Picture standing on top of a huge medieval fantasy bridge, staring at a sprawling metropolis underneath you. The sunshine is setting on the far west, ready to sink into the ocean and flocks of seagulls are dotting the horizon. As you watch a huge fleet of battleships sail towards the harbour you realize that the seagulls are surprisingly easy to spot for being so far away. Watching them makes you come to the sudden realization that the flying creatures you have been observing are not seagulls after all, but blood thirsty dragons on their way to torch the city and do their best to leave no survivors behind. This is the land of dragon raiders – this is Lair!

It’s all about the music

The land of Lair is a land of suffering and strife. Volcanoes have torn the land apart, splitting a once united civilization into two separate factions. The Asylians, a peaceful nation living on the lush south have spent most of the time finding ways to bend nature to their cause. As a result the entire land is filled with water mills and other man made machines designed to exploit natural forces. The Mokai on the other hand chose the cold north as their homeland. Frowned upon as a barbaric nation, the Mokai don’t so much use nature to their advantage as work with it, taming beasts to help their cause. But regardless of their background both nations know that controlling the skies is key to controlling the land. Fierce dragon riders fill the ranks of both sides, aiding conventional medieval warfare engines such as catapults and trebuchets in their fight against enemy forces.

You play as Rohn, a member of an elite dragon riding force in the service of the Asylian nation. Sworn to obey every command he gladly follows his commander to battle, knowing that all he does is for the greater good. As the story progresses Rohn’s dedication and faith are put to the test and his internal struggle makes him commit things he never dreamed possible. All of the story sequences are presented in-engine, with high detail characters filling the screen. While all of the actors are obviously digital, it is sometimes hard to believe it. The way they move and express their feelings is incredible, especially when coupled with the fact that the camera often jumps between close ups where every last pore is visible and far away shots where thousands of units can be seen. Because of the huge amount of work that was put into the characters you’ll have no problem relating to Rohn and his plight. As a result the story isn’t just a shallow fantasy war drama, but is instead a work that can easily match screen adaptations of fantasy books, such as Lord of the Rings (well, I might be stretching it a bit here).

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, you can’t play Lair without noticing a certain correlation between the music of the two titles. The music in Lair is without doubt its strongest attribute, overshadowing everything else including the amazing graphics. Just like with Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, where the musical score gave life to every single scene the music in Lair helps set the mood and gives you an amazing amount of feedback. The theme of each individual song sets the dynamic of the whole scene, be it a battle over a city or negotiations in a tent. Just to prove my point I went ahead and tried playing the game with the music volume set to zero – while the game was still enjoyable the mood of the game was completely ruined.

Taking the sky

I’ve already spoilt the surprise just a line or two back, but I might as well pretend I didn’t say anything and answer the obvious question: How does Lair play? In short, it plays ok. At times it plays great while at other times the controls make you want to hit something (or someone!). Let’s take a look at the first mission you’ll be doing. After a dramatic intro movie you find yourself standing on a platform, right next to your trusty draconic friend. With a tap of the triangle button you jump on his back and take off. Now, having played other titles by Factor 5 (or any action game for that matter) your first instinct will be to move the left analog stick in the direction you want to fly. After the camera starts turning you’ll realize that that’s about all that is happening – your dragon will still be flying straight. Shaken but not beaten you’ll try doing the same with the other stick, only to keep flying in a straight line again.

At about this time your inquisitive mind will probably tell your arms to bring the joypad closer for inspection. But wait, the dragon on the screen suddenly changed direction! And then it will hit you. The tutorial level you just finished will come back to you and you’ll remember that you control your dragon by tilting the six-axis controller. That’s right. Even though one of the analog sticks could have easily been used to control the flight path the only option of controlling you have is the motion/tilt sensor of the controller. Want to turn left? Just tilt the controller left. Tilt it back if you want to ascend and tilting it down will make the dragon descend. Flicking the controller forward will make your dragon dash forward and flicking it towards you will make him do a 180° turn. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?

Well, actually (and contrary to some other reviews ive read) it is. Up in the sky, with no obstacles the controls are just about perfect, as long as you don’t flail about with your hands. Once you get used to the whole scheme controlling your dragon isn’t that big of a deal even in tight quarters. As far as I can tell there are only two major problems with it. The first and possibly most annoying one is the slight delay the controls have. If you are turning left and suddenly decide to change direction it will take your dragon a good second to respond to your controller movement. He will start turning the moment you rotate the controller, but in order to avoid making a game where the dragon acts like a huge fly the authors put some “weight” to the movements of the beast. This delay isn’t problematic up in the sky, but can sometimes make you miss a quick target. Perhaps it is more realistic that a creature the size of a dragon would take some time responding to movement commands.

The second problem with the controls is the fact that gamers tend to hold the controller tilted towards themselves. This isn’t so much of a problem in itself, but with some people the motion based control will mean that they have to readjust the way they play games. The game is forgiving enough to allow up to about 20° or so tilting without making your dragon constantly ascend, but it still is kind of annoying that you have constantly watch what you are doing with the position of the controller. And unlike the analog stick where you have constant feedback about how far you are pushing it, the motion sensor has no way of letting you know whether you are holding it at a 50° angle or at 80 degrees.

