To anyone versed in the epic fanboy flame wars of the seventh generation, it only takes two names to send a shudder down their spine. Two abysmal abominations released in the era where Sony was in desperate need of killer apps to justify the steep asking price of the Playstation 3. Two games that upon release gave Xbox 360 fanboys ammunition against PS3 fanboys for years to come thanks to the abysmal scores these over-hyped would-be killer apps received. Those two games in question are Lair and Haze. Two games that, quite frankly, despite both being flawed games were a lot better than their review scores made them out to be.
Like Haze, Lair received a lot of per-release hype, again, both Sony, and PS3 owners were hungry for big games to fill the gap between launch, and forum fanboys needed ammunition to fling at their Gears of War playing and Halo 3 playing opponents. Lair hit before Halo 3, and despite the epic hype, and huge anticipation by fans, came out to horrible review scores thanks to the poor design idea (either forced by Sony, or chosen entirely by Factor 5 depending on who you ask) to make the game motion-control only, without the option to use the analog stick to aim in the game.
The results of this ill-fated design decision lead to abysmal review scores in the mainstream outlets. Ign gave this game a 4.9 out of 10 in a poorly written review where upon reading it, the only conclusion I could come to is that, in full Dean Takahashi fashion, it sounds like the reviewer, Greg Miller wrote his entire review after he couldn't beat the fifth level of the game. The review literally only mentions that level and none of the later much harder levels. He complains about the targeting system in the game, which I agree with, and then touched on the story a bit while complaining about the controls the whole time. I guess he gave the game one point for every level he was able to actually beat.
Ign wasn't alone in destroying this game. Most magazine publications, and websites completely panned the game with a few average to good scores thrown in there. The forced motion controls scheme was too much for most gamers, and reviewers at the time. When Factor 5 later released a patch to allow players to use the analog sticks to aim, the damage was already done, and Lair had already became an infamous bad game in the gaming zeitgeist of the day.
The analog patch is still available on the PS3's playstation store, and if you have any interest in ever playing Lair, I suggest you download it as soon as possible, because we all know time is ticking before Sony shuts the PS3's Playstation store down. I also suggest getting the Titan Map pack for Unreal Tournament III if you want to take advantage of Unreal Tournament 3's mod support which is the coolest, nearly forgotten feature on the PS3. I guess the reason I decided to review Lair first on this channel was to remind people that time is of the essence when it comes to getting the map packs, and patches for PS3 games. It's time to start downloading as many of these as you can before they are gone.
For my first playthrough of Lair, I decided to play the entire game through using only the original motion control setup just to see what the original experience was like. After that, I went back and played random levels with the analog stick aiming enabled, and the analog aiming patch definitely improves the gameplay a lot. Without question, it was a mistake on Sony and Factor 5's fault not to include it day one.
Lair had a rough development cycle. At first there were a lot of good ideas Factor 5 was going to add, and the game wasn't even going to resemble the final product. Long story short, in order to get something in ship-able form, they hunkered down and went with a trustworthy formula that had worked for them in the past.
When it comes down to it, Lair is basically Rogue Leader with dragons. Learning the motion controls didn't take long, and the only time they became frustrating to use was in those bouts of slowdown that effected the aim. The game, in general doesn't run the best when played in 1080p. The slowdown doesn't effect the aiming all the time, but there were occasional periods where the aiming became almost impossible with the motion controls. Lair was meant to be a visual spectacle for the PS3, and as such the developers prioritized graphical fidelity over playability.
I managed to play through the game in 1080p, and most of this footage is in 1080p because I was focused on trying to make the game look as good as possible for this video. However, it runs better at 720p which is what I suggest those looking for a more playable experience to play it at. In order to run it in 720p, you have to go into your system settings and turn off 1080p, and 1080i as options as there is no option to change it in game.
Once I learned the controls I actually started to really enjoy my time with Lair. It really does follow a solid formula established in The Rogue Squadron/Rogue Leader series. The missions are objective heavy, and some have very strict time limits leading to constant failures, but also that made me want to give a failed mission just one more try. It really does hearken back to Factor 5's previous work. Some of the later missions in particular feel twice as long as they should be, and dying or failing right before the end of these missions can demotivate you from wanting to give it another try. I definitely shut this game off a couple of times after nearly beating the Deadmans Basin level only to die or fail at the end, but I found myself coming back within an hour to give it another try finally beating it with a huge, satisfying sigh of relief and a pretty good shoulder workout from shaking the controller up and down as fast as I can.
I did get better at playing each level as time went on, learning the patterns, and seeing which objectives were more imperative to do first. The game will constantly pull you out of the action to show you a cut-scene of a new objective, or to show you how you are failing at the objectives. While I can understand this was done to add tot he cinematic flair of the game, what it really amounts to is the feeling that every couple of seconds you are pulled out of the gameplay, and when you return to controlling your dragon, you have to quickly regain your bearings. This can be especially annoying if you are in the middle of lining up a shot an enemy outpost that's destroying your ships, losing too many of which will lead to a mission over. Often times, the interruption lead to me overshooting the enemy outpost, and having to turn around while feeling excessive time pressure. The cinematic nature of the game can sometimes break the flow of the gameplay.
