Lair was a big dissappointment for me. The problems I had with it were not the controls, which you can get used to, but a few gameplay choices Factor 5 made.
The lockon system they used made targeting and killing enemies too simple and seemed to be thrown in there because they couldn't think of a better more skill based system with the controls they had.
The most obnoxious system that finally killed the game for me were the takedowns and the close fighting system. The system for taking down other dragon riders introduced one of my most hated modern gameplay mechanics, button matching. It broke the fast-paced flow of the game. Takedowns could have been implemented using simpler controls and would have looked cooler if they didn't take you out of the game to play a minigame. Close fighting suffered the same problem, it took me out of the game to lode a slower, less interesting, mini-fighting game.
The camera was also awful. In the air it was somewhat tolerable but on the ground it was counter-intuitive and obnoxious.
Lair was constantly trying to rip me out of the experience of flying around in a dragon battle by making me play minigames and killing the fast paced action of the game. The camera was horrible and the lockon system made the blasting things out of the air too easy. I really wanted the game to be good too. It was one of the games that made me want a PS3. I was pissed.
I give this thread a 9.4.
Thank god for the disable signatures option.
