Lair Preview – The Skies Aflame

Factor 5′s first PlayStation 3 game is almost feature-complete, and we’ve got an in-depth look at all the dragon-fueled mayhem in a extensive hands-on report.

Rain of Fire

San Rafael, California-based developer Factor 5 has toiled in a galaxy far, far away for the better part of the last decade, rousing Star Wars enthusiasts with multiple installments in the popular Rogue Squadron series made exclusively for the contemporary Nintendo platforms of the day. But when it came time for Factor 5 to part ways with Nintendo and make the jump to Sony’s beefy new PlayStation 3, the developer also took its leave of the Star Wars universe to finally craft its own original, storied fantasy milieu. The result is the upcoming Lair, a (mostly) aerial combat game featuring a vast, fantastical world in peril, power-hungry religious fanatics, two nations at war…oh, and a whole lot of fire-breathing dragons, too.

Factor 5 president and Lair director Julian Eggebrecht comments that after working with the Star Wars universe for so long, the team realized the importance of underpinning a game’s plotline with an established and extensively developed universe. So rather than creating a specific scenario for Lair and then building the world around that story, the team worked in the other direction and envisioned Lair’s lands, history, and cultures in general terms before then crafting individual characters and storylines based on those broader parameters. Factor 5′s artists–many of whom have experience in the nearby film effects industry–drew inspiration from Roman and Middle Eastern styles, among others, in crafting the game’s unique architecture, clothing, and other cultural elements.

Lair takes place in an imperiled world that’s threatened by numerous emerging volcanoes, which are sundering the land and choking the skies with a thick cloud of soot. The peoples of this world have divided into two kingdoms: the treacherous 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. These two nations are naturally at odds with one another, and the recently empowered, aggressive Asylian religious leaders are already leading the country down the path of inevitable war at the game’s outset when the Mokai accelerate the hostilities with a surprise attack.

Rohn and his dragon will be swept up in a conflict that will decide the fate of their entire world.

You’ll play as Rohn, a member of the Asylians’ elite dragon-riding force, and you’ll have to take to the skies immediately to repel the Mokai assault and carry out subsequent aerial missions in the unfolding conflict. Subsequent levels will see you assaulting entire ground-based armies, leading a nighttime raid against enemy lighthouses, and fulfilling various other objectives in the ongoing war between the two nations. This is only the plot’s initial setup, however; Eggebrecht implied there will be some unexpected twists and turns as the story progresses, possibly ones that will leave Rohn a different person and in a different place from where he started.

Dragons may be a far cry from X-wings, but they do share some mechanical similarities. Luckily, Factor 5 hasn’t abandoned the knowledge accumulated during the Rogue Squadron years. Instead, Lair’s designers are building on their previous experience with flight combat design in creating and tweaking the gameplay. Naturally, your dragon will have a flame projectile attack, which we employed effectively against the Mokai catapult ships that were assailing the Asylian city in the game’s opening level. The attack even has a degree of auto-aim and will fire at the enemy closest to the center of your screen. (The targeted enemy will have a white halo around it for easier identification.) Furthermore, as you kill enemies in quick succession to form combos, you’ll build up a special meter that, when full, will make the action slow to a crawl while you continue to move at regular speed, allowing you to deal damage with even greater precision.

So dragons and X-wings both fly, and they can both shoot. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, though. For one thing, X-wings don’t have wicked talons and fang-filled maws. Dragons certainly do, though, and consequently Factor 5 has focused Lair’s combat largely on the up-close-and-personal. Your dragon enemies will be broken up into light, medium, and heavy classes, and the type of melee attack you do will be determined by the weight class of the enemy. When you have a light enemy targeted, you can hit a button to charge it and essentially body-check it to take it out quickly. Doing a charge move on larger dragons, however, will put you into a melee fighting mode that will require you to perform specific motions with the Sixaxis (indicated by onscreen cues) to successfully attack and defeat the enemy.

