Lair

Play Magazine

Lair has come together beautifully... With its stunning visuals and incredible soundtrack, Lair may well be the single most powerful experience that a man can share with his $5,000 home theatre system. [Aug 2007, p.64]

AceGamez

Lair is a roaring triumph of a game that's blasted onto the PS3 to show us all just what the hardware is capable of.

Digital Entertainment News

Liar is thrilling and a dream to control via SixAxis motion-sensitivity, but the sharp graphics simply don’t measure up to the “full HD” promise of early game trailers. Still a sharp action title to kick off the fall holiday gaming season!

Game Chronicles

Lair does not suck, but judging from the comments and reviews from most of the media there are a lot of game reviewers who simply aren’t prepared to accept the SIXAXIS control scheme.

GamePro

I expect many fans will be disappointed thanks to all of the hype that's built up around the game, but the inevitable complaints about the control scheme will be warranted. [Sep 2007, p.79]

GameZone

There are some frustrations and the game lacks a general sense of excitement that propels you forward at a frantic pace.

Game Informer

Without a workable control scheme (standard analog movement is not an option), I fear most people will find themselves flustered beyond belief with the game like I was.

PGNx Media

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.

PSX Extreme

Once you've got the controls down, you'll find an enjoyable action game out of Lair. For the most part, the game is visually appealing and striking in most cases, but it's not without its faults.

Deeko

The bottom line is this. Lair was meant to showcase much that the PS3 has to offer and it does so in many ways.

Da Gameboyz

If you have recently purchased a PS3 and have a pretty good home theatre system, you may want to pick Lair as a great demo disk; otherwise this one is a rental.

DailyGame

Lair looks phenomenal and is an ambitious and novel concept, but its horrible controls and linear environments kill the fun faster than a dragon can cook up a burger.

Play.tm

Ultimately, Lair is a game of two halves, one half is highly detailed with an imposing soundtrack that engulfs the player into the story (if you're a fan of mediaeval fantasy). The other half is full of predictable, repetitive missions that suffer from the control mechanism being too tricky to use in tight situations.

PALGN

So while it's not that bad, Lair probably could have or really, should have been much better.

Armchair Empire

It may have the flashiest graphics, it may present all sorts of new gameplay innovations, and it may have an engrossing story, but without accessible and reliable controls… you don’t have a game that’ll keep you coming back for the pure enjoyment of it.

Playstation Official Magazine UK

The game is marked by a crippling inconsistency, and not just in its use of motion-sensitive controls. [Oct 2007, p.110]

1UP

Lair is a game that you'll want for its eye-popping experience rather than its gameplay. So buy it if you want to justify all the thousands you spent on your PS3 and that 1080p HDTV you can see from the International Space Station. Don't buy it if you want a dragon that does what it's damn well told.

Extreme Gamer

Lair potential never materializes into a cohesive gameplay experience. What could have been ultra cool, flying battling dragons becomes cold.

GameTap

The game does look pretty at times, and music is moving. But the poor control scheme and overall cheese factor are too much for me to deal with. Unfortunately, simply looking and sounding good doesn’t add up to a well-rounded experience.

GameTrailers

Lair is one of the PS3’s biggest disappointments so far. The potential was great, and the core gameplay isn’t bad. But instead of the fantasy epic fans dreamed of, the final product comes across as a short and unsightly mess.

GameDaily

It certainly looks amazing, and the epic soundtrack fits the game's fantasy theme, but Lair suffers from repetitive missions, cheesy voice acting and choppy animation. Fighting for ten minutes, dying and restarting from the beginning gets old real fast, and the cookie cutter story failed to hold our interests.

Just RPG

The gameplay does have its problems, but if you respect the controls and give it time, you will no doubt find something to enjoy with the game.

GamingTrend

Lair has some serious problems with the controls, but the fact of the matter is that it isn’t irreparable.

Worth Playing

At the end of the day, Lair is more of a visual and aural masterpiece than a game you'd actually want to sit down and play.

Electronic Gaming Monthly

Don't buy it if you want a dragon that does what it's told. [Sept 2007, p.82]

Cheat Code Central

Gameplay and storyline trump graphics and sounds everyday of the week. Unfortunately, the story is predictable and the gameplay is tedious. Lair is a classic example of form over function. What a major let down.

