TGS 2005: Lair Trailer Impressions

TOKYO--At Sony's mammoth Tokyo Game Show booth, we caught the first footage of Lair, a new game from Star Wars master Factor 5, which has been responsible for Rogue Squadron and Rebel Strike, among others. But while those projects have been set in a galaxy far, far away, Lair is a realistic, fairly mature-looking fantasy game that represents a distinct change of stylistic pace for the company. And from what we could tell from the brief trailer, it's going to look pretty darn good, too.

We'll admit: We have no idea, based on this trailer, what Lair will actually be like as a game. That's because nothing approximating gameplay was shown--instead, we were treated only to a ferocious-looking dragon flexing its wings, roaring, and generally acting agitated atop a giant rock in a rain storm. Toward the end of the trailer, the dragon took flight and clashed with another, somewhat burlier dragon in midair, and the two beasts were locked in mortal combat as the trailer ended.

Aside from giving us an idea of what kind of style Lair will have--that is, a mature, realistic fantasy one--the TGS trailer indicated the quality of graphics Factor 5 is going to achieve on the PS3. Before the trailer began, it was stated explicitly that all of the footage contained thereafter was running in real time on the development hardware; if that message is to be believed, the game will be visually impressive indeed. Granted, the system was only processing at most two characters onscreen at once, with little or no background geometry to consider, but the dragons were easily comparable in quality to many prerendered CG movies we've seen.

We'll bring you more on this intriguing project as soon as we can.