Unlike in past Factor 5 games, much of the aerial combat in Lair will happen up close, in melee fashion.

Lair’s gameplay relies heavily on the Sixaxis’ motion controls for more than just this melee dueling. In fact, motion is the only way you can steer your dragon (the analog sticks are used solely for minor camera control). We instinctively tried to fly with the sticks when we first tried the game, but after about 10 minutes we found the motion controls to be pretty intuitive. Eggebrecht pointed out that, given the analog stick’s relatively limited range of motion, the Sixaxis control ultimately gives you the ability to make larger movements for faster changes of direction and so on. We’ll reserve final judgment until we get to play the entire finished game with this new control scheme, but for now we’re cautiously optimistic that the designers have made the right choice by limiting steering control in this way.

Most of the action will take place in the sky, but some missions will see you hit the ground to terrorize the enemy’s hapless infantry, too. When you’re on the ground, you’ve got a number of extra attacks, from a large tail swing to a ground stomp that impacts enemies all around you. The enemy will frequently deploy entire battalions of troops against you, which means you’ll get to torch and plow through endless ranks of soldiers with reckless abandon. In some missions, a meter will indicate the morale of the enemy forces, and descending to the ground and terrorizing the troops will reduce their drive to fight. You can even pick up horses and other large objects from the air and toss them at groups of enemies in a process that Factor 5 gleefully likens to bowling. Since last year’s Tokyo Game Show demo, the designers have reevaluated the controls and decided that while the motion control makes sense in the air, traditional analog control has been restored for the ground-based gameplay.

The enemy’s infantry will naturally be no match for the terrible power of your dragon.

Rogue Squadron veterans will know of Factor 5′s emphasis on performing well in its games, and Lair will carry on this tradition with specific rankings that will tally your scores at the end of each mission. You’ll be ranked on the amount of “carnage” you’ve caused (which seems to be analogous to a basic score), as well as your completion time, number of kills and deaths, and so on. As in the Rogue Squadron games, all of these will add up to medals that will not only indicate your overall performance, but also unlock new moves, such as a double-slash combo, that will let you more easily tackle subsequent missions. Even if you’re not getting these extra moves from medals, though, the developer says the game will smoothly introduce new gameplay mechanics and concepts all the way through the second-to-last mission, to keep things fresh.

For most of its history, Factor 5 has developed games exclusively for one platform at a time, which has naturally allowed the team to exploit more of that target platform’s potential than if it were creating a game that ran on multiple systems. That tradition will continue on the PS3, with the developer’s coding wizards performing a number of advanced tricks to raise Lair’s visual caliber. We saw the game running at 720p resolution, but Eggebrecht said the final game will also have a 1080p option, and both modes are targeted to run at 30 frames per second, since resolution apparently has little impact on overall frame rate in this particular game.

This mission will see you entering a series of Mokai lighthouses and destroying them from the inside.

Lair will employ some levels that are a whopping 32 square kilometers in size, and a high level of detail will be maintained at any distance thanks to an advanced new dynamic level-of-detail system called progressive mesh. With this technique, whether you’re a mile up in the sky or hovering just a few feet above the city skyline, you’ll be able to observe roughly the same amount of detail. This really showed through in the early sample missions we saw, such as the first mission in which the Mokai’s dragons and catapult sea vessels assaulted the Asylian capital city, the temples and houses of which sprawled elegantly over a series of rolling hills. The sea attack also gave us a look at Lair’s full fluid dynamics system, which simulates the motion of real water rather than rendering the ocean as a boring flat plane. This effect was especially evident every time we destroyed an enemy ship, which exploded into a geyser of flame and created massive ripples rolling out from the wreckage, causing other nearby ships to bob and sway in the commotion.

