Lair Preview Up until now, Lair hasn't been sitting
at the top of everyone's Most Anticipated lists beside Metal Gear Solid
and Killzone 2. But that, we're willing to bet, is about to change.
Lair's
graphical prowess hits you like a bus the moment you start the first
level. It has that Factor 5 touch. You leap onto your dragon and launch
into the air, and it stuns you with its ultra-high-detail environments
that stretch far into the distance for you to gawp at as you soar
through the sky on your giant dragon.
Factor 5 clearly still
knows how to get a console's chips ticking, as it did when it produced
the technically stunning Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games on GameCube.
The first of the six levels we played
during our exclusive hands-on is particularly stunning. A town with
literally hundreds of buildings is sprawled out in a sort of canyon
between two huge mountains. This awesome scene overlooks the sea, with
the most amazing water ripple being lit up by a gorgeous sunset. In
1080p on a on a big screen, it really is a sight to see.
Another level has you flying around at
night, in which a torrential downpour splashes water off your dragon's
wings as they flap, and fierce lightening strikes light up the whole
screen for a split second, momentarily revealing the impressively
bump-mapped textures of the towering rocky surfaces around you before
the whole scene plunges back into near complete darkness. It's awesome
stuff.
It's an extremely cinematic game, with its top-notch
visuals paired up with an epic, loud orchestral soundtrack and a motion
control system that literally has you leaning with the action (as you
should already know, you control the dragons by tilting the SixAxis).
Our favourite level is set along a river down which ships full of your
men and equipment are sailing. Your primary objective is to protect
them until they're safely within the confines of the city walls at the
far end of the river.
You start off zooming down the river to
maul a group of armour-wearing thugs that have decided to mess up one
of your watch towers. Spying the troublesome group in the distance, you
swoop down, yanking the L2 and R2 triggers to make your dragon slam on
the brakes and land, before stomping over to maul their asses.
The ground combat is simple but satisfying. Dozens (and sometimes
hundreds and even more) of soldiers surround you with their puny
swords. You have choices at this point. Swing the controller left and
right violently (or tap X if you're fat and lazy) to make your dragon
batter through them like rag dolls, hammer Square to spit fireballs and
roast them all or, our favourite, slam Triangle to snare a dude in your
mouth and eat him.
Again, this all looks amazing. As your
dragon grips a soldier between its teeth the game occasionally switches
to slow-mo and gives you a cinematic panning view of the action. The
game is so huge and the soldiers are so small, yet you can still see
their limbs reacting with realistic weight and momentum as the dragon
thrashes around, and they drop their weapons which fall to the ground.
You wouldn't expect such fine detail in a game with such wide open scale.
Anyway, back to the mission. Once those punks are dealt with, you can
take out what we can only describe as a giant cargo dragon - they're a
bit like giant airborne stingrays with snouts and teeth, and carry what
looks like crates of explosives in their gut. Blowing that thing up is
awesome - it causes one of the most violent explosions we've ever seen
in a game, whiting out the whole screen and scattering bits of bloody
flesh hundreds of feet around it.
Then you're summoned to
take out catapults that are battering your cargo ships. Pulling the two
triggers takes off again, which the dragon does with much ferocity. The
catapults are no match for your fireballs of death. You just swoop in
and drop your fiery load like a pile of the world's deadliest bird
shit.
Some Ice dragons turn up. They're dragons like you, but they spit ice. Pussies. Again, read our other hands-on preview
for a detailed rundown of how aerial battle is controlled. Needless to
say it's pretty good fun. The lock-on and charging system rids the game
of the typical boring dogfight syndrome in which you and opponents fly
in circles until one of you catches sight of the opponent to shoot.
None of that here.
The grand finale of the level is to guard the city gates as the boats enter. This is epic.
You fly to the gates where there awaits an army of literally thousands
of little men. Not hundreds, thousands - stretching into the far
distance. Granted, it seems the closer ones, the first couple of
hundred maybe, are the most animated, while the rest follow a slightly
less detailed pattern of movement. But come on, guys - there are
thousands of men on the screen. It looks amazing!
Excited, we landed to start
hyper-slapping our way through them all. Unfortunately though, once
you've destroyed the four catapult towers - the main threat to the city
walls - and the boats enter the gates, the level ends.
Seriously though - what a rush.
We were concerned for the level of variety in missions, but Factor 5
seems to have it covered. One level has you blowing up ships at sea.
Another sees you and a team of five other dragons stage an assault on a
massive stone tower with a giant revolving head at the top that
seeks you out with spotlights in its eyes and blasts you with lethal
cluster bombs. You have to take out its eyes then fly into its mouth to
mess up its insides.
We fought a boss too; an insanely huge
snake thingy that arches in and out of the sea below like the Loch Ness
monster, and rearing its ugly head to spit some nasty black stuff at
you.
You often hear people say that graphics are far less
important than a game's gameplay. That's true. But Lair is one of those
games which proves that extremely high-quality visuals and sound have a
massive impact on the experience. They make the difference between a
fun game and a mind-blowing, cinematic ordeal.
That's what Lair is.
http://www.playerschoicevideogames.com
|
