Developer : Factor 5
Release date : November 23, 2007
Synopsis :
Lair is an action-adventure video game developed by Factor 5 and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 3 in August 2007 in North America.
In Lair, the world is filled with deadly volcanoes, which devastated the world’s natural resources and air. It led the native people to split into two warring nations: the poor Mokai, and the well-off Asylia. The story revolves around Rohn Partridge, an Asylia Sky Guard, who eventually turned to support the Mokai. Most of the game’s battles are air-based combat, with some fought on the ground by landing the dragon and fighting troops and other land-based creatures. A morale system is also present, in which enemies may retreat if they suffer from low morale.
Lair is the first PlayStation 3 title to have been fully playable via the Remote Play function, allowing it to be accessed through the Internet on a PlayStation Portable. An English demo was released for Asian countries except for Japan, prior to the game’s release. The game’s soundtrack was composed by John Debney. Lair received mixed reviews upon release, with critics praising the game’s visuals and art direction, while criticizing its control scheme. Sony released a reviewer guide to teach reviewers how to properly review the game. Analog stick support and DualShock 3 controller support were later introduced to the game. It was Factor 5’s last game developed before its closure in May 2009.
Lair takes place in a world threatened by numerous emerging volcanoes, causing much of the land to be destroyed and the air to be polluted. As a result, people native to the world divided themselves into two kingdoms: the 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. Desperate to gain the Asylians’ land, the Mokai attack the Asylians from the rear. The spiritual leader of the Asylians, the Diviner, preaches that the Mokai are pagans and savages, defying abominations to the will of God, but the Mokai are truly a misunderstood people, hanging on to survival and only attacked the Asylians out of desperation for food (their attacks focused on their granaries).
The game mainly revolves around the pursuits of Rohn, one of the Burners (dragon-riders) Sky Guards (the air force-based military). At first Rohn adopts the feeling of hatred towards the Mokai the Asylians have but over the course of the story begins to have more sympathy towards this misunderstood people.
The leader of the Mokai, General Atta-Kai, approaches the Guardians of Asylia (three individuals with ruling power in Asylia) in peace to ensure the survival of both people. The Diviner, in an act to maintain his power over his people, has Loden, one of the Asylia’s Sky Guards assassinate Atta-Kai, one of the guardians and the Sky Guard Captain, Talan, prolonging the war between the two people and capturing Atta-Kai’s Blood Dragon in the process. After witnessing the assassinations of both Atta-Kai and Captain Talan, Rohn begins having second thoughts about Asylia’s attitude towards the Mokai and releases Atta-Kai’s dragon from Loden, thus putting Rohn on thin ice with Loden, the new captain of the Sky Guards.
Loden leads a massive air strike on the Mokai City, bombing the city and attacking what Loden thought to be an armory, but was actually a temple where the women and children had sheltered themselves from the attacks. Rohn is devastated when he discovers the victims and defies Loden, who declares Rohn an enemy of Asylia and delivers near fatal blows to both Rohn and Rohn’s Plains Dragon. Rohn’s dragon, in an attempt to save Rohn’s life, carries him into a desert in Mokai territory but dies in the process from the wound Loden delivered.
Rohn soon reunites with Atta-Kai’s Blood Dragon, who adopts Rohn as its new rider. While searching the desert for water, Rohn and the dragon discover the elder of the Mokai, Ren-Kai, under attack from a Spider Wasp, which the two slay. Ren reveals that some of the Mokai managed to survive the bombings and are hiding out in the desert and Rohn helps protect them from Asylian attacks. Ren, knowing that the Mokai people need a new leader, asks Rohn to rescue General Atta-Kai’s son, Koba-Kai, who is imprisoned in Asylia. Both Rohn and Koba-Kai defend the Mokai people from further attacks and acquire a small fleet of Asylian ships. The Mokai launch an attack on the Asylians and reclaim Mokai City. After the battle a group of Asylian Burners arrive and submit themselves to the Mokai. Among them is Jevin, Rohn’s best friend, who informs Rohn that the remaining two Guardians were executed by the Diviner and that some of the Sky Guard had defected from the Diviner’s rule over Asylia and were imprisoned in the Maelstrom (an Asylian prison situated within a dimensional vortex).
Knowing they would need reinforcements, Rohn and Koba-Kai lead an attack on the Maelstrom to free the Burners imprisoned there. During the rescue Rohn battles Loden, who rides a powerful species of gorilla-like dragon called the Bull Dragon. Loden attempts to kill the fleeing prisoners by flinging enormous boulders from the Maelstrom’s gravitational pull onto the prison but Rohn intervenes and kills Loden and succeeds in rescuing the imprisoned burners. The combined forces of Mokai and defected Burners charges towards Asylia, battle the Diviner’s forces, prevent the volcanoes from erupting and kill the Diviner. During the battle Koba-Kai is shot down by the Diviner’s forces. After the battle Rohn finds him and Koba-Kai comments on how beautiful the sunsets in Asylia are, Rohn goes on to say that the new world that the Asylians and Mokai were to build together would never be the same, to which Koba-Kai replied “Let us hope not,” before dying. Rohn asks Atta-Kai’s Blood Dragon to carry Koba-Kai’s body home, afterwards Ren approaches Rohn and tells him that his people are waiting.
Source : Wikipedia
