If anyone is confused at the title, it appears the EB games in South Center Mall in Calgary Alberta decided to sell me and my friend a copy of the game yesterday! (Hey Sony Distributors! I'm helping!). So, yes, I have indeed spent 5 hours playing a game before it's release date, Huzzah!

But let's start with Warhawk.

 Warhawk is fairly fun, but... very limited. You start with Handgun of shit that cannot even damage a Warhawk, and a knife I never got to use. Your options are pretty limited. Most maps ensure you pilot a Warhawk. Now, they fly nicely, but I suck at flying. This is true. And air combat is often a lockon fest, nothing more, nothing less. This doesn't mean it's not fun, but the game is pretty limited. Essentially, 1 ship, 8 different power ups, some of which are very meh, and an option to play as ground guy.  Only complaint, aside from limited options, is that crash damage seems kinda random. Sometimes you'll charge into the ground/cliff at full speed and bounce off, and sometimes, you'll explode.

Now, here's what I really liked. Because I suck at flying, I was little ground dude. Admittedly, there were levels where this wasn't just pheasable. But in levels where it is pheasible, unlike other games, just because someone is in a ship, does not mean you are screwed. Your rocket Launcher homes in on planes, and unless they begin to dodge, you'll mess them up quickly, and get more points for doing so.

The game is very fun, but seems very limited. I dislike the air combat, but that's a personal preference, and they definately execute it well with both a hover mode and a flying mode. Of course, one thing that amuses me is despite being advertised as CO-OP online, no Sony server allows split screen mode. Which is nice, because it proves Sony still believes you do not have friends. Anyhow, if anyone was playing against a surprisingly large number of Yog Sothoth's, you were probably playing against me. Also, it did crash once, if anyone is concerned about that, but only once over 4 hours.

Now: Lair
Let me list the good: The game is fun. It's very fun. I spent 5 hours straight playing it.
Let me list the very bad: You know what, there is no one thing wrong with Lair that is very vey bad.
Let me list the bad: Dear god this is going to be a long list. Tell you what, I'll just put a brief sentence in for now, and then explain later:
1. Framerate: Drops like a mofo. When you're on the ground, and chewing up troops, whether it's intentional programming that looks awful, it just the game chugging, you move in slow mow. When you're in the air, the game doesn't run smoothly. Still is beautiful
2. AI Programming: NON EXISTANT. For a war game where you're with a legion of Dragon riders, they are completely worthless. In fact, the Solo missions are easier by such a large margin because you aren't worried about your Shitty AI teamamtes dying and perhaps being a crucial mission objective.
3. Controls: Turning left and right work nice. Once you hit a wall, things get wonky, but the worst are the definately requisite 180 turns and speed boosts. 80% of the time, you get the one you want. 20% of the time, you find yourself doing the opposite. And in chase missions, having your dragon mysteriously do a 180 (Which oddly isn't visible, you fly offscreen and return onscreen facing the other way) kinda fucks you. Also, the first boss battle requires a quick jerk to the left or right to dodge an instant kill move. When that doesn't work, you are sad.
4. Lock on System: Is nice and useful, but there's one big issue. Many many many missions will involve you killing stationary turrets, and some of them are on higher ground. Sadly, your dragon is retarded, and once you lock on, will begin to circle the target, but be unable to hit it, and unable to gain altitude till it's firery breath can actually hit it and be worthwhile. So you need to remove your lock, re-orient (Which works, but isn't perfectly smooth) lock on it again, and hope you're high enough to damage the damn thing.
5. Army sprites: mixed in with gorgeous defined graphics are army sprites. Little messy 16 bit placeholders that are so hideously out of place, I don't even understand how they remained in the game. Especially since the army will occasionally revert back to it's 3d models. Little bonus: The sprites, though a temporary state, are invincible. So if you charge your dragon through them, they won't die. Till they are 3d models that is.
6. Music: Sounds like you're playing a star wars game, at least later on
7. Story : You will hate your charecter. He is stupid. I shan't ruin the story, but he is clearly quite stupid.
8. I only played with 2 dragons, who were essentially identical.
9. Very unclear objectives. Some levels, people will say things like "The ships are under attack!" and that's a hint. Well, enemies tend to respawn. And sometimes, the trigger to continue the mission is entirely unclear. If the trigger is a number up top, ignore all other things and finish that, because nothing else you will do will end the mission, and the longer you wait, the more likely you are to fail.
10. Level Difficulty: The game is chaotic and hectic, but the weird thing is, it's very easy. When you die, you don't start at the beggingin of the level, just at a spawn point, at least until your lives run out. The only time levels are difficult is when you have objectives that you'd think your teammates would count on, like protect your transport dragons, called mantas. You will find you alone will take out 300 enemy dragons and ground monsters, and if you're the only one in the mission, it'll be simple. But level difficulty is nearly always created by extra goals like, don't let your ships sink, because clearly you are the sole offensive capability of a marching army.

