(andPOP) - ‘Lair is going to be awesome!’ That’s what I thought when I first popped this Fire breathing, ground shaking, claw slashing action title into the PS3. After playing for a little longer my thoughts changed to something more along the lines of, ‘hey, at least it’s different’. Once I began to play around with the controls and learning the mechanics of the game, my mentality turned to something a little less enthusiastic. ‘Turn this off, play something else, take the dog out for a walk’, these were a few of the thoughts that ran through my dragon ridden mind after a couple of hours with the inferno flyer.
It’s not that this game is particularly bad, but rather, I had such high hopes for this title that my disappointment turned to frustration shortly after starting the long path to returning order to Asylian life. Lair, situated in a mythical medieval environment sets you up as Rohn, a run of the mill Asylian dragon knight, defending your homeland against the offensive Mokai with malicious politics and plot twists along the way. A religion based war at one point the Mokai and Asylians lived in harmony until the great divide in which volcanoes began to erupt. Their single faith could not explain why this was happening and thus, new religions surfaced. The Asylians fled to the mountains to the South and based their society on education and culture while the Mokai fled to the North embracing power. The only thing these two societies now believed was that he who controlled the skies had dominion over the land.
The best thing this game has going for it is the remarkable visual experience that comes between actual game play. While watching these, you truly feel like the production value embedded in each scene is of movie quality and you get an accurate sense of what this world is about and why these soldiers sacrifice their lives for their home. Presented in 1080p, this title looks like one of the most impressive games on the market today. When gliding through the air, the ambient effects such as rain, wind blurs, glowing embers and ashes just take your breath away. The menu animations and level select screen are also quite amazing and crisp; if only the entire game were more like that.
Then the game actually begins and you forget about all the beauty you just witnessed. Before I tear into what annoyed me most about this title, I must first give dues to Lair for trying to make the most of the Sixaxis motion sensor controller. This is definitely an innovation on average Playstation control schemes and really changes things up; however, the inability to change the control layout or turn off the extremely hard and somewhat unresponsive motion sensor makes the game very frustrating to play, very quickly. To control your flaming friend you tilt the controller in the direction you wish to fly, then tilt it the opposite way to try and correct your overshoot and get back on course, then tilt it every which way after that to try and not crash into oncoming mountains and other big hard objects. There are a few combat mini games that can start at seemingly random times, dragon on dragon battles where you use the motion sensor to line up and attack the enemy with a combo of buttons to mash. Among these mini-events my favourite is the ability to pick up angry bull monsters and launch them into enemy dragon troops.
To top it off, the game drops you right into the fray of an ambush-fireballs and dragons flying every which way. While this is impressive, it is quite overwhelming as there is a very limited tutorial before you begin. After the chaos subsides, you may enter a tutorial map where you fly into floating rings to learn the lay of the land; with yellow text on a screen that is mostly covered with yellow mountains, your eyes may burn but afterwards, you’ll know (in theory) how to control your soaring beast.
The only real fun in terms of control comes when you get out of the air and walk the land with hundreds of enemy soldiers burning and screaming all around you. With very little slowdown you swipe and chomp and burn soulless spear wielding men with such pleasure that you may never want to fly again. Not to say there was no slowdown in the game at all; in one instance while battling a ferocious black dragon one on one, under a lumbering flying eel type monster called a Manta, there was such a wave of delay that by the time my dragon was moving again, it was falling to the earth engulfed in flames. In instances like these it seemed as though Lair was too much work for the powerhouse PS3 to handle.
As I said before, Lair did go all out with their production value. Presented in full THX sound, with the right audio setup you can hear the roar of dragons in the distance from an oncoming ambush, hundreds of screams being silenced with the swipe of a well sharpened claw, as well as the crash and boom of fireballs flying in every direction. One could close their eyes and enjoy the game for the amazingly crisp and detailed sounds alone. The music used in Lair feels very epic and goes perfectly with this type of game however, because of the larger-than-life feel, it gets a Star Wars kind of vibe to it.
Once you finally beat this game, will you want to play it again or even keep the Blu-Ray disc as a fond memory? There are extra features similar to what you might find on a DVD video such as behind the scenes videos, a soundtrack player, concept art, trailers, cheats and even a commentary track. When you first pop the disc in, a few videos are available to watch, but to unlock all the movies and commentary; you must accomplish a number of feats after completing the story. Also included in the game is an online network feature where players can follow their progress and score using a message board and leader board tracking system. Unfortunately no online play or multiplayer action is available in this title.
After all that has been said about Lair, this game IS epic; it will initially blow you away and at times it looks and sounds amazing, it has a creative story and is quite unique in terms of control and mechanics. Lair may sound a bit clunky at times and with random slowdowns and poor model detail every now and then paired with the awkward and hard to use controls with no choice of altering your layout, this game could only seem entertaining if you can find a friend with enough skill to control the blazing beast, allowing you to sit back and enjoy the show. Lair is a game with amazing positive aspects paired with some horribly negative aspects. Definitely worth renting or borrowing from a friend-where you take it from there is your choice.
Graphics: 4.0 / 5.0
Gameplay 2.5 / 5.0
Sound 3.5 / 5.0
Replay value 2.5 / 5.0
