Lair is the most annoying game I have played in some time.  Many times in the four nights I spent playing the game, I contemplated removing the disc from my PS3 and cracking the disc in half.  Repetitive gameplay coupled with control issues all but ruined what could have been a pretty good game.

Graphics – 90%
The graphics are beautiful.  There is no doubt the level of detail in this game is absolutely phenomenal.  Never have I seen texture this ornate and precise.  Every facet of the textures is well polished and placed.  The character animations are truly something to behold.  Honestly, there were times while watching cut scenes that I honestly thought I could be watching the next entry in the Shrek series.

But the graphics do have a few issues.  First, the developers included sun blindness and shadows.  While this adds a level of realism, it does present problems making out exactly what is on the screen.  Imagine looking into the sun, and being temporarily blinded when you look away because you pupils nearly shut: everything is very dark and difficult to see.

Secondly, as I said, the graphics are incredibly detailed, but the game lacks a cohesive style.  The game has a sort of generic middle ages, knight and dragons style.  It was like watching a bland version of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Regardless, the graphics were beautiful and smooth, even when there were literally thousands of troops running about.  (I did experience a glitch, where the graphics on the screen were completely scrambled, but it only lasted 2-3 seconds and only happened the one time.)

Sound – 90%
The sound is nearly perfect.  Sound effects are solid, and well-timed.  Voice acting is better than average, but very monotonous – the NPCs repeat phrases often.  But where the dialogue is sometimes lacking, soundtrack makes up for it.

While the score isn’t very long (it repeats throughout the game), it has an epic sound I would only expect from a Hollywood film.  The reason for this is simple: the composer is a Hollywood musician.  John Debney has composed the score for over 100 movies and television shows, including The Scorpion King, The Passion of the Christ, and Sin City.  All this experience really shows in his work on Lair.

Gameplay – 30%
The Mokai, whose resource depleted lands have forced them to look outside their home for supplies, and the Asylians, whose noblemen see the Mokai as a threat to be eliminated.  The storyline of Lair is interesting, but the gameplay is more along the lines of:

Lock-on target, fire, repeat.  Die.  Repeat mission.  Complete mission.  Move forward.  Repeat fourteen times.

 Yes, there are some neat dragon battles; but they remind me of a jerky version of Tekken with giant, flying lizards.  There are also some nifty ‘special moves’ where you may jump onto another dragon, kill the rider and knock him to the ground, and jump back to your ride.  These sequences look very cool to the casual observer, but there are nothing more than testing the gamer’s ability to quickly respond to on-screen prompts asking for a shake of the Sixaxis controller, and a move of a thumbstick.

Second, there is no save system; you must finish the current mission to save your progress.  Because of this you will repeat, and repeat, and repeat levels.  (Are you getting the idea yet?  Lair is repetitive.)

Lastly, the game is very, very, short.  There are fourteen levels and a training level, that, when completed successfully the first time, take approximately 10-25 minutes to complete.  I repeated missions more times than I care to count, and as I’ve admitted in the past, I’m not very good at videogames; but yet, even I was able to complete the game in less than fifteen hours.  If I could have completed each mission in one shot, I would have finished in less than half that time.

Cut Scenes/Video – 90%
Lair’s storyline comes across as an afterthought – a way to interconnect the fourteen separate missions and try to make them one game.  What saves the cut scenes and storyline is that as disconnected as they seem, they are very interesting.  The last cinematic is incredible to watch, even though it could be seen as a little too ‘Hollywood’ or cliché.

Controls/Interface – 20%
Beyond the sound repeating, bland style, and repetitive gameplay, controls are what ruin this game.  First, the training mission should last six hours or more to allow the player to get the hang of the inconsistent controls.  Executing a 180-degree turn or a dash maneuver can prove impossible as the controls in this game don’t respond to movement the same way twice.

Some missions like ‘Deadman's Basin’ involve locking onto a target, and shaking the Sixaxis in a rapid up and down motion for 10-20 seconds.  In the context of this one mission, the gamer is then asked to repeat this motion no less than seven times; it literally becomes obnoxious.

The in-flight dragon melees are odd, as the same button mashing sequences seem to perform different maneuvers in each battle.  This inconsistency makes dragons difficult to beat, particularly when the bull dragons arrive in the later levels of the game.

The control scheme is just plain bad.  The thumbsticks are not an option: you are forced to utilize the motion control of the Sixaxis, which could have been a good thing, had they been implemented well.

Summary – 64%
I really had high hopes for this game.  This was to be one of the games to make the PlayStation 3 a must have console.  Sadly, the title flops.  The repetitive gameplay harkens to the time before memory cards and hard drives, when saving wasn’t possible, forcing you to repeat missions if you die.  The controls destroy what fun could be had in the missions.  Not even the beautiful graphics or captivating story could save Lair.

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