Lair Review PS3

Dragons are one of the greatest fantasy creatures ever imagined and one of the most misused in video games. Lair was one of the PS3’s most promising games that utilized the sixaxis controller, but fell abruptly short right off of a cliff to a horrible death while taking many gamers who paid full price for it with them. The game could have been the best fantasy dragon flying game ever, but the horrible unresponsive controls damaged it beyond repair. Avoid this game like the plague, but for those that still would like to know more, read on.

Graphic and sound:

I cannot deny that the world of Lair is beautiful; I enjoyed flying all around the countryside, above the ocean, and then landing on ramparts to deal death to the enemy. The game supports up to 1080p resolution, which looks impressive on a large HD television. The game has highly detailed characters, environments, and creatures with no lag visible even with multiple dragons launching fireballs everywhere. Visually, this game is one of the best looking fantasy games I have seen in a long time, but unfortunately, that is all it is, eye candy. The sound effects and voiceovers are also impressive especially when output to a 7.1 surround sound system.

Gameplay and controls:

Lair is a single player campaign played through a series of missions intertwined with cinematics in between. The game focuses on two kingdoms, one which has scarce resources and wages war against the second kingdom that has an abundance of everything. The story is generic and most players will ignore it and jump right into the action. The controls are where the game falls on its head. Flying the dragon is done by using the motion sensing capabilities of the sixaxis controller. In theory, flying with motion sensing sounds great, but in practice, Lair is unresponsive. Turning the dragon around with the sixaxis was like turning a tractor trailer; it required an enormous turn radius. A nimble creature such as a dragon should be able to turn on a dime. Even the Spyro games were able to tackle flight effectively. After a downloadable patch, the game now enables controlling the dragon flight without the sixaxis motion sensors, but flight is still problematic at best. When flying around in combat, determining friend from foe also becomes an issue because both allies and enemies look similar and often the player will mistakenly attack allies. Camera issues arise when trying to fly around and target enemies. The camera will sometimes shift to an awkward angle and occlude important elements.

Overall thoughts:

Lair is one of those many games that gets hyped up into the rafters, but fails to deliver on its promises. I picked it up for $20 on EBay and honestly would not pay anything more for it. Even with the downloadable patch that allows for flying without the sixaxis motion sensing capabilities, flight is still awkward and the camera angles add to the difficulty and frustration. Avoid this game unless you enjoy pain when you play video games or are truly so eager to fly a dragon no matter how horrible it is that you cannot avoid playing Lair.