I was also a little let down by the fact that most of the missions in the game were escort and protect missions, and there weren't any straight up dog-fighting missions, well dragon fighting missions. Escort missions are some of my least favorite, and some of the most frustrating mission types in any game. They even threw in a stealth mission for good measure, and even a strange story mission where you hunt for water, and fight a giant bug to get it. However, I was yearning for more dog fighting missions, and more missions that made use of transferring to the ground to take out hordes of enemy soldiers.
The ground fighting feature is a really fun mechanic that I wish they had expanded on. It's a cool idea, and it's fun to land an kill hundreds of enemy peons. Eventually new combos to use can be unlocked to unleash on the enemy hordes. The dragon disarms are also pretty cool to see. When engaged, players are prompted into a quick time event to kill the enemy dragon, and it's rider. These are mildly entertaining, and add that cinematic flair the game was going for. You can disarm enemy dragons, or fighting them in a fighting-game mini-game which almost has a rock-paper-scissors feel to it.
There are some ideas at play that seem cool on paper and are mildly entertaining the first time, but probably should have been trimmed out of the game because they disrupt the gameplay flow. An example of this is how your dragon can pick up and fling an enemy foot soldier as the game pauses to watch the poor soul rag-dolling across the map. The first time it's amusing, but after a while, it becomes yet another thing to interrupt the game. The ability to pick up an enemy footsoldier also interrupts the targeting system, and, as the Ign reviewer complained about becomes a source of frustration when instead of targeting a mission objective, like a large rhino, your dragon swoops down to pick up a foot soldier instead and the camera takes a disorienting position that makes it hard to even realize what just happened.
Even after mastering the motion controls, or playing with analog controls, the game has a few technical issues that aren't game breaking by any means, but had they been ironed out would have improved the experience quite a bit more. The framerate is an obvious issue, as is the targeting system which, when you get it to work properly, can lead to some thrilling circling while firing on enemies. I wish they would have had time to rework the whole targeting system to a more workable form where the camera cooperates better. There are plenty of examples of prior games that got this function right for some truly excellent results. You definitely feel like you are fighting with the targeting system in Lair to get it to work right. A little bit of tweaking would have went a long way.
The camera can also freak out, and be very disorienting at times, but not always. Generally, it follows the action well, but it can be very wonky at other times. The physics system in the game also has it's own peculiarity to it where if your dragon comes close to an object, or an enemy dragon flies too close to your dragon, it bounces your dragon up and out of the way from it. It's almost like there is a physics force field around the objects in the game that can bounce you aim away in the other direction. This can be frustrating when you are trying to aim at a specific target, and you aim is shot upwards in a completely different direction because an enemy flew too close to you.
This can also lead to some jank when you are locked on to something like a war beast, and your dragon is stuck flying along the sides of a ridge, and can't seem to just fly up and over it. There are times where I was trying with all my might while locked on to turn left, while my dragon, being stuck following the side of the ridge, was going right instead. The glitchy physics can also knock you out of a dragon duel because you ran into a wall, so the game canceled it, throwing you back into the game without notice.
Another thing that at first seemed janky to me until I realized it was done on purpose, but is never explained to you, is in those scenes where your dragon latches onto, say a generator to shake your controller rapidly up and down in order to destroy the generator or dam, getting shot by an enemy will knock you off the object you are attached to. At first I thought the game would just let the object go at random, when in reality, an enemy dragon or boat shot my off of it. At first I thought the game would just inconsistently let the object go, when in actuality, I was taking shots by the surrounding foes.
I have also, though I didn't get footage of it, thrown footsoldiers through the map into the abyss the that exists outside the game world. I also found that sometimes it helped to switch to a faster dragon in missions where you had a distinct time crunch. The game has a stables option where you can swap to a different dragon if your current one is too slow, or too weak. The only problem is, the game doesn't display their stats for you, so it's hard to distinguish which dragon does what. I guess the best thing to do is experiment with each one in order to figure out the best dragon to use.
All that being said, despite quite a list of technical issues, and glitches, I still really enjoyed my time in Lair overall. I wasn't a fan of the overwhelming amount of escorts missions, but the more I played them, the better I got at them. It has that same difficulty curve as Rogue leader which is still one of my favorite Gamecube games. The game can be tough, and yet, still very satisfying when you succeed, and not even the escort missions, and sometimes unfair time limits kept me from enjoying the game despite it's flaws.
As I said, the formula Lair is based on is a sound one, and if you are a fan of Factor 5's Star Wars games, then you will probably find some enjoyment in Lair. It's definitely a more flawed version of the formula when compared to what came before, but I still found the game to be engaging enough to play through it. It pulled me into it's gameplay, and I enjoyed myself overall. The game is not without it's share of frustrations and flaws, but I enjoyed Lair, even when using motion controls for my first playthrough. If you can get past the controls (or just download the analog aiming patch from PSN), and get past the glitches, you might find some enjoyment out of this infamously, quote unquote bad game.
