Lair on the PS3- A Review From A Nobody | It's not as bad as it was made out to be |

Lair is definitely a flawed game that hit with a polarizing control scheme, and various other technical glitches. However, this game is definitely a lot better than the reviews made it out to be. I don't give review scores, but this is a 7/10 kind of game give or take a point or half a point. The hype for the game was huge before it hit, filling a void in time where Sony desperately needed more killer apps for the PS3 to justify the system's price, and to convince more people to buy the system. Which made it's low review scores even more embarrassing for Sony at a time where they couldn't even buy good press if they wanted to.

Lair was never going to be a killer app. Even if it released day one with analog stick control, and all the technical glitches had been ironed out before release. Gaming had changed, and the days where a game like rogue leader could be a killer app for the Gamecube were long past.

At the time mainstream tastes had changed, and the dawn of the online, and digital era was upon us. Games had also jumped up from a $50 asking price to $60, and we thought the future of strictly single player games was in question, outside of something like Gta, or Oblivion that is. Lair could be beaten in a couple of hours, and it's only online connectivity was leaderboards which are still up to this day.
People wanted Gears of War, Halo 3, and eventually Modern Warfare. Most traditional single-player games were all but ignored by the vast majority of gamers in the PSWii60 era. First person shooters (predominantly modern shooters) and duck and cover third person shooters with a heavy emphasis on online play dominated the generation, and unless it was a big name franchise, most other traditional genres were put aside by gamers and developers. Whole genres, and sub genres of games more or less died, even if they had a strong showing on the PS2 from the previous generation.

3D platformers are only just now starting to recover from the seventh generation where we were pretty much down just to Ratchet and Clank, and Mario. 3D space, or airplane flight games pretty much died outside of Ace Combat, and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X . This genre hasn't recovered from the seventh gen either. Even once strong names like Unreal Tournament 3 failed to do well enough to keep Midway Games from going out of business, despite selling a million copies.

Development costs went through the roof, and developers had to go with whatever popular tastes were at the time just to survive. Tons of great traditional style single player games were ignored by the mainstream gamers, outside of maybe weekend rentals, and Lair, being a single player game with a single-player focus, even had it released in perfect form wasn't going to sell systems. Not even better games that hit like uncharted, and Heavenly Sword which came out later were console sellers. GTA4, and Metal Gear Solid 4 were console selling games with a predominantly single player focus, but the tone for the seventh generation was already set before Lair even shipped. Plenty of new single player IPs would eventually come it, but at the first couple of years of the Xbox 360, and PS3's life weren't kind to most traditional style games.

Lair, for those who can look past it's flaws is still worth playing. It definitely plays a lot better with the analog sticks, so, again, make sure, if you have any interest in playing, or replaying this game to get your PS3 online to the playstation store and download the patch while it's still available, and the titan map pack for Unreal Tournament 3 while you're at it. This game is far from a 4 or 5 out of ten kind of game. Looking back on what we know now, I doubt most of the reviewers ever beat the game before they reviewed it. It it's lowest, Lair is a 6, because it's still playable. If you're a Rogue Squadron fan, there's still enough of that classic formula here to find some enjoyment out Lair. It's really not that bad of a game, and certainly isn't worthy of the cannon-fodder it was used as in online arguments. Haze? I can understand, but if Lair is the worst game you're ever played, you should probably play some more games.

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