Gamers who spent their hard-earned cash on a shiny new PlayStation 3 and are now awaiting games to justify the steep investment might just toss their black box in the trash if they pick up Lair, a $60 beer coaster of a game that should have never been released.

Wait a sec. In all fairness, there might be a good game buried somewhere between the gorgeous high-definition graphics and Hollywood-quality music soundtrack. Problem is, with a control scheme this bad, not to mention camera angles that hinder instead of help gameplay, I'll be damned if I can find it. But it's not for lack of trying.

Lair's story tells of a peaceful and prosperous Asylian civilization under attack by the war-hungry Mokai race and the huge creatures trained to do their bidding. You play as an Asylian warrior named Rohn, a dragon rider and member of the elite Sky Guard, who wards off the assault in the skies, over the seas and on the ground. Some of these battles are quite epic in scope, with dozens of flying creatures dog-fighting above crumbling cities, battling through hundreds of soldiers on the ground, or swooping down to breathe fire on the sails of rival ships so they burst into flames and sink. At moments you will likely marvel at the 'Lord of the Rings'-esque fantasy battles unfolding on your high-definition widescreen television.
But any eye-candy admiration will screech to a halt when you actually try to play the game. Taking, er, advantage of the PS3's Sixaxis motion-sensing control scheme built into the wireless controller -- with which I already have some major issues, but will put them aside for now -- players control the dragon they're riding by tilting the gamepad in the direction they want to go. Believe me, it sounds much easier in theory than it is in practice. While Nintendo's wireless motion-sensing Wii remote is so intuitive a child could perform the action, Lair's control scheme is a bungled mess -- and no, you can't choose to turn this feature off. Hey, a steep learning curve is one thing, but even after the fourth or fifth mission I couldn't get used to it.

Here's a sample of how the control scheme 'works' (and I use that term quite liberally): After you mount your dragon and take flight, you tilt the controller left or right to bank your dragon in the desired direction, while ascending and descending is performed by tilting the controller up or down. Dashing requires you to drop the controller vertically, while pulling a 180 is achieved by lifting the controller up; dodging left or right is achieved by moving the controller left or right when prompted. Wait, there's more: Accelerate by tapping the X button; braking is reserved for the L2 or R2 buttons. If this wasn't enough, you can also pan and tilt your view around (to look behind you, for example) and simultaneously hit targets, either physically or with projectile attacks with dragon fire (with or without the lock-on and auto-targeting functions, which also don't work very well). You can't make tight turns -- and you'll need to at times -- plus there's a lovely invisible wall that prevents you from going too far off course, which turns your dragon around without you realizing what's going on.

Now imagine doing all that with a camera that doesn't cooperate -- at times blocking your view of the action altogether. Next thing you know, you're dead.

Hey, it pains me to come down hard on the same savvy developer who created the super cool Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader for the Nintendo GameCube, but perhaps Factor 5 was rushed to release the game (which in turn meant not allotting enough time for testers or for processing their feedback) or maybe Sony pushed the developer to utilize the Sixaxis feature to prove the PS3 could also play at Nintendo's motion-sensing game. Whatever the reason, Lair is a blemish on Factor 5's good name.

Now, players will get a moment of reprieve when they land their dragon on the ground and continue the fight. Here you simply use the analog sticks to move around, breathing fire on enemies and whipping your tail around. This works well, but the welcome relief doesn't last long enough, however, as you'll soon be expected to soar through the unfriendly skies to start the mess all over again. It would be remiss not to mention that some of the melee combat scenes in the air against other dragons can be fun, as the camera slows down and zooms in for dramatic effect, and is complimented with some great music.

Visually speakaing, the game is, in a word, spectacular. If the movies 'Eragon' and 'Braveheart' had a baby (or, er, a threesome with 'Lord of the Rings?'), it might look something like Lair. In fact, this single-player adventure is one of the first 1080p-supported games, therefore not only are the graphics shown in high-definition on a compatible HDTV, but the game can display all 1,080 lines of resolution simultaneously, or progressively, resulting in a vibrant and colorful picture. The cut scene sequences, where you'll learn more about these warring cultures and Rohn's character, also look gorgeous -- but there are far too many of them (I'd be likely to forgive this shortcoming if the actual gameplay was worth the wait, as it is in the Final Fantasy games).

Available in up to 7.1 surround sound, the music soundtrack rivals that of a Hollywood blockbuster; in fact, this epic score was composed by Academy Award-nominated composer John Debney of 'Sin City' and 'The Passion of the Christ' fame.

The bottom line is this: Lair isn't worth your time, money or effort. Its counterintuitive control scheme makes the game very hard to play -- to the point that you'll want to eject the disc, open your window, and flick it like a Frisbee as far as you can. If Sony is banking on games like Lair to help the PS3 compete with the likes of the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, the company is in some serious, serious trouble.

This review is based on a retail copy provided by the publisher.