PSM3 Magazine UK

A massive disappointment. [Nov 2007, p.78]

Play UK

So pretty, yet so broken. [Issue#158, p.70]

Games Master UK

An average sword and sorcery flight sim, let down by the dodgy camera and controls. [Nov 2007, p.82]

Total Video Games

Lair is the quintessential example of why motion control should only be used sparingly on PlayStation 3 titles; unwieldy, unresponsive, and bland in terms of gameplay, the only thing compelling in the game is the soundtracks.

Maxi Consolas (Portugal)

Early on, the controls reveal themselves as almost unplayable. Even the excellent production values are not enough to mask all its problems. [Nov 2007]

NZGamer

But if I got this for Christmas, I’d be writing Santa a somewhat angry letter, and asking where in the hell my puppy was.

GamerNode

Lair is a bargain title in AAA clothing. Everything other than the gameplay itself is wonderful; unfortunately, the controls are frequently more frustrating than fun, and downright awful in most scenarios.

Games Radar (in-house)

Awesome graphics and pretty music just aren't enough to rescue Lair from its deeply flawed design.

Yahoo! Games

The game is very pretty, yes, but it's far from pretty enough to warrant punishing yourself with this one-two blow of poor controls and terrible targeting.

Kombo

Lair is a largely average game.

Game Almighty

An exercise in futility, a poorly designed and frustrating experience that questions how loose of a definition we should give to the word “game”.

PSM Magazine

Strip away the graphics and novelty controls and Lair is exposed for what it is: an average shooter the likes of which we've all played before on two earlier PlayStation iterations. [Oct 2007, p.74]

IGN

At one point, Lair looked like one of the most promising titles coming to the PS3, but the final version -- even with its interesting story, occasionally impressive graphics and amazing score -- falls well short of anything you should be playing.

Console Monster

This tedious control system just turns the main focus of the game, the battles, into a task rather than an enjoyment. Not only does the SIXAXIS control scheme not feel comfortable or natural, it just doesn’t work. And the fact that you can’t even turn it off makes it even more of a burden.

GameSpot

Great visuals and sound mean absolutely nothing in Lair. Factor 5 should have made a movie--not a game. This is the ultimate example of how gameplay suffers when all the work goes into making everything look pretty. There is nothing fun about it.

Game Revolution

It has an awesome score, a decent story and is one sexy beast. Unfortunately for us, Factor 5 seems to have fallen into the old trap of making outward appearances so appealing, they forgot to make a solid game on the inside.

GameShark

Lair has major problems with its use of motion-controls, despite nailing basic movements. Flat out broken contextual sequences, a choppy camera, and groan-inducing level design are hardly reasons to recommend it.

Eurogamer

Lair, sadly, is a classic example of the apocryphal polished turd. Strip away the HD bluster and the game beneath is little more than a basic PS2 shooter with a makeover.

VideoGamer

Despite such audiovisual wizardry, all the technical sheen the PlayStation3 can muster can't mask a dud game, and as a result Lair is little more than verisimilitude.

TheSixthAxis

It's massively crippled by terribly implemented controls and odd game mechanics that leave you scratching your head in bewilderment.

G4 TV

Dragon battles break down to attack-block-repeat. Ships appear from nowhere. Boss fights are more “follow the leader” than actual epic battles. Lair is not a broken game, just one that overcompensates to hide all its flaws rather than fix them.

Gaming Nexus

A game can also end up being worse than the sum of its parts. Lair is a good example of this. Because Lair’s most important element, the control scheme, is terrible, you end up with a game worthy of the bargain bin.

Jolt Online Gaming UK

The music’s nice though, and at least it looks good.

Gaming Age

Even a crosshair would have made all the difference in the world.

games(TM)

Lair amounts to nothing more than an unpleasant mixture of boredom and irritation. Not exactly the system seller that the machine is positively screaming out for. [Nov 2007, p.104]

Gamers' Temple

HD or no, Lair isn't a film to be watched, it's a game to be played. Therein lies the problem. Lair is nearly impossible to play.

Edge Magazine

How to mess up a game in which you ride a dragon is quite simple. You make the control of that dragon answerable to motion-sensing technology that can’t distinguish subtle or even very forced gestures in anything like the detail required. [Nov 2007, p.90]

TotalPlayStation

Lair is, in no uncertain terms, a colossal disaster. The offenses are numerous and the explanations unneeded. I would say the game needed more polish, but it's pretty evident that the main problems were more than just a lack of dev time.

GameSpy

It certainly sounds like an awesome game, but the execution is so terminally flawed in almost every way that a game can be flawed that it isn't worth anyone's time.