Lair PS3 Game Sound and Gameplay

A full orchestral score accompanies the entire game and boy does it make the experience all that much better. It is written by Academy Award-nominated composer John Debney (of Sin City and The Passion of the Christ fame). When playing you really feel like you're inside of a theatrical sequence. I've played a lot of games that have the expected crescendos and mood music, however this was clearly a step above – both in terms of its quality and the way it was utilized throughout each Chapter. There is apparently around 5-6 hours of scoring for this game and it shows, with thematic elements that share similar qualities but never sound repetitive.

Surround Audio Quality and Fidelity

Audio for this game is incredible. I played in full uncompressed 5.1 surround audio and the system supports up to 7.1. The sound was more immersive than anything I've yet experienced. While there were some point-source style effects, mostly the surrounds seemed to be filled with the scoring and subtleties. For example, in Scene 5 when there is a truce meeting in a large cathedral, the surrounds are providing the slap-back echo to give the feel of a larger, open room. Throughout my playing I was constantly amazed at the lack of “.1” material. While my bass management was certainly doing its work of crossing over low frequencies to the subwoofer, it didn't appear that Lair had much in the way of a dedicated LFE track. Dragon attacks and general gameplay were almost completely lacking in anything under 60-80Hz. When I finally completed the 5th Level (after literally HOURS of attempts) there was a final drawbridge closure that indicated the Mokai had been cut off. It's the pinnacle pre-render sequence for the entire level. As the gigantic iron gates connected with the stone bridge there was nary a sound. Not even much of a thump to indicate that the bridge had indeed closed off the troops from attacking. Oops.

Gameplay

Words cannot express the sheer dichotomy of the Sixaxis controller with respect to this game. In areas where you are free to roam and explore, the controller is a joy and a wonder to behold. It represented to me a completely different paradigm of gaming that had such incredible potential and charm. The swooping, the turning, the sheer beauty that it is to feel as if you are actually flying a dragon.

Alas, all that was destroyed upon extended gameplay that included navigating through tight areas and targeting specific objects, particularly rhinos or objects that were located near/behind/in-proximity-to dragons. After trying for the 16th time (yes, literally) to pass the fifth level “Crossing at Dawn” it took all the willpower I possessed not to throw the controller through the projector screen after I swooped directly over a targeted rhino three times in a row only to fail once again to complete the level. After additional hours of gameplay, I finally passed the level, but there was more a feeling of relief than satisfaction. In my opinion the game needs to remove the time limits or tighten the navigational controls and targeting options (you cannot currently select or cycle individual targets at all but are at the mercy of the computer.) The developers should also seriously reconsider betting any future games on mandatory Sixaxis control. After giving it hours upon hours of the benefit of the doubt, it's not a matter of getting used to it – it simply doesn't allow for enough finesse and movements are delayed. Targets get easily missed and turning around to reacquire is more like steering a Boeing 737 than a dragon. The gesturing 180-degree move, which is the only way to quickly get back to action that is behind you, worked about 1 in every 4 tries, even after more than 6 hours of practice.

Game Menu and Options

Upon bootup, I found that you cannot bypass either the Intro screens or the modified animated THX “cow” logo sequence, which progresses smoothly into a Factor 5 screen. It's 1 minute and 25 seconds of your life that will go by every time you boot up the game.

Under the Options menu you have a simple Gray Steps pattern to help you adjust brightness, but there is no actual in-game gamma control, meaning that you're unable to precisely configure the black levels you'll experience in the game. The good news is that I rarely ran into any game sequences that were “horror film” black (though chapter 6 was very close in the beginning).

Music, SFX and Voice levels can be adjusted as can the “Visible Frame” which is a way of guaranteeing your television's overscan or bezel doesn't crop off any of the picture. Subtitles can be enabled and the Camera Rotation can be inverted for those of us who learned our gaming chops playing flight simulators like FA-18 Hornet. Game Extras include Making of Lair, Concept Galleries, Production Gallery (a series of behind the scenes still photos) and Concert Hall – a way to listen to all of the pieces of score for each act. Videos, for some reason, seemed to play back at around 24 frames per second with an ever-present stutter – as if they were originally rendered for the Internet or a 24p 2:3 conversion wasn't being done with the proper pull-down. There is also a serious amount of macroblocking and banding present. You cannot fast forward or rewind through the videos as you can with standard Blu-ray video material.

Play Options

No multiplayer options exist for this game, however you can go online and compare your performance with other players using the built-in Online Leaderboards. It's a weak addition and honestly it seems that true multiplayer was yet another thing that fell by the wayside as the developers focused on the excellent story, cinematics and scoring. This game seems perfect for multiplayer, or at least some kind of online warfare mode that pits you against 15 other dragons. The one thing that does make Lair interesting in terms of playability is that strategically, you can seemingly solve the levels in a number of different ways. Ultimately all goals need to be met, and in somewhat of an order, but there is enough leeway to provide for some flexibility – at least on some levels.