Equal care has gone into the artistic elements of Lair’s creation. The visual designers used both dinosaurs and bats as models for their dragons, and you’ll encounter a wide array of different dragon types–plains dragons, ice dragons, flame dragons, and dark dragons, to name a few. As imposing as those dragons are, they aren’t nearly the biggest things in the sky. The Mokai will employ gigantic flying mantas as troop transports that make your dragon look like a housefly, and Lair’s first boss encounter will see you going up against a voracious flying coral snake that’s over a mile long. (Then they toss in a second one for good measure.)

Factor 5 is going all out on the visual and aural fronts to make the game as epic as possible.

Factor 5 isn’t skimping on the aural presentation, either. The game’s epic action will be accentuated by a full symphonic score written by film composer John Debney (a newcomer to video game music), whose extensive oeuvre includes Sin City and The Passion of the Christ. From what we heard during our demo, Debney will be bringing his cinematic experience to bear with a score that’s much in the grandiose style of Hollywood action and fantasy movies. And luckily, if you happen to have the necessary home theater equipment, the game’s audio will play in full uncompressed 7.1 audio via HDMI for that extra aural oomph.

Lair is currently moving into the alpha phase of development, which means all of the major features have been implemented. However, the team continues to tweak controls, balance damage values, and generally mold the game into a solid flight combat experience befitting the Factor 5 legacy. Eggebrecht said the team has a “firm commitment” to finish the game in time for a July release, so it won’t be much longer before we get to evaluate the final result of the team’s labor–not to mention one of the PS3′s most important exclusive games this year.

2. KillZone

3. Warhawk

4. GTA IV

5. Grad Turismo 4
6. God of War 3

7. Heavenly Sword

8. Lair

9. Ratchet and Clank Future

10. Army of 2 and little BIG planet(4 kids)

Do you think I am right? Give me your top ten!

The PlayStation 3 hasn’t had the most stellar software showing so far. But by God, that’s about to change in a big, big way.

10. Army of Two Publisher: Electronic Arts | Developer: Electronic Arts Montreal | Release Date: November What is it? In the great tradition of Lethal Weapon, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Tango and Cash, Army of Two is a shooter centering around a pair of wisecracking mercenaries who take on jobs the legitimate military won’t touch. Why should I care? EA’s new(ish) Montreal Studio is taking lots of chances with this game, attempting to develop the kind of crazy-smart AI that no other game has really managed to pull off. Co-op — whether your partner is human- or computer-controlled — is the central focus of the game. What’s the prognosis? It looks sharp as hell, but this is one game we’ll actually need to play to discover whether the AI works.

9. Assassin’s Creed Publisher: Ubisoft | Developer: Ubisoft | Release Date: Fall What is it? Only one of the best damn looking games we’ve ever seen. You play an assassin during the Third Crusade, using stealth and athletics to get to your target…and then get the hell out. Why should I care? It’s made by the folks who brought you Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. If that’s not reason enough, dig this: You can climb anything in the game. If it has an edge that sticks out at least two inches, your character can scale it. It’s the kind of free-roaming world GTA could only dream about. What’s the prognosis? As long as they don’t let the Warrior Within team touch it, we’ll be happy.

8. Devil May Cry 4
Publisher: Capcom | Developer: Capcom | Release Date: October

What is it? More hacking, slashing, shooting. More throwing enemies up into the air and keeping them suspended on a platform of bullets. More ludicrous enemies, gorgeous environments, and sweet eye candy.

Why should I care? While the second game stumbled a bit, the Devil May Cry series has, overall, been one hell of a lot of ridiculously over-the-top action fun. The addition of new characters with new abilities (like Nero’s God Hand-like arm of power) might even add a layer of (gasp!) depth.

What’s the prognosis? Sure, it’s not going to revolutionize the genre. But does it look sharp? Does it play well? That’s all we ask.

