headed to the bathroom for some relief only to realize that my latest bowel movement was more fun than the 'game' I had been playing." - Gamebrink on Lair.

Conclusion:

So what have we learned? Be careful what you say, take your time and make sure gameplay is the primary element of any game. And if you really must incorporate Sixaxis controls...

...make sure there's an option to switch them off.