Ambition is what drew me to Factor 5.

As a gamer I came to the studio's work a little late. I missed their Turrican days, their era of making games for the Super Nintendo and Genesis. I came upon them as an N64 gamer, spotting their logo at the intro to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. That 1999 shooter was one of the first games to utilize the N64's RAM expansion pack for improved graphics resolution. That was the first hint to me that Factor 5 was a studio interested in pushing technology.

The next game Factor 5 game I played — still before I had become a reporter — was the one that forever charmed me to the studio. It was Star Wars: Battle for Naboo, a new-Trilogy sequel to Rogue Squadron. A hidden feature is what won me over: stuffed into its N64 cart was audio developer commentary for each of the game's levels. I'd never heard such a thing before.

This was a studio of developers with whom I wanted to speak. And I would.

At the start of the GameCube era, in 2001, I was just beginning to cover games. I played Factor 5 GameCube launch title Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader as a novice reporter at my first E3. It is, to this day, among the best-looking games developed for a Nintendo platform. I don't remember talking to Factor 5's U.S. president Julian Eggebrecht then, nor for its 2003 sequel, Rebel Strike. But it was by that second GameCube game that I was writing a freebie column for IGN about the GameCube.

What I wrote about Rebel Strike highlighted the second defining characteristic of Factor 5 for me: they bit off mouthfuls at a time. Rebel Strike was not just a full new game. It housed the entirety of its predecessor, re-crafted for split-screen co-op. It contained not just audio commentary but making-of documentaries. But there were signs of rough edges: peculiar dips to black between gameplay and in-engine cutscenes; a group of on-foot side-scrolling levels that played poorly and curiously lacked audio commentary.

In 2006, I finally got paid for something I wrote about Factor 5. I was at MTV and covered the topic of developers using audio commentary. I referenced Factor 5 as a pioneer.

Factor 5 disappeared from my radar after that until I finally met Eggebrecht in person at a Sony event in 2006. He was showing, for the first of several times, the dragon-combat game Lair. He was a champion of PS3 motion control, a booster for the system's technical prowess and ambitious as ever. He wanted a game with air combat, ground combat, allusions to the ethics of modern war, hooks to the PS3's web browser, elaborate cutscenes and so much more. There were those two signatures of Factor 5 again, summed up in one word: ambition.

But Lair was rougher than Rebel Strike. Factor 5 barely attempted to hide this. In one of the more open displays of developer frustration with their own game, the studio included commentary in Lair that alluded to the game suffering from what was described as a curse of the dragon games, a problem that they said extended to personal problems among some of the staff. Following up in an e-mail, Eggebrecht said to me in 2007: "I am not a believer in ghosts, but this one was haunted."

Factor 5 faded away again, rumored over the next two years to have canceled its deal with Sony, possibly returned to working with Nintendo. Then came the news reported in Variety that Factor 5 was one of the studios suffering from having made a deal with the collapsed publisher Brash. I reached out to Eggebrecht again, who all but confirmed that the studio had been making a Superman adventure and expressing hope that the game would still come together.

"With that said," he wrote to me in November, "Things are obviously in flux and we hope that the game proves to be as indestructible as our hero…"

And then? Today's news. Factor 5 in the U.S. is no more. I've not heard back from Eggebrecht about this turn of events. The statement on the company's official website indicates that its German parent company still has projects coming.

There may be a future yet for Factor 5. There definitely was a past worth appreciating.

Rumors of the Lair developers closure surfaced in December of last year, following rumors that half of the staff had been let go. The rumors pointed towards the cancellation of their Superman project due to the failure of Brash Entertainment as a major factor in the layoffs and closing, which is backed up by the official statement appearing on the Factor 5 website today.

We are sorry to announce the closure of the San Rafael-based Factor 5 Inc. studio, but the obstacles created by the sudden bankruptcy of Brash Entertainment for the continuation of operations have turned out too great to overcome in the current economic climate.

