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Rating : 7.8 / 10 Developer : FACTOR 5 Availability : Playstation 3 |
Lair is one of the few games on the Playstation 3 that play in 1080p and make real use of the sixaxis.
You play as Rohan who is a Sky Guard defending his Asylian race from the Mokai. He is loyal and committed to his duty but later finds himself struggling with morals and ethics.
Factor 5 has implemented a system where distant objects will contain less detail and as you fly closer, details will progressively become clearer and more detailed. At 1080p, you will find that structures, dragons, catapults, and the like all look beauty. But other things such as water, mountains, ground, and some enemy units lack this beauty.
But in the heat of battle, a thing like this isn’t noticed as much. It’s only during cut scenes or when you take time off you notice it and some of them are completely awful.
During movie sequences however, Lair just looks great.
One issue is that the battles are large scale, and a lot of the times, you will notice slight slowdowns in frames, but this doesn’t affect the overall gameplay too much.
As always, graphics isn’t everything and sound always plays a large role. Explosions, water, roars, and cries of agony are all part of war. Music plays a large role in Lair as the music is very ancient and mythical, but upbeat and war driven. Without the music, Lair becomes an empty cry of fury.
Voices are done very well but at times, they are out of expression and sound very bland.
Your battles against other enemies will range from tearing up units, taking down structures, and fighting against other dragons.
While fighting with dragons, you can blast them out of the sky or get in close and scratch or bite them to death.
During your fights, there will be times when you need to make use of the controller by shaking it up and down to tear things, or moving side to side to ram into other dragons.
As mentioned, Lair makes use of the sixaxis to control your dragon during flight. Your dragon will fly up, down, left or right as you tilt the controller accordingly. By pulling the controller back like you would on a horse, the dragon will do a quick 180 degree turn. Push it down and you will swoop in.
Whilst on ground, humans will attack in large groups against each other and although there is a lot down there, not much happens. All the action is in the sky and the joy you get from killing ground units is health replenishment, slow motion slaughter, and cries of pain.
Though Lair looks great most of the time and sounds great, you will be frustrated more often than celebrating your victory.
Doing quick turns or swoops don’t work very well on the controller. You’ll get it working half the time and the other half it won’t work, leaving you to wonder why it isn’t working because you’re doing it right.
You can lock onto dragons so that your fireballs will be shot at them, but this distorts your camera view and when you’re out of lock, it distorts where you’re going and most of the time the camera goes haywire for a second.
Both these issues, though seem harmless, in the face of battle, you really lose your chance for any attacks or to beat the clock to obtain better scores.
The story is different, but not very compelling. Graphically Lair will excite you most of the time as you breathe fire onto the enemy soldiers and watch them burn, and the music really drives you in. But it is only enjoyable if you can overlook the flaws.
Lair is good for showing off the Playstation 3 on what it is capable of as it is only the beginning of what the PS3 can do, but for general enjoyment, that will depend on whoever is playing it.
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