7. Grand Theft Auto IV Publisher: Rockstar | Developer: Rockstar | Release Date: October What is it? That’s a very good question, since at this point the only thing Rockstar has confirmed is that the game exists and it’s coming out in October. We may be going out on a limb here, but we’re expecting free-roaming gangster gameplay of one sort or another. Why should I care? While plenty of folks have legitimately claimed that the series is getting a bit stale, the fact remains that each new GTA includes enough in the way of new features to make it worth your time (if only just). What’s the prognosis? A new batch of systems (this one’s releasing simultaneously on 360) should prompt the Rockstar folks to make some much-needed changes to the formula — or else risk an overwhelming wave of been-there-done-that apathy.

6. Lair Publisher: Sony CEA | Developer: Factor 5 | Release Date: Spring What is it? The PS3′s first big-name, motion control-centric game features big-ass dragons spitting burning stuff at each other. Like Factor Five’s Rogue Squadron III, Lair also throws in some ground-level combat to really emphasize the size of those big scaly bastards. Why should I care? Controlling a dragon by manipulating your controller like a pair of reins is pretty satisfying. As is toasting the hell out of big swarms of ground troops. What’s the prognosis? When last we played Lair, it had problems similar to Rogue Squadron III’s: namely, a pretty sharp drop in quality (graphical and otherwise) when going to ground level. But otherwise, damn the game looks pretty.

5. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Publisher: Electronic Arts | Developer: Pandemic | Release Date: September

What is it? Another opportunity to blow the living hell out of everything in your environment.

Why should I care? Fire. Fire! FIRE!! While the previous game offered plenty of destructible crap, World in Flames ups the ante with a detailed, realistic fire system. Considering the game’s set in populated areas of Venezuela, that means plenty of realistic stuff to burn. But that’s not all; the game now supports multiple levels of damage to buildings, vehicles, and such — so you’ll get to watch buildings slowly degrade as you pump rockets into them.

What’s the prognosis? There’s a chance that, like its predecessor, World in Flames could end up big on technological niceties and small on compelling gameplay. But it’s hard not to be excited about a game that lets you play with fire.

4. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Publisher: Konami | Developer: Konami | Release Date: October What is it? If you own a PS3 and you don’t know what this game is, we’d like to have a chat with you. Why should I care? Kojima and friends have made each new Metal Gear title a major event, and with good reason. This team does things with games that other folks just don’t think about, and whether you like these innovations or not, you can’t deny that playing an MGS game is an experience like no other. On top of all that, these folks know their hardware; you can expect MGS4 to be a real showcase game for the system. What’s the prognosis? Very, very good. The only risk of failure: MGS games sure have gotten talky. If Kojima can rein in the chatty-chat and the too-convoluted plot devices, this could be one for the ages.

3. MotorStorm Publisher: SCEA | Developer: Evolution Studios | Release Date: March What is it? Insanely detailed, hyper-realistic off-road racing. Why should I care? Everything is modeled with ridiculous detail, and we’re not just talking about graphics here. Yes, the environments look amazing, and the vehicles undergo pretty realistic degradation as they take damage. But what’s really interesting is the variety of terrain: Moving from rock to sand to dirt to mud, you really feel the difference in driving surface. And since the vehicles have a real sense of weight, there’s a constant feeling of keeping things barely under control. What’s the prognosis? With the whole game set in Monument Valley, things could get a bit monotonous. We’re also not real thrilled about the load times we’ve experienced so far. But if you like off-road racers, it looks like it’s going to be hard to top this one.

2. Stranglehold Publisher: Midway | Developer: Midway | Release Date: Summer What is it? A collaboration between the team who brought you Psi-Ops, legendary action director John Woo, and Hard-Boiled star Chow Yun-Fat Why should I care? What, that’s not enough? How about this: In Stranglehold, the vast majority of what you see is fully destructable…and the rest allows for ridiculous acrobatic antics. Flop on a cart and roll down the hall, guns blazing, or race up the spine of a T. Rex skeleton to reach a balcony. Add in some of Woo’s signature artsy melodrama and you’ve got an interesting mix. What’s the prognosis? Good. When last we played this game it was plenty fun, but the controls needed a bit of tightening to achieve that “I am such a badass” feeling that Psi-Ops delivered.