As I said I personally had no real issues with the controls, and I was able to fly my dragon under low bridges by the time I completed the second mission. Granted, during my play-through I missed more targets than I would have with regular controls and were it not for the forgiving flight model my dragon would have looked rather 2D from all the smacks in the wall I was about to make. Overall however I found myself flying through the sky just fine, taking down dragons one after another. It was the ground units that proved to be the most problematic. You see, Lair has a very peculiar targeting system. Pressing down the left or right shoulder button targets the foe that is closest to the center of the screen, without giving you any real control over who it chooses. When you have a bunch of dragons in front of you that isn’t such a huge deal, but when you want to target a land unit from afar the system makes it nearly impossible to select the correct target. With regular analog control you might have been able to pinpoint your target, but because of the floaty nature of the six-axis controller you usually have to be close enough that your objective is the only foe near the center of the screen. And even then sometimes the targeting system will fudge things up and target a dragon that just flew above you or something of that nature! Firing blindly doesn’t work in these situations either. Sure, your fireballs tend to fly in the direction of enemies when they are in front of you, but several ground enemies require you to grab them and either tear their husks off or carry them away in order to defeat them. To do that all you need to do is fly straight at them while targeting them.

Under the line the whole gameplay experience is quite enjoyable, if you are ready to perhaps change the way you hold the controller and can get over the problematic targeting system. As I said the game is forgiving enough when it comes to “crashes”. In situations where you’d crash and burn in previous Factor 5 games your dragon will simply change direction, retract one of its wings in order to avoid damage and fly on as if nothing had happened. Considering the slow response of the controls this is a godsend!

I’ve spent a good 6 paragraphs blabbering on about the controls, but I’ve yet to tell you what kind of stuff the missions will have you do. As with every Factor 5 game to date you’ll do your fair share of escort flights, not to mention the hundreds of dragons you’ll shoot down with fire. Helping your forces on the ground will also play a major role in several missions, so you’ll often be forced to land in the midst of an enemy army and wreak havoc on everything that moves. Bombing runs will also appear on your schedule, as will hit and run missions where you fly down a valley, trying to avoid the searchlights (hoping your grip on the controls is good enough to keep you alive). In order to make this game more than just a Rogue Squadron game in a fantasy setting, the developers decided to make some of the enemy dragons more than just cannon fodder.

Taking down these semi-equal adversaries will have you either fly side by side, bumping into each other by swinging the controller in the direction of the enemy. Or, should you and the enemy engage in combat headlong, you’ll both start falling towards the ground, claws slashing and teeth ripping flesh on the way. These fights look spectacular, but they are little more than button mashing sequences where each face button performs a specific attack and the shoulder buttons allow you to block incoming blows. On occasion you’ll also get the chance to perform special attacks against your flying foes. These action sequences are sure to make your jaw drop because of the stuff that goes on in them. As an example, one of the special attacks has Rohn jump of his ride onto the target dragon, have a one-on-one fight with the rider and after beating him senseless stab the dragon in the eye. The scene then finishes with Rohn jumping down and catching a ride on his valiant companion just mere feet above the ground. You do not have direct control in these sequences, but the game still has you shake the controller or move the analog stick at the various crucial points of the move, so you actually feel a sense of accomplishment when it is all done.

A review of Lair wouldn’t be complete without at least mentioning the looks of the game. If you take a look at the screenshots or a gameplay video you’ll notice that the game looks stunning in motion. The amount of detail can be staggering at times – a huge city with a few hundred soldiers battering down its gate while dozens of dragons fly over them is simply incredible. And it’s not just the numbers that are impressive. The very lifelike lighting and detail levels of almost every creature in the game all help, as does the terrain which can at time look photorealistic from a distance. Unfortunately the good looks come with a price – sometimes the framerate will drop, especially if you happen to fly through an explosion, filling the screen with particles. And the game is a bit buggy as well, having the camera fly through terrain and animations locking up without a reason. Overall however the technical side of things is still good, shadowing most PS3 titles that are out there.

Conclusion

Lair has been in development for several years now and whether Sony likes it or not, their autumn sales were greatly depending on the success of this game. Some PS3 haters would have you believe that Lair is a catastrophe and that no one in their right mind could enjoy the control scheme. I have to disagree – I personally would recommend the game to anyone who is willing to give a new control system a try, but keep in mind that it will probably take a while before you get used to it and you never will be as precise with it as you would be with an analog stick. If that breaks the game for you, you might just miss on one of the most engaging fantasy games released this year.

Gameplay 75/100 The core gameplay is excellent, but the radical controls make it hard to get into. Graphics 89/100 The presentation is top notch, and only a few bugs mar the overall quality of it. Sound 95/100 The. Best. Soundtrack. Ever. Well, not quite, but it is one of the best. Value 88/100 The campaign will take you up to 10 hours to complete. There are plenty of unlockables for replay value though. Multiplayer N/A Online leaderboards is all this game can offer in terms of multiplayer. Overall (not an average) 81/100 Lair is a game for the daring. But be prepared to either love or hate it – the control system won’t let you remain indifferent. =