Note that this development doesn't mean the end to the Factor 5 name. The statement continues:

Factor 5 GmbH, which has been creating games since 1998 with its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, is completely unrelated to Factor 5 Inc. and the circumstances surrounding Factor 5 Inc.'s recent challenges. Although we are saddened by Factor 5 Inc.'s situation, our corporation will remain unaffected by these developments and has partnered with both old and new friends in the industry who will reveal our upcoming projects over the next months.

In other words, that other company had problems, and the German branch of Factor 5 would like to put as much distance between those problems and it as humanly possible.

We extend our sympathy to those left jobless by the studio's closing, even if most of them have hopefully moved on to bigger and better things by now.

Factor 5 Website [Official Site]

Unseen 64, where games goes when they die, has concept screen shots and a brief video of the planned PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game, visuals dating back to when Factor 5 employees were still being paid. It looks good enough, but also looks about as finished as the Flash game that BottleRocket was working on for Brash before the publisher's collapse.

And Doomsday looks spectacular.

There's really not much to see here, outside of a few environment concepts and early visual direction. The game was due to ship sometime in 2010, following a formal announcement at E3 2008 (which never happened).

More screens and a brief pre-rendered concept at Unseen 64.

Superman (Factor 5) [X360/PS3 - Cancelled] [Unseen64 - thanks, Miklós!]

According to Edge's anonymous source, the alleged details of Factor 5's funding problems, as announced on an employee's personal blog, were spot on. Employees haven't had a paycheck since mid-October, the source said, adding that the animator who dished the dire details on Factor 5 has since left the company — and may even facing legal ramifications for making it's problems public.

Factor 5 was said to be seriously financially impacted by the folding of Brash Entertainment, which itself laid off staff in November.

Source: Factor 5 Cuts 37 [Edge]

Animator Sam Baker wrote on his personal blog, via 1UP, that after a brief leave of absence at another company, he'd returned to "find out no one at Factor 5 had been paid in a month.... and we weren't going to any time soon." Baker writes that the financial situation became more dire, with health benefits being cut.

And then? "Then things turned bad..." he wrote.

Baker writes that the project he and other Factor 5 employees were working on was put on hold, citing a lack of "proper funding."

He notes that the nixed project was already eight months into development. In March, the doomed Brash Entertainment announced it had signed on Factor 5 to do a licensed game due in 2010. Baker writes in a follow up post (he has since deleted the original post and all other entries from his blog) that "This does not mean that we've stopped production on [the Brash] game, or that it was ever even in trouble."

In his original post, Baker paints a very gloomy financial picture for Factor 5, writing that president Julian Eggebrecht "basically told us that if we didn't receive funding in 1 week, all of us should move on and look elsewhere for another job." His subsequent post reads like an attempt to retract some of that.

Factor 5's last game, Lair, was released in 2007 to a mostly negative response. It was rumored to be working on a Wii title and a game based on DC Comics' Superman.

We're reaching out to Factor 5 to try to learn more about the situation.

More Raining, More Pouring... [Blogspot via 1UP]

I played it and Holy shit; 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. I also mentioned Greg Miller's name, and the Factor 5 guys burned a hole through my skull with their looks of hatred. I think they'll be alright once the patch is out for a while though.

GDC 2008 Crazy Shit Report #1 [DugBuzz's IGN Blog - Via QJ.net]

2007 AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED BY INTL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION [Film Music Magazine]

If we find a chance in the future that would bring Lair to the audience which didn't get any access, that would be fantastic. I can't say anything quite yet, but there might be something in the works there. We might have a chance yet to bring those back to the table and hopefully, if that should happen, they would give the game a second chance.

So what is it, if it's not all that? Could it be that 3D Turrican update Eggebrecht hinted at to Gamasutra last Spring? With all those Turrican ratings popping up on the ESRB lately, we wouldn't be surprised. In fact, delighted might a good word.

