Rating of
1/5
Dragons and Control Pack: Hopeless Beyond Repair
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/20/11
As a PS3 launch title, "Lair" has been widely panned by reviewers of every stripe as a disaster. Due to these bad reviews, I disregarded "Lair" as a reason to buy a PS3. After reading about the "Dragons and Control Pack" patch that Factor 5 released for free download on PSN, I finally decided to give "Lair" a try, as its previous reputation has made it extremely inexpensive for a Blu-Ray title. This review is based on a playthrough of "Lair" using every aspect of the patch and disregarding the failings of the original control scheme. Unfortunately, during the review process, I found that "Lair's" issues extend beyond the original controls and saturate every aspect of the game.
Presentation
"Lair" has a very impressive graphics engine. While I did notice some polygon clipping on the dragons' wings and a grid pattern in ocean waves, these are minor complaints. The textures are incredibly detailed and the character models for the dragons and large enemy monsters look very pretty. This praise, however, does not mean that "Lair" has good graphics. My take on graphics in games is that they can be as ugly or pretty as they want, but as long as the graphics don't hinder gameplay, they should be considered good. Unfortunately, "Lair" does not have good graphics by this standard. As is increasingly common in modern games made by Western developers, "Lair" is in love with earthtones… specifically, brown and gray. The environments are all shades of brown and gray, the dragons are all shades of brown and gray, the enemy monsters are all shades of brown and gray, enemy artillery is all shades of brown and gray. The only things in the game that are not brown and gray are the sky (sometimes) and infantry. Infantry come in either blue or red, depending on which side they are on. Of course, this color code isn't particularly useful, as enemy soldiers are rarely an important target and explosions can discolor infantry units' uniforms to be, you guessed it, brown and gray.
So, why are earthtones so bad? Why does such an impressive-looking game have 'bad graphics?' It is because the uniform colors of everything make locating targets incredibly frustrating and hitting them incredibly difficult. Thankfully, the patch added a crosshairs option so the player can actually see where the dragon is aiming. This crosshair also turns red when over an enemy target, which gives the possibility of cutting down on friendly fire. Unfortunately, the crosshair doesn't have a very long range, considering how massive each area is, and doesn't really improve overall accuracy or the ability to locate and lock-onto enemies.
The audio in "Lair" is utterly average. The music is generic and obviously inspired by "The Lord of the Rings" movie soundtracks. There isn't a single catchy track in the whole game. The voicework is likewise average. Lines are delivered competently, but a bit stiffly. At least the voice actors enunciate properly, thus removing the need for subtitles. Unfortunately, voice cues are given throughout each mission as to what the player is supposed to be doing. These voice cues frequently come so close together that it is nearly impossible to figure out which of the two commands takes precedent to avoid failing the mission. "Lair" desperately needs some kind of radar or mini-map to complement the voice cues and show the player the locations and importance of objectives.
Story
There isn't really much to say about "Lair's" story. It is utterly boring and predictable. The player, as a dragon rider named Rohn from the country of Asylia, is caught in the middle of a civil war between two nations that were divided by worldwide volcanic activity. The Asylian faction is governed by a council of elders and a Diviner. Of course, since the church is always evil in games like this, the Diviner is actually the instigator of the civil war and bla bla bla. The opposing faction, the Mokai, are said by the Diviner to be barbarians who live in caves, but they actually have advanced steam technology that allows them to build motion-sensing anti-aircraft guns. The technology of the Mokai outstrips anything possessed by the Asylians, which explains why, by the end of the game, the Asylians have all of the amazing anti-aircraft guns and the Mokai have none.
Most of this nonsensical, idiotic story is told through well-animated cutscenes. The lipsynch in these scenes is incredibly good, and their non-interactive nature allows the graphics engine to do its thing without getting in the way. Unfortunately, non-main-characters suffer from stiff and awkward animation in these scenes and, if the player has switched dragons in the stable, the default dragon appears anyway.
Thankfully, the cutscenes are mostly skippable, as watching them over and over due to cheap deaths and mission failures gets old quickly. Unfortunately, the longest cutscenes at the beginning of each mission don't respond to skipping right away, as they are used as a disguise for the game's load times. Jamming on the X button won't do anything to skip a cutscene if the mission hasn't finished loading.
