Lair Review
Dragons make better pets than monkeys.
Posted by Chris Buffa on Thursday, August 30, 2007
Developer Factor 5, the developer behind the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron video games, ditches X-Wings for dragons in Lair, Sony's latest PlayStation 3 adventure. In the game, you play as Rohn, a warrior that must defend the Asylian civilization from the evil Mokai. Leaping onto the back of a powerful dragon, Rohn and his pet set out to annihilate his foes, torching them with fire and tearing them to shreds. It certainly looks pretty, and the quality motion controls make the game stand out, but repetitive missions and choppy animation demote Lair to rental status.
Like most PS3 games, Lair enhances one's entertainment system. The developers did a wonderful job bringing this fantasy world to life, creating beautiful dragons, rolling mountains, wondrous kingdoms and plenty of enemies that clog the screen, both on the ground and in the air. Being able to battle in the sky and then land to devour hordes of foot soldiers looks amazing, as does the wave effects after a ship explodes. If you have a 1080p-enabled HDTV, you'll love the eye candy.
Lair's 7.1 surround sound also shines, particularly because of its epic soundtrack. Composed by John Debney (whose previous works include Sin City and The Passion of the Christ), the music consists of adrenaline charged battle music that perfectly captures the game's dark, violent tone.
Even the gameplay has its moments, with you controlling the dragon with the motion sensitive SIXAXIS controller, tilting it left and right to steer, flicking it upwards to perform a quick turn and ramming enemies by jerking the controller in the desired direction. It takes a little while getting used to, as the impulse to maneuver with the left analog stick is hard to avoid, but everything works better than we expected.
What we did not expect is the choppy frame rate. At times, Lair cannot handle the action on screen and slows down to an ugly pace that ruins its visual presentation. The story does equal damage, a stereotypical yarn about a civilization under attack and the only man that can save it. Its lack of memorable characters and cornball voice acting don't help matters.
Repetitive missions further damage the experience. The developers do a nice job throwing different enemies at you, thus keeping things fresh, but we quickly grew tired of saving supply ships, destroying catapults and even worse, battling without checkpoints. In one mission, we died after an exhaustive fifteen minutes and then cursed when the game forced us to replay through everything. Hey, we love a good challenge, but we dislike repeatedly wading through the same content.
Considering the huge hype behind this game as well as Factor 5's previous efforts, Lair falls short of expectations. We just couldn't get into it, despite the slick controls and dragon combat. If you have tremendous patience and want to see the SIXAXIS in action, it makes for a solid rental.