Official: Factor 5 Back on Wii [IGN]

The Associated Press just published their worst of 2007 list for video games. The straight forward list includes Manhunt 2, Deal or No Deal and Lair along with some biting explanation:

1. "Manhunt 2": Rockstar Games' strategy — offend the watchdogs, reap the publicity, then sell a substandard product — reached its nadir with this ugly, unplayable mess. It begins with a lunatic flinging human waste at you; after about an hour, you'll want to fling "Manhunt 2."

4. "Lair": Sony lavished a lot of attention on this PlayStation 3 title, and it sure looks great. And who wouldn't want to fly a dragon? But with awkward, imprecise controls and lackluster, repetitive missions, "Lair" crashed and burned.

More interesting is their list of best sellers that still managed to annoy the big A. P. Among the list? The common-sense flouting, consumer-hurting feud between Guitar Hero and Rock Band controllers and the games Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Blue Dragon, Heavenly Sword and don't forget the unavailability of the Wii.

Week in Video-Game News [AP]

Factor 5 honcho Julian Eggebrecht must be exhausted from constantly "defending" his company's poorly received PLAYSTATION 3 title Lair and its hit-or-miss SIXAXIS controls. G4 caught up with the Dragon's Lair fanboy at Tokyo Game Show to get one more justification out of Mr. Eggebrecht whose game has been retitled Rise From Lair in Japan. I respect what Factor 5 was trying to do, but trying to target gamers who aren't hardcore with a PS3 game? Simply puzzling.

Hopefully more publishers will see the low cost and potentially huge benefit in offering their soundtracks on iTunes. Because while Kotaku can't speak for you, we'd love to hear the surprisingly haunting melodies of Pony Friends with the click of a button.

LAIR Score Now On iTunes! [via gamelife]

Wait. What? Seriously. What?

Mr Lair says: "Warhawk's controls are... eurgh!" [Games Radar]

If you connect you can get a lot of shader effects which would've been on the 360 or the PS3...it's got so much more power compared to the GameCube. If even with the extremely similar shader hardware, the system clockrate is so much higher, you can do so much more advanced things.

Hmmm I don't know, the hardware is very, very easy to understand. Now the problem might be -and it just might be- is that some studios -or some publishers specifically- are discarding the graphical capabilities automatically simply because it is a Wii title and they're basically telling the developers "look, we won't pay for any advanced graphics."

Factor 5's Julian Eggebrecht on Wii Graphics [flamewaradvance]

So hit the jump for our Frankenreview: the longest, most obnoxious review title you've ever heard. And find out why, aside from the questionable control scheme, most reviewers are hating on the game.

IGN
The dragon fights in this dragon game are no good...The takedowns — which have you fly up on a foe, jump onto the beast, kill the pilot and take out the dragon via some quick action events — are cool, but they seemed to be the minority. One of the more prevalent attacks had us flying side-by-side with a bad guy and shaking our controller left to right...The next battle method had our dragon and the opposing dragon face to face falling toward the ground...Sound cool? It wasn't, and that pretty much sums up Lair.

Yahoo Games
The reason to play Lair is the phenomenal graphics engine, which is able to display Lord of the Rings-size battles at 1080p resolution with a draw distance that goes on for ever. This is a stunningly lovely game to look at, especially when in the air...[but] some areas will chug down to a relatively slow frame rate, hampering the presentation. There are also issues like the invisible wall that bounds certain flight areas. Lair wants to present a massive world, and while it can do so visually, you won't be able to go just anywhere you like.

Variety
Unfortunately, the dragons in the game all look similar and blend into the mostly gray-and-brown backgrounds, making it hard to differentiate allies from enemies. The developers at Factor 5 tried to make up for that deficiency with optional "rage vision," which turns the world into black and white, with enemies highlighted in a red glow. But players have to keep a button pushed down to turn on "rage vision," making it an impractical option in the long run.

