Lair

As is the case with most stories of epic quality, nothing is really what it seems, and for a dragon rider named Rohn, not knowing the whole story can create startling points of discovery as well as moments when you question the orders of superiors.

That is not necessarily a good thing when your country is at war.

Lair is a PlayStation 3 title from Factor 5 and Sony Computer Entertainment America and is a sweeping vision that parlays not only devastating ground attacks with aerial combat that would do titles like (Star Wars) Rogue Squadron proud. There are moments when the vision created by the developers is truly awe-inspiring, though reminiscent of the scope of Shadow of the Colossus. If you can imagine a flying serpent more than a mile long, floating gently over the landscape, you will understand the reference.

The story of Lair is one where a natural disaster has brought out the worst in the land’s inhabitants. The world was once peaceful, united in theology. But nature undid all that when volcanoes began to spew forth deadly magma, threatening the lands of the Mokai. The Asylian civilization was protected from the lava flows by mountain ranges, spurring the Mokai – a culture ripped by new theologies that centered on the natural disaster – to envy and war. With the lands below mountainous, it was commonly thought that the group that controlled the skies would control the world. The Asylians were peaceful guardians, but now it vaunted warriors, astride dragons, are called to action to defend the homeland from invasions, and – perhaps – to take the fight to the enemy.

Now, if the game were that straightforward, it could be over with quickly. Honestly, just strike at the seat of Mokai power, an aerial night firebombing and poof! all over but for the sifting of the enemies’ ashes. But nope, it’s not quite that simple. Players will be asked to weave through the political jargon of the Ayslian leadership and determine exactly what is going on, and then make decisions that may mean turning one’s back on the homeland.

The heart of the game is the aerial combat, and the PS3 SIXAXIS controller plays a huge part in that. It is both a wonderful tool for controlling the flight but can – at times – be a little frustrating when it fails to respond to player prompts. The idea is that the SIXAXIS determines your flight path: tilting it down will cause you to dive, tilting up is to climb, tilting left and right are banking controls. A quick jerk vertically is supposed to make your dragon do a 180-degree turn, but that only seemed to work about three-quarters of the time. Either the controller did not read the motion or the game’s AI decided to ignore the command. Other commands, used in tandem with the SIXAXIS control scheme, are the L2/R2 to hover, and the X button to launch ranged attacks. You can also grapple. When the situation is right, an onscreen prompt will have you dive into an attack. Follow the button prompts and you can claw, bite and rip with a fireball at close range. Rohn even has a move when he will dive from the back of his mount, land on the targeted dragon, dispose of its rider and then kill it and dive off – to be picked up in the air by his own mount.

The game’s interface is easy to navigate. The story is told in chapters, and the main menu will have players hovering over the world. There are five overall chapters with sub-levels attached to each.

Part of the problem with the game, though, is a decided lack of concrete direction in terms of mission objectives. Case in point: in the opening chapter, one of the sub-levels will have you fly into the mouth of a towering beacon. Your orders are to gut it from the inside. You can be inside flaming away at everything in sight with no results. You can’t fly up or down, only through the four openings that intersect the beacon tower and act as mouths. There is no direction about what you are supposed to be targeting. To add to the irritation, you get your squadron leader repeatedly telling you to fly into the mouth of the beacon (Ok, dude, if you had eyes, you would see that Rohn is inside) and gut it. That’s it. If you are lucky you will find the trigger and advance the scenario.

That level is also when clipping path problems reared its ugly head. For the most part, this is a very good-looking game. The animations are smooth. (And yes, this was a burned disk, not the master retail and accompanying paperwork stated it was a “work in progress and you may experience a few bugs.” The truth of the matter is, though, that when asked to base a review off such a build there is no way of knowing what may be fixed in the final release and what will slide through into the final build – which is why this was mentioned.)

To its graphical credit, though, Lair does play out in 1080p at 30 frames per second. That means great animations, and very nice environments. The voice work can be repetitious but otherwise does a decent job to drive the plot and action. The music is very well done and sports a 7.1 orchestral sound, composed by John Debney. You will want to crank the volume on the music.

This is very much a linear game in that you will have to progress through the game, moving from point A to point B. You can be somewhat creative in the combat elements, which do shine, but you must face the challenges the games throws at you and win to advance. As you advanced through the missions, you will receive medals for timely completion and be awarded skill upgrades. The game will feature an online component for players to chat about improving scores (the game scores your levels) as well as have leaderboards to show off the best scores.

While Lair is visually strong and features solid game dynamics, it just does not seem that urgent and thus is just not that exciting. The game lacks a sense of awe, of excitement if you will. That ingredient, that feverish pacing that makes you strive to succeed and compels you to push along to find out what happens next, seems to be missing. You can almost deduce the direction that game is moving and when plot points are revealed, they just don’t seem to have the element of surprise or that feeling of “I didn’t see that coming.”

This is a good game; it’s just not a great game.

Gameplay: 7.0
The game moves along a linear course but you may feel you are playing for medals and scores at the end of the levels and not trying to uncover the plot that brought the Mokai to wage war. You know there is more to the story and there seem to be few surprises when the game’s plot points are revealed. The controls are sometimes hit or miss when it comes to the SIXAXIS controller.

Graphics: 8.0
Review code (not final code) that contains some clipping problems. Perhaps they will be gone in the retail code. The animations, from the flight of the dragons to the aerial grappling combat (which can be very cool) and ground attacks, is great fun. The effects are also very well done.

Sound: 8.0
Great orchestral musical score, and repetitious dialogue.

Difficulty: Medium
Sometimes you may do the right thing through luck, but generally the game provides substantial direction.

Concept: 7.0
Take a decent story and compelling characters (the dragons and their whole flight mechanics) but a vital part of a success game ingredient – the excitement – just seems to be toned down a bit too much.

Overall: 7.5
There are some frustrations and the game lacks a general sense of excitement that propels you forward at a frantic pace. You may experience that feeling that you are playing for a medal with no personal connection to the characters or storyline. This could have been a stronger title.