1. Warhawk Publisher: Sony CEA | Developer: Incognito | Release Date: Fall What is it? A dramatic re-imagining of one of the PS1′s first classics, now featuring ground combat in a massive, free-roaming world. Why should I care? The game is one of the few designed with the motion-sensing capabilities of the Sixaxis in mind, and tilt-based flying works much better than you’d think it would. What’s even more surprising is that the ground battle seems to work just as well…even if it doesn’t look quite as slick. What’s the prognosis? Though the focus has changed from a single player experience into a multiplayer one, the game’s spirit seems to remain. If they can effectively balance the air and ground combat (by no means a certainty at this point) this has the potential to be an instant online classic.

Can he still swing from a thread?

The reaction to Activision and Treyarch’s Spider-Man 3 game trailers have been less than stellar.

 ”It’s Spider-Man 2 with better graphics,” fanboys have screamed across the Internet, but after a day in the Activision offices and some hands-on time with the wall crawler, I can tell you, folks are selling this game short.

“You can see that we’ve really redone the city from the ground up,” said Will Townsend, associate producer on Spider-Man 3 as he maneuvered Spider-Man around New York — a New York that’s 2.5 times bigger than it was Spider-Man 2. “It’s been his office before, but now, it’s his playground.”

Grab your tights, everything you loved about Spider-Man 2 is back; sandbox gameplay, Bruce Campbell’s biting wit, secret tokens, villains, the Daily Bugle… and the stuff you hated about Spider-Man 2 is gone.

“The repetition was something that we were criticized for in the past,” Townsend said.

Lame-ass balloon-catching missions and a handful of other constantly repeating tasks? Gone. Spider-Man 3 is going to boast at least 21 city objectives that’ll pop up as Spidey makes his way from point A to point B.

One main storyline running throughout the title? Nah, Activision is pouring ten threads (nine not from the movie) into the game and drawing in comic book rogues such as the Scorpion, the Lizard and a couple of other big names that I can’t mention yet.

Incredibly generic citizens who wander the streets at all hours of the day and don’t react to the epic battles that are being waged before them? They’ve been replaced. The amount of traffic and sidewalk-stomping New Yorkers will be dependent on the time of day, and if Spider-Man has to take the battle to the streets, expect the crowds to react.

Oh, and yeah, the graphics are better.

“He’s awesome-looking,” Townsend said with a grin as the Scorpion appeared on screen for the first time. “The villain has 40 bones in his tail alone.”

The first thing worshipers at the Church of Parker will notice when they leap into the sky and whip a web is the ramped-up slinging animation. The web comes out with a fluid arc, slams into a wall and goes taut as Spider-Man puts his weight on it. It doesn’t sound like much, but in comparison to the straight webs our hero’s been throwing for years it’s pretty impressive — just like the new wall crawling Activision’s added. Remember how particular Tobey Maguire is when he scaling walls in the movies– y’know, he gets close the surface and uses his fingertips to stick as he moves? It’s in here.

Of course, the biggest addition to this software is the symbiote: the black suit that Spidey rocks in the movie and the one that goes on to bond with Eddie Brock and create Venom (spoiler!). Townsend said the game’s about 60 percent red PJs and 40 percent black attire; but it’s not just about looks. When Spidey and the symbiote get together Peter swings faster, runs quicker, deals out more powerful attacks and gets access to a rage meter that can be uncorked to unleash super-powered attacks such as “Ultimate Puppet Master” — Spider-Man jumps into the sky, webs up all the enemies below him, yanks the group into the air and then slams the gathering into the asphalt.

“Everything with black suit is a little bit stronger,” Townsend said. “He’s still Peter Parker. He’s just more of a jerk-face.”