UGO
The Rogue Squadron games were something anyone could pick up and play and find immediate gratification with. The same can't be said for Lair. To be bold, I honestly believe Factor 5 has created the first detailed dragon flight simulation. Because of this fact, there is a learning curve that will prevent the easily turned off or fickle gamer from truly enjoying the sweet little gem Factor 5 has created.

Gamebrink
...the game tries to do most of the targeting for you. This would be fine if it worked but alas it doesn't. There are many times where you'll need to lock on to a certain target in a confined area only to have the computer lock on to something you're not facing screwing you over completely...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.
For so long we've questioned the integrity of Lair's motion controls. And many reviewers certainly had their "why no thumbstick" beefs. But I think Lair went wrong in their tedious targeting system, dull/confusing dragon to dragon battles and yeah, maybe a little bit, the imperfect advanced controls. But I still plan on picking up the game and giving it a go. Maybe it's because I still have hope that it's good. Maybe it's because I can't help but watch such an investment go up in flames.

Stephen Totilo has an interesting story up on Factor 5's struggle with Lair and how the developers thought it was cursed from the beginning nearly two years ago.

The curse started with the Lair trailer getting bumped from the initial PS3 announcement reel because it was too dark to see and continued...

That was the start of one catastrophe after the other — deaths in the family at the worst time [and] sudden surgeries for key members, which bounced the technology off-track. And just in general, every single time there was a crucial delivery, something bizarre went wrong — all the way to power outages when writing the master disks."

And Totilo points out that the dev team even talks about this curse on the game's commentary track, sort of proving that this isn't just spin for all of the negative reviews the game has been getting. The story is a must read for anyone interested in the saga behind the poorly reviewed game and the developers' reactions to the reactions.

Totilo summarizes his story on his Multiplayer page, adding a little bonus, a cheat code for Lair that when entered gives you a little Hot Coffee... literally. Yes, that's it up above.

'Lair' Struggles To Overcome Curse; Plus 'Guitar Hero' For Wii, 'Halo 3' & More, In GameFile [GameFile]

The folks at SCEA sent me this spiffy Lair-themed lighter along with my copy of the Playstation 3 game. Expect to see it hit a contest on the site in the near future.

Here's the video proof of Lair Remote Play for you non-believers out there. The major issue, as I mentioned before, is that you have no L2 or R2 buttons, so no braking in the game, which can make things a bit difficult at times, but the game is still very playable. I friggin love this. Lets hope this isn't something Sony will be "fixing" anytime soon.

As for the gameplay, it seems as smooth but the graphics by comparison are atrocious. I mean, playing this game on a big screen high-def TV with surround sound is spectacular, visually at least. Also, the lack of L2 and R2 buttons really causes issues. You can't, for instance, land. Which just plain sucks. Personally, I have not problem controlling the dragon with the motion controls, but if that's a big issue for you, then I'm sure you'd prefer this method because the controls are silky smooth. Of course the oodles of required motion attacks in the game make it impossible to play it this way without getting hung up.... a lot.

The key thing to remember here is that this could very well be a sign of things to come. Can you imagine being able to play any of your PS3 games on your PSP anywhere in the world? Sure it's graphically watered down and their may be some button mapping issues, but it's certainly worth it to carry the game around in your pocket.

The mounting buzz on the Playstation forums are true, you can play Lair on your PSP using Remote Play. Well, you can sorta play Lair on your PSP using Remote Play. Unfortunately the PSP does not have the R2 or L2 buttons, so you can't brake, but who needs to brake anyway. Sure it makes the end bosses and many of the levels a lot easier, but honestly, not that big a deal.

If you do want to do this make sure you play through the tutorial level first because unless you can brake it won't let you continue through the training and get to the meat of the game. Check back in a bit for our video of this in action on the PSP2K.

Lair Playable on your PSP [Playstation Forums, thanks to about half of the Kotaku readers who tipped us]