It is a shame that the game did so poorly in the reviews thanks mostly to the controls. It's also a shame that some of the technical issues weren't ironed out before release, but Factor 5 definitely put a lot of effort into this game, and however imperfect it is, this isn't a bad game. Out of the two “terrible twins” of early PS3 games, I would say that Lair is definitely better than Haze, even if I still don't think Haze is that bad either. It was another game that had a lot of good ideas that just never quite came together before release. Free Radical should also have trimmed a lot of good ideas on paper out, and polished the gameplay more, cutting down on the large, but empty feeling levels, and getting the gunplay an AI better. Haze still has some fun bot deathmatches though, and the online was decent back in the day.
Graphically, Lair definitely nailed the epic scale and scope they were aiming for in the game. The only thing they didn't nail was the framerate. Aiming for 1080p was a bit much for the PS3, but in early games, developers certainly didn't know the console's limits. It plays a little smoother at a lower resolution for sure. The art direction is unique, and the graphics were excellent for a first generation PS3 game. They also put a lot of effort into the story cutscenes. The story itself is pretty good, if predictable. No complaints with the voice acting either. If you are a story-based gamer, as opposed to being a gameplay-based gamer like myself, there is something here for you.
The orchestral musical score is amazing and fits the epic feel of the game perfectly. You can tell they spared no expense when it came to the game's soundtrack. The sound effects from the cries of enemy soldiers, to the snarles of your dragon are also well done. There was a lot of care and effort put into the sound design of this game, and it shines through.
The bottom line: Lair is definitely a flawed game that hit with a polarizing control scheme, and various other technical glitches. However, this game is definitely a lot better than the reviews made it out to be. I don't give review scores, but this is a 7/10 kind of game give or take a point or half a point. The hype for the game was huge before it hit, filling a void in time where Sony desperately needed more killer apps for the PS3 to justify the system's price, and to convince more people to buy the system. Which made it's low review scores even more embarrassing for Sony at a time where they couldn't even buy good press if they wanted to.
Lair was never going to be a killer app. Even if it released day one with analog stick control, and all the technical glitches had been ironed out before release. Gaming had changed, and the days where a game like rogue leader could be a killer app for the Gamecube were long past.
At the time mainstream tastes had changed, and the dawn of the online, and digital era was upon us. Games had also jumped up from a $50 asking price to $60, and we thought the future of strictly single player games was in question, outside of something like Gta, or Oblivion that is. Lair could be beaten in a couple of hours, and it's only online connectivity was leaderboards which are still up to this day.
People wanted Gears of War, Halo 3, and eventually Modern Warfare. Most traditional single-player games were all but ignored by the vast majority of gamers in the PSWii60 era. First person shooters (predominantly modern shooters) and duck and cover third person shooters with a heavy emphasis on online play dominated the generation, and unless it was a big name franchise, most other traditional genres were put aside by gamers and developers. Whole genres, and sub genres of games more or less died, even if they had a strong showing on the PS2 from the previous generation.
3D platformers are only just now starting to recover from the seventh generation where we were pretty much down just to Ratchet and Clank, and Mario. 3D space, or airplane flight games pretty much died outside of Ace Combat, and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X . This genre hasn't recovered from the seventh gen either. Even once strong names like Unreal Tournament 3 failed to do well enough to keep Midway Games from going out of business, despite selling a million copies.
Development costs went through the roof, and developers had to go with whatever popular tastes were at the time just to survive. Tons of great traditional style single player games were ignored by the mainstream gamers, outside of maybe weekend rentals, and Lair, being a single player game with a single-player focus, even had it released in perfect form wasn't going to sell systems. Not even better games that hit like uncharted, and Heavenly Sword which came out later were console sellers. GTA4, and Metal Gear Solid 4 were console selling games with a predominantly single player focus, but the tone for the seventh generation was already set before Lair even shipped. Plenty of new single player IPs would eventually come it, but at the first couple of years of the Xbox 360, and PS3's life weren't kind to most traditional style games.
Lair, for those who can look past it's flaws is still worth playing. It definitely plays a lot better with the analog sticks, so, again, make sure, if you have any interest in playing, or replaying this game to get your PS3 online to the playstation store and download the patch while it's still available, and the titan map pack for Unreal Tournament 3 while you're at it. This game is far from a 4 or 5 out of ten kind of game. Looking back on what we know now, I doubt most of the reviewers ever beat the game before they reviewed it. It it's lowest, Lair is a 6, because it's still playable. If you're a Rogue Squadron fan, there's still enough of that classic formula here to find some enjoyment out Lair. It's really not that bad of a game, and certainly isn't worthy of the cannon-fodder it was used as in online arguments. Haze? I can understand, but if Lair is the worst game you're ever played, you should probably play some more games.
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