Lair is way better than what people think!
CONTROLS: 8
The biggest deal breaker people are hearing/reading about this game are the controls. Some people just want to jump in the game and don't want to learn anything new. They prefer old controls we have had for 10 years (dual shock/ analogs) and don't embrace new innovation. This causes people to rush through the games, hating it because of their own impatience and lack to learn, thus creating a bad review (and yes, I'm talking to the reviewers and the few gamers who reviewed this bad, even the 360 Fanboys who did 1.0 user reviews). This upsets and disgust me that us gamers prefer old crap and nothing new to try and learn.
Now I and a few others have alot of patience when something new comes to the table (like the controls of Lair) and are willing to sacrifice two to three hours of our game time to learn how to play a game properly. With Lair, the controls were sorta hard at first, especially after beating the First level. Exceptions goes to most of us who returned back to the Training Grounds (First Level) and found out that the game has a total of 13 stages of learning how to use the controls of LAIR. Once we played all of the trainging stages, we noticed that we have gotten use to the controls already. This is quite surprising and after playing the second level, the little control problems that we may have had left were totally out the window. My only complaint of the controls are 2 which are....
1) The camera (controls) aren't very useful to me but I can see the direction that the developers were going for. It was to see where other enemies are at if you believed you may have passed one. To me though, I chose not to bother with it because I rarely miss anyone who are on my list to kill :)!
2) The 180 is sorta hard to use, it sometimes confuses itself with thrusting forward. This only happens when your comfort level with the motion sensing abilities are still young but you eventually find a way to do a 180 easier later. Some people may still have problems and may not even bother using it, when doing a 180 is very helpful in some situations.
Overall, The games controls are not as hard or unplayable as some people are making them out to be, a little patience goes a long way I've heard ;)! GRAPHICS: 9
Three Words, drop dead gorgeous! I've never seen a game on the Playstation 3 look this good since Motorstorm. The sun glistens off the water in HDR glory and the water itself looks totally real! The CG cutscenes are very good looking and they may be real time, I'm not very sure. The buildings look great as well, Shaders were used very well in the game to produce extremelly realistic locations. The dragons are very impressive, looking exactly like I thought they would, very monsterous. The people, soldiers, and enemies put dynasty Warriors to shame and looks far better than I was expecting. This game is something to behold and really shows off the power of the PS3 again!
Now there were two things (and get use to me saying this because it's like this in the whole review) that I saw that did distract me when I was in awe of the visuals...
1) Framerate sometimes dips but doesn't kill the overall experience. You are still able to kick butt with no problems but the dip is noticeable.
2) Texture pop in is highly evident, especially when you lare far from a mountain and come close to it. It's a small distraction but does not kill the great gameplay of the game.
Just like Motorstorm, this is a beautiful game that would make any PS3 owner proud to have. I would return to this game often just to see the grand scale of these graphics the PS3 is pushing out of itself.
SOUND: 10
This is probably one of the only part in the review I have no complaints thereof in. If I could rate the sound in this game, it wouldn't be a 10, but an 11 just because of how the game made me feel when I was listening to it. I was sitting at the title screen and the level choosing screen more than a few mintues just listening to the music of the game. It is an orchestral masterpiece that reminds me alot of movies like Lord of the Rings and a few movies with knights. You are littlerally goign to be lost in the soundtrack and I hope down the road that this game releases an album that I can buy on the internet. The music is that good and they don't skimp on the sound as well. Voice acting is superb and I can't find a person who sounds out of place with their character. The dragons and fierce fighting going on in the game sound great and make you feel you are in the game! As mentioned before, I found no problems with the sound department, A+ stardards all the way!
FUN FACTOR: 7
This is going to get my lowest rating of the review because of a few considerable reasons, which I will explain below.
Once you get use to the motion sensing of the sixaxis of this game, you'll notice it's quite easy and very fun to play actually. Learning the controls though may take you between a few minutes (like me and a few others) or a few others (mostly other gamers). Some people may just give up on this game because of not being able to get use to the controls (people who rush in order to beat it fast) but this game is pure for for those who believe patience is a virtue. The game is quite challenging especially when trying to bash dragons (or I thought so) and wish it could have been implemented alot better than what it was. Besides those problems, the God of War special moves when killing the dragons (soldiers on them) were very cool and I wasted alot of time just doing that to see the different kill moves! I love the variety in the missions as well because I'm not costantly fighting dragons. Sometimes I'm fighting soldiers along the ground, guard a certain region from enemies, or have timed missions where it's a challenge. The game does get quite repetitive but can be easily overlooked because of other great games that did the same like Ninja Gaiden Sigma or Heavenly Sword.
If you're very optimistic, this game will truly entertain until the very conclusion!
REPLAYABILITY: 8
This game overall is great and not just because of what I've already mentioned. The story itself grabs you in and never lets go, intriguing your very thoughts and makes you want to see the game to it's end, a truly luscious story I admit! Not only that but the game challenges you to go to extremes in killing tons of people, not losing objectives, and gaining great times to gain gold medals. This gains you a great deal of accomplishment but I haven't been able to do that so far sadly. There is a much greater reason for getting gold medals, you gain extras that make the game seem like a directors cut/ special edition movie! You gain commentaries, "Making Of" clips, art, and lots of other cool things! This makes the game more demanding of your skills to unlock everything and is truly gives you a reason to keep playing! I do have to say though that the game is quite short, it actually only takes about 6 - 10 hours to beat the game, depending on how great you are with the Motion Sensing controls ( Hell yeah, goes to the very few of us who are great with the Sixaxis motion sensing!) This may sound bad by alot of people but some of us keep coming back because of trying to unlock more stuff, to listen to the great soundtrack, or just play the levels all over again to drool over the gorgeous visuals that makes us PS3 owners proud. CONCLUSION, OVERALL SCORE: 8.4
There you have it, My score I give the game, which is a more acurate score than the Expert critics have been giving this game. This game is not for everyone I must say and no matter what I say, their minds will not be changed of not going to buy the game or even try the game out causes me to be very sorrowful about that. This review hopefully gets heard and read by a few of those who actually change their mind in giving this game a chance and at least rent it to see if they can like it. Please...have a little patience, train for a few minute (or hours) in the Training Grounds the second time and you will see that this game is not as bad as people have been saying. Once you get use to the controls, the game is a blast to play, hear, and watch! Don't always let bad reviews be your deciding factor of getting a game, for you are the one who is going to be playing it, let yourself decide if the game is good or not. Sadly, because of the reviewers releasing their bad score, this great game may not land in the hands of the previously wanted owners or anyone it was hoping to interest. I hope you and many others reading this will give this game a chance and at least rent this before bringing judgement on it. I can honestly say that LAIR was another great game for PS3 and hopefully many others feel the same way. I and many others absolutely loved Lair and hopefully more will as well soon ;)!