Lair
Score: 60% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment America Developer: Factor 5 Media: Blu-ray/1 Players: 1 Genre: Shooter/ Flight
Graphics & Sound: I really wanted Lair to be good. Not only is the PS3 in desperate need of a strong exclusive title, but I've long been a fan of Factor 5, the developers behind the Rogue Squadron series. The fact that the game features dragons and looks stunning only make it that much more exciting. But, then I played the game and well... read on. Giving Lair its due, it is a great looking game. It begins with the great looking dragons and ends with large armies and miles of draw distance. You can easily see everything on the horizon - that is, if you were able to stop and smell the roses for a few seconds. There's rarely a slow moment in Lair, so you really don't get that much of a chance to look at everything. Unfortunately, the frantic pacing and number of things happening on screen at once do result in a few framerate drops. While the visuals are impressive, the game's score is simply amazing. The symphonic music has an epic feel and is backed up by great voicework and storytelling.
Gameplay: The concept behind Lair is great; jump on the back of a dragon as you fight massive armies and other dragons. What would be any fantasy fan's dream soon becomes something else once you get into the game. The design behind each mission makes little sense and requires just as much watching things happen as making them happen. Lair is at its best when you are able to fly through missions and actually take an active part in them. However, the gameplay flow is constantly interrupted by cutscenes that do little to help the action along. For instance, early on you are charged with herding a group of mantas through a hostile area. Rather than simply having the mantas explode in-game, you instead have to watch a canned cutscene showing it explode. When you get close enough to another dragon, you will sometimes enter short, interactive cutscenes where both dragons fight it out in close-ranged combat. The sequences attempt to present an up-close, visceral mode of combat, but really just devolve into a meaningless button-mash sequence. These sequences will randomly pop up in some boss sequences as well. The scale of most of the boss battles is pretty impressive, especially when going up against monsters that dwarf your dragon. However, there isn't much strategy to the fights since you really just keep randomly shooting at the bosses until they click into an interactive cutscene. Then you are required to muddle through confusing button prompts and hope for the best. When it comes to actually telling a story, Lair does an excellent job. The game's back-story is engaging enough that you really want to delve deeper into the game and find out all you can while the between mission drama keeps you wanting to play the next mission just to see what happens. It's a shame that the gameplay doesn't back-up the story, making Lair the equivalent of that book you really want to read, but just can't seem to get into.
Difficulty: Getting a hang of the controls is your first major hurdle. During the first few missions, it doesn't seem like much of an issue, though as the missions become tougher you are required to use more maneuvers, leading to more complicated controls movements. Even some of the more basic maneuvers, which are fairly straightforward and easy to use, become troublesome when the action gets going. The controller has a hard time reading two movements at once, so in order to swoop down, you have to make two awkward motions rather than one fluid one. Mission layouts are fairly straightforward and are never overly challenging. At the same time, some missions become amazingly cumbersome and basically place you in the role of "Savior of the Battlefield." No matter how many other dragons or troops are on the field, you are the one who has to do everything - or at least it feels that way.
Game Mechanics: Much like the recently released Warhawk, Lair makes use of the SIXAXIS' motion-based system to control your dragon. Unlike Warhawk, however, Lair restricts you to only using the SIXAXIS, which wouldn't be such a bad thing if they actually worked better. On a more basic level, the controls aren't that bad. Performing simple actions like turning and pointing your dragon in the right direction are fairly easy to pull off once you get used to holding the controller parallel to the floor. Admittedly, it isn't the most comfortable or natural way to hold the controller, but it works. Problems begin to pop-up when performing anything other than a basic maneuver. The most problematic of moves is the 180 degree turn, which is supposed to be activated by pushing the controller forward, then jerking it back quickly. This move is only likely to work a quarter of the time since most of the time, you'll send your dragon surging forward - which is activated by pushing the controller forward. Control issues are compounded when trying to do anything else in the game. Targeting is all over the place; sometimes you'll target enemies with no problem, but at others you'll target someone else entirely - even if the target is right in front of you. Even worse, the targeting system will sometimes pick up on items towards the edge of the screen, sending the camera into an awkward tizzy. The thing about Lair is that a majority of its problems could have easily been fixed by making the tilt-controls optional rather than mandatory. However, this isn't an option and in the end, it holds back what would otherwise be a good game.
-Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker
The Wild West Instinct