Alright, that's enough for now. Well, actually, two more things on lair. 1) They tell you how well you need to do on lair to get the next medal. How much damage (Done in Tons), how many lives, how many extra objectives, how much time, how many enemies killed, how many friends fallen. So you know exactly how good you need to be to get the next medal. And two: The bosses are pretty cool. They don't explain a thing, but are a WELCOME change of pace for a game that becomes very similar from level 5 onwards. (I only fought 2 bosses, 12 levels)
Warhawk: 7.5/10
Lair: 6.5/10

good honost reviews, i like

Is that for real? That's... well, weird.

Nice reviews, good to see someone in VGChartz adding nice stuff. It seems I would like Warhawk  

Wait, sorry, I forgot the number one thing that had me actually verbally abusing my friends PS3. And another minor one.

11: Grasping. Now, part of the game is the ability to jump onto other dragons, do a little button pressing mini game (Well, actually it's either shake up down, move left right, or move left joystick, but anyway) and toss their rider to the ground below. This is kinda cool, very repetitive, but since apparently this means that giant dark dragon doesn't want to fight you any more, it's often a good idea.

No, my complaint is with your dragon grasping things. Like ground troops or balistas. If you lock on to those, and fly to them your dragon will pick it up in your claws, and when you press triangle, let it fly away. Which is cool. Save for one problem: The game thinks it's so cool, your camera view switches to the object flying, and landing, and on occasion, clipping through walls. Until it's motionless, your game is stuck in this unskippable cutscene. You will begin to avoid grasping things because it entirely distracts from the actual fun of combat.

12. The pause button takes 5 seconds to pause, and 4 seconds to return from. I do not know why. But when impatient, or frustrated, it does not help.

from the Warhawk FAQ:

split screen works fine in most unranked games.

 also, a RPG or anti air turret is essential for taking down warhawks from the ground. powerups are your friend.

I could swear I mentioned playing as a large number of Yog-Sothoth's, so yeah. I can agree that it works fine online. I still find it amusing that Sony cancelled it instead of, oh, I don't know, not allowing split screen observer? That was a big reason my friend got it, so he could play a large game with 4 friends over, and Sony apparently decided that their servers aren't the place for it.

And Anti idle! Stand still for 5 minutes on a ranked server and both players get kicked! Gee, this is still hard to fix.

 Dylan Jobe wrote the FAQ and as such I think it would be his team's (Incognito's) decision. I really doubt Sony had anything to do with restricting split screen online on RANKED servers.  

Oh, they had their reasons, and I disagree, but it's their project, their servers. When they are barely providing the service, how good is it to advertise it?

My comment is more a tie back to what I said earlier on one of my first nights where I had a lot of time alone with a PS3 where I couldn't play most single player games without erasing my friends. This was remedied by the revelation that making a new profile allows me to make new games. Which removed my point, but I still like referencing myself.