Beyond colors schemes, Spider-Man has a handful of new and improved tactics up his sleeve and past his web shooter; chief among them is his Spider-sense. In previous titles, Spider-sense was thrown into gameplay as another way to block attacks and for cinema fodder. Now, you can use your ability to find enemies, solve puzzles and just make the game look cooler. See, with the click of a button, the majority of Spider-Man 3‘s screen goes from lush and colorful to black, white and grainy. Civilians show up in green, and your enemies or puzzle objectives turn red. It might not sound like much, but when the sense enables you to see through a building and locate the exact position of a gang or identify a water pipe that could extinguish a blaze blocking your way, you’ll be happy you have it.

As far as blocking attacks, Spider-reflexes take over in this installment of the franchise. When some goon is coming to get you, tap a button to activate your reflexes. Time will slow down for the bad guys, a blue meter in the left corner will start to drain and Spidey will be able to reverse melee attacks by you hitting the right button in time.

If you want to dish out more powerful attacks or swing faster, you’ll just need to keep practicing. There’s no Spider Store in the current-gen versions of Spider-Man 3. Peter’s abilities will get better and better as the player plays more and more (think Oblivion), although completing missions will unlock new moves.

Activision’s brand new interactive cinemas will be key to completing missions on Peter’s way to being the hero of New York. When the big story elements go down in the game (think fight scenes such as Harry Osborn and Peter brawling through the sky) players won’t just watch a cutscene, they’ll play it… kind of. The cinema will play, you’ll be watching and suddenly a button logo will flash. Tap the corresponding button quickly, and the cinema continues with Spider-Man fighting the good fight and you needing to repeat the button challenge a few more times. Hit the wrong button or don’t get to the right button quickly enough, and Spidey eats it (a car he should’ve dodged takes him out in midair, a subway car turns him into tunnel pizza, etc). Your health will decrease, and you’ll try it again. In other words, it’s like the God of War or Tomb Raider Legend playable cinemas.

Spider-Man 3 the videogame launches the same day as the Sam Raimi’s latest opus — if you don’t speak nerd, that’s May 4 — so fans still have a month to kill before they can battle the three gangs ravaging New York, try to keep their Crime Fighting Index at a level that will have the city happy, take on the plethora of races around town and, if you buy the collector’s edition, play as the New Goblin with Sixaxis controls; where Spidey starts when the game boots up is up to you.

“Some people just want to punch and swing,” Townsend said. “We have that.”

Semi-official Sony blog pegs release month for Heavenly Sword, Lair, Killzone, Ratchet & Clank, Warhawk; mentions PS3 edtion of BioShock, Wipeout Fusion.

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot

Posted Apr 6, 2007 3:39 pm PT

Sony’s “semi-official” blog Three Speech claims that the release dates for a handful of hotly anticipated PlayStation 3 games have been narrowed down to September.

“That’s when we’ll see Heavenly Sword, the ultra-responsive arena-based swordfighting game, innovative dragon-fighting game Lair and the air, foot and vehicle combat game Warhawk, which is still looking likely to be released over the PlayStation Network rather than in the shops,” according to the latest posting on the site. “First-person shooter Killzone, too, should surface in September, as well as the first PS3 version of Ratchet & Clank.”

The post also makes a few eyebrow-raising mentions of the PS3 receiving an “HD-ised” port of the PlayStation 2 title Wipeout Fusion, as well as Irrational Games’ BioShock. This is especially surprising, as Microsoft announced at its X06 event in Barcelona last year that Irrational Games’ submerged shooter would be exclusive to the Xbox 360 and PC. Chosen by GameSpot editors as the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2006 Game of the Show, Bioshock was originally slated to be released on the PC and “next-generation console systems.”

When contacted for comment by GameSpot, a Sony representative pointed out that Three Speech is a semi-official blog handled by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and said the only game on the list with a confirmed US date is Lair, which should arrive in July.

Here is a preview videos of Warhawk

Here is Heavenly Sword

Here is Ratchet & Clank Future

Here is Lair

Here is Killzone

Here Is Bioshock