Gameplay
"Lair's" gameplay before the patch was the source of almost all of the loathing towards it. I tried the Sixaxis controls just for the sake of providing a complete review, and I can say unequivocally that the Sixaxis controls are awful. Steering a dragon by tilting the controller, trying to hit anything with no crosshairs, and jerking the controller around to make U-turns and dash is the antithesis of fun.
However, this review is all about the patch, which I used to play the entire game. The two bonus dragons provided in the patch contribute nothing to gameplay. I tried both out and decided I liked the default dragon better. Of course, none of the dragons have a status screen, so their strengths and weaknesses are left a complete mystery.
The analog flight controls and crosshairs are the most beneficial inclusions in the patch. Unfortunately, they don't go far enough in removing motion-based controls. In the patch control system, the left stick steers the dragon, the left D-button makes a U-turn, and the right D-button dashes. These are the only improvements, which is discouraging because the analog flight controls, like the motion-based flight controls, randomly range from unresponsive to touchy, making fine adjustments difficult. Performing many up-close attacks in the air still requires shaking the controller at specific times to sideswipe or takedown. The most egregious use of 'waggle' in Lair is when a building or other piece of infrastructure needs to be destroyed. The player must lock-onto the object with the dragon, which lands on the object and grabs it with its talons. Then the player must shake the snot out of the controller for an unnecessarily long time to deal damage to the object. If the dragon is hit by anything while performing this 'attack,' it will fall off of the object and require the player to circle around and grab-on again, then continue shaking until it is destroyed. Destroying generators, dams, rhinos, etc. like this is intolerable. In one particularly difficult mission, I was killed repeatedly for two hours, which required a whole lot of shaking, and left me with sore shoulders and wrists the next day, as well as an incredibly foul mood.
The ground controls for the dragon are left untouched by the patch, which is fine because they are actually good. The dragon dashes with X, slashes with O, flames with Square, bites with Triangle, and does an impressive butt-stomp by giving the Sixaxis a single shake. The only time I had fun while playing "Lair" was when my dragon was on the ground carving a swath through the enemy army.
The controls, despite their improvements, aren't the sole problem with "Lair's" gameplay. One of the worst issues in "Lair" is the unclear mission objectives. There is a little yellow arrow in the upper-right corner of the screen that supposedly points toward the next mission objective. In reality, if a player only follows the arrow, they will fail the mission every time because it simply does not point at what it should at least 80% of the time. Another problem that leads to clarity issues is that the mission areas are just too big and non-linear. The other (and significantly better) dragon-flying-game series, Panzer Dragoon, uses linear levels which keep objectives clear and the player on-track. In "Lair," it is incredibly easy to get disoriented, lose track of the battlefield, or simply not be able to get to the next mission objective fast enough, especially when flying through a screen-filling explosion, being shot by unseeable artillery, or trying to defend suicidal/oblivious allies. The missions wouldn't be quite so frustrating if the allied wingmen could actually accomplish something. Unfortunately, they are incredibly weak and stupid, making them completely ineffectual. Four of them could spend the whole battle trying to take down one enemy target, leaving the player to do everything else… all at once.
These unclear missions are made even more frustrating by their length. Only three missions in the entire game (which has a total of 15) have (invisible) checkpoints that allow the player to resume at a point other than the beginning in the event of failure or death.
Overall
"Lair" is a complete disaster, even with the “Dragons and Control Pack.” The game's problems are so deep and fundamental that patching them all out would be impossible, even if the debacle of "Lair" hadn't caused Factor 5 to go out of business. Between the terrible controls, graphics so overwrought that they actually interfere with gameplay, a terrible story, and irreparably flawed mission/objective design, I cannot recommend "Lair" to anyone except die-hard flight-sim fans who also happen to like dragons and have a whole lot of patience.
Presentation: 2/5
Story: 0.5/5
Gameplay: 1/5 (without patch: 0.5/5)
Overall (not an average): 1/5
