Lair is the stereotypical dumb blonde—the ditzy TV sitcom character that looks like a gift from Heaven but who has the intelligence of a malnourished pigeon. Spending entirely too much effort on presentation, Factor 5 has engineered a homecoming on PlayStation 3 that is bereft of any enjoyable, substantive gameplay. Simply put, Lair is Chrissy from Three’s Company.
Lair chronicles the bloody conflict between the Asylian and Mokai civilizations. Emerging from a cataclysmic event known as the Divide in which volcanoes devastated the planet's surface, both races have engaged in a ceaseless war for domination over the skies. As Rohn, a dragon rider in the elite Asylian Sky Guard, you must combat an unexpected Mokai offensive on the Asylian capital. What appears to be a morally justified war quickly devolves into a test of loyalty for Rohn, who witnesses the death of his comrades and slaughter of innocent Mokai civilians.
Waging war involves mounting a massive dragon and navigating the skies to take out enemies. Lair makes exclusive use of Sixaxis motion-controls, tying movements of the controller to Rohn's dragon. As expected, tilting the controller left or right results in Rohn turning in the respective direction; additionally, adjusting the pitch up or down causes you to ascend or descend. On the whole, Lair makes good use of the Sixaxis for basic movement; however, advanced maneuvers, such as a 180-degree turn pulled off with a quick jab forward, don't work nearly as well as the basic controls.
Even with motion-controls, a bit of button-mashing is still needed for combat. After locking onto an enemy using either R1 or L1, hitting the square button unleashes a flame attack. Depending on the frequency with which you press the button, the flame strength differs. Naturally, firing in short bursts yields greater power, but this also means fewer attacks. You can even trigger a steady stream of fire from Rohn's dragon by holding down the square button, although this is only available when on the ground.
Joining the rather limited aerial attack arsenal are physical strikes and direct fights. Tapping the circle button with an enemy targeted allows you to rush in for a devastating corporeal blast. This effectively dispatches weak foes, yet stronger fiends usually require several flame attacks and a direct fight. Hitting the triangle button when targeting an enemy zooms you in for a close-quarters fight. It's a frustrating game of rock-paper-scissors played with claws, fire, and bites. Conceptually these fights are interesting, however the time between when you press a button and see the corresponding action is off and as a result these instances are lacking of any excitement.
Pursuit mode caps the list of combat abilities, allowing you to flail about your controller for motion-controlled attacks. While targeting specific enemies, pressing the circle button switches you into pursuit mode in which you must move the Sixaxis to line Rohn's dragon up with its opposition. Once you've done that, a quick jab to the left or right (whichever side of the screen the enemy is on) slams into the foe for damage. Despite being a good idea, pursuit mode is utterly destroyed by unresponsive motion-controls. Since it is nearly impossible to receive the intended reaction in the game as input with the controller, it becomes entirely frustrating.
Suffering from a similar issue are contextual action sequences requiring movements of the Sixaxis. In special circumstances, the game has you move the controller in specific ways in order to defeat a boss or trigger an event. Like pursuit mode, these sequences are plagued by virtually unresponsive motion-controls; in fact, one boss battle even features a bug that causes the game to not register movements of the controller to the right during an action sequence. Not only is this incredibly frustrating, but also maddening that Lair would ship with such broken controls.
More than a test of Rohn's patriotism, Lair tries your patience. In addition to aforementioned pursuit mode and contextual motion-control sequences, lackluster, downright derivative level design and a horrible camera destroy any semblance of fun. None of the missions comprising the single player campaign feature any inventive scenarios or unique objectives; instead, they have been ripped straight from older games developed by Factor 5. In one rather banal mission, Rohn is forced to bring down a group of four-legged creatures by grappling them--much too similar to taking down Imperial Walkers in the Rogue Squadron series. Of course a frenetic camera doesn't help matters, jumping and swinging all over the place with the slightest of movement.
