Here we had a game that showed much promise. It was a game with superb graphics and you could fly a dragon and kill other dragons with fireballs in the middle of an intense battle field. So what went wrong? ill explain in just a moment.

Lair's plot is centered around a huge island that used to be one island but is now split into two islands ever since a volcanic eruption. Due to this incident, people have divided themselves into two kingdoms: the Mokai, whose lands are arid and depleted of resources, and the seemingly noble Asylians, who live in one of the last remaining bountiful, green areas. The Mokai are naturally angry against the Asylians and are completely desperate to gain their land. Aggressive Asylian leaders are leading in to the path of the inevitable after the Mokai launch a surprise attack from the rear.

So thats the plot. It seemed good enough but the minute you start playing you realise that the controls are very difficult due to the sixaxis motion sensor and there is no analog control. Most levels require you to be very precise such as flying close to small objects to destroy them. Not having a radar makes this object difficult to find in a huge enviorment and the motion control makes it difficult to hit. Then there are the flying controls, one of the things I hated was the "speed up' control. You have to basically pull the controller back and then pull it foward really fast but this is only responsive about 20% of the time so you end up waving the controller like an idiot just to get a burst of speed. All this makes the game frustrating to play and takes the fun out of the whole thing. It will also make earning those gold medals after a level completion nearly impossible.

Well thats the bad part now I will get to the good part. The graphics are incredible to look at. The power behind this games graphics is pretty amazing. Everything has incredible detail and the framerate stays pretty solid even in huge battles. But even better then that is the sound. The sound quality of this game makes you feel like your right in the game and the soundtrack is very dramatic and matches the game quite well. If you have the 5.1 stereo system and a 1080i HD tv then this game will make you feel like your watching a movie due to the graphics and sound quality.

But unfortunatly like I mentioned before this game just does not quite cut it. Mostly due to the control scheme they tried to implement. It is just too hard to cotrol the game. Nothing really feels fluid and you have to force everything your doing. It should hopefully be a good lesson to any developer trying to make a game where you control the motion through motion sensing. It just does not work.

To sum it up, great graphics and sound, decent story but the playablity is hardly there. It was a game with great potential and it was a shock when it came out so wrong. If there is going to be a Lair 2 then the sixaxis better be optional.