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Factor 5 jumps ship to the PlayStation family. Factor 5’s latest game, Lair, had a lot of potential and was once heralded as one of the PS3’s shining stars. In some ways, this is true of the game as it looks positively gorgeous and the soundtrack is epic on a scale that only Factor 5 can provide. Unfortunately, the decision to make the cumbersome Sixaxis controllers a requisite drains a lot of the fun out of the game.
Lair has you playing as dragon rider Rohn, who is fighting off Mokai’s evil army. The game has plenty of twists and turns thrown in and coupled with the excellent cutscenes really propel the story forward. Factor 5 very carefully crafted an universe with Lair and it’ll be interesting to see if they continue to flesh it out further.
Lair’s control scheme sounds simple enough: accelerate with X, brake (erm, “pull the reigns”) with the shoulder buttons and use the Sixaxis’ tilt functionality to steer the dragons. Unfortunately, the Sixaxis controls don’t provide the level of finesse needed to make the tight turns and to combat the dozens of enemies that the game throws at you. The game lets you target enemies but the targeting system is broken since you can’t choose who you target. Once you target someone, the game goes into slow motion and gives you the opportunity to move the camera to find someone to target, effectively making it a combo. Again, this annoyance would remain just an annoyance if the game didn’t require you to select particular enemies to target. You can’t choose to target that enemy making the entire process a trial-and-error system and then you have to “fight” with the control scheme to turn back around.
It’s really unfortunate that Factor 5 decided to go with the Sixaxis controls because when you aren’t required to use them the game is actually quite fun. When you land your dragon, you’re able to use the analog sticks to move the dragon around in the land, blowing fire at enemies or hitting them with your tails. Other times, you’ll engage in a melee fight with another dragon and simply button mash to your heart’s content. These are the truly cool moments in Lair, and it’s a shame that the cumbersome controls hinder the rest of the game from achieving a similar status.
Where Lair succeeds is in its presentation. The graphics are generally unbelievable in the game. The dragons are truly monstrous creatures with plenty of detail and excellent animation. The game’s various environments are all enormous and yet feature an insane amount of detail. Everything from the populated skies to the ground below and the water splashing in the sea looks great. With an art style this strong, it’s unfortunate that some of the technicalities prevent the game from being a real stunner. There are frequent and somewhat annoying framerate dips, as well as occasional pop-up and tearing that goes on. Still, Lair is quite the showcase for HD gaming.
The epic soundtrack in the game sounds excellent, as is expected for a Factor 5 game. The sound effects, especially the sounds of the dragons, are all marvelous and really drive the experience home. The voice acting is good but not stellar. Nonetheless, aside from taking full advantage of an HD set, Lair also showcases the PS3’s audio mastery.
Lair is a tough game to rate. One on hand, the game is absolutely gorgeous and easily justifies the thousands of dollars spent on the latest home theater equipment. On the other hand, the gameplay is so fundamentally broken that it’s difficult to imagine anyone sticking with Lair through its ending. Some may see it is a challenge—after all riding dragons wouldn’t be as responsive as say a Ferrari—but it’s hard to deny that Lair would have been better served if Factor 5 simply did away with the Sixaxis controls. I’d give Lair a rental, if just to experience the visual and aural showcase. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Sep 16, 2007
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