Lair (PS3)
Taking to the skyI’ve already spoilt the surprise just a line or two back, but I might as well pretend I didn’t say anything and answer the obvious question: How does Lair play? In short, it plays ok. At times it plays great while at other times the controls make you want to hit something (or someone!). Let’s take a look at the first mission you’ll be doing. After a dramatic intro movie you find yourself standing on a platform, right next to your trusty draconian friend. With a tap of the triangle button you jump on his back and take off. Now, having played other titles by Factor 5 (or any action game for that matter) your first instinct will be to move the left analog stick in the direction you want to fly. After the camera starts turning you’ll realize that that’s about all that is happening – your dragon will still be flying straight. Shaken but not beaten you’ll try doing the same with the other stick, only to keep flying in a straight line again.
At about this time your inquisitive mind will probably tell your arms to bring the joypad closer for inspection. But wait, the dragon on the screen suddenly changed direction! And then it will hit you. The tutorial level you just finished will come back to you and you’ll remember that you control your dragon by tilting the six-axis controller. That’s right. Even though one of the analog sticks could have easily been used to control the flight path the only option of controlling you have is the motion/tilt sensor of the controller. Want to turn left? Just tilt the controller left. Tilt it back if you want to ascend and tilting it down will make the dragon descend. Flicking the controller forward will make your dragon dash forward and flicking it towards you will make him do a 180° turn. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Well, actually (and contrary to some other reviews I've read) it is. Up in the sky, with no obstacles the controls are just about perfect, as long as you don’t flail about with your hands. Once you get used to the whole scheme controlling your dragon isn’t that big of a deal even in tight quarters. As far as I can tell there are only two major problems with it. The first and possibly most annoying one is the slight delay the controls have. If you are turning left and suddenly decide to change direction it will take your dragon a good second to respond to your controller movement. He will start turning the moment you rotate the controller, but in order to avoid making a game where the dragon acts like a huge fly the authors put some “weight” to the movements of the beast. This delay isn’t problematic up in the sky, but can sometimes make you miss a quick target. Perhaps it is more realistic that a creature the size of a dragon would take some time responding to movement commands.
The second problem with the controls is the fact that gamers tend to hold the controller tilted towards themselves. This isn’t so much of a problem in itself, but with some people the motion based control will mean that they have to readjust the way they play games. The game is forgiving enough to allow up to about 20° or so tilting without making your dragon constantly ascend, but it still is kind of annoying that you have constantly watch what you are doing with the position of the controller. And unlike the analog stick where you have constant feedback about how far you are pushing it, the motion sensor has no way of letting you know whether you are holding it at a 50° angle or at 80 degrees. As I said I personally had no real issues with the controls, and I was able to fly my dragon under low bridges by the time I completed the second mission. Granted, during my play-through I missed more targets than I would have with regular controls and were it not for the forgiving flight model my dragon would have looked rather 2D from all the smacks in the wall I was about to make. Overall however I found myself flying through the sky just fine, taking down dragons one after another. It was the ground units that proved to be the most problematic. You see, Lair has a very peculiar targeting system. Pressing down the left or right shoulder button targets the foe that is closest to the center of the screen, without giving you any real control over who it chooses.
When you have a bunch of dragons in front of you that isn’t such a huge deal, but when you want to target a land unit from afar the system makes it nearly impossible to select the correct target. With regular analog control you might have been able to pinpoint your target, but because of the floaty nature of the six-axis controller you usually have to be close enough that your objective is the only foe near the center of the screen. And even then sometimes the targeting system will fudge things up and target a dragon that just flew above you or something of that nature! Firing blindly doesn’t work in these situations either. Sure, your fireballs tend to fly in the direction of enemies when they are in front of you, but several ground enemies require you to grab them and either tear their husks off or carry them away in order to defeat them. To do that all you need to do is fly straight at them while targeting them. Under the line the whole gameplay experience is quite enjoyable, if you are ready to perhaps change the way you hold the controller and can get over the problematic targeting system. As I said the game is forgiving enough when it comes to “crashes”. In situations where you’d crash and burn in previous Factor 5 games your dragon will simply change direction, retract one of its wings in order to avoid damage and fly on as if nothing had happened. Considering the slow response of the controls this is a godsend!
Related StuffTags |
 
 
See if your PC can handle the latest games:
 
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Articles: 
