I had a chance to speak with producer Sarah Stocker while Tommy Tallarico was hogging up Lair.

We started talking about the gritty, realistic look of the game and she told me that the developers tried to deliberately steer away from the bright, unrealistic colors of most fantasy fare and instead aimed for a more somber, subdued look.

To help achieve that goal, the game's graphics feature high polygon counts. The dragon and its rider alone have 150,000 polygons, while a single 16 by 16 kilometer scene is packed with 134 million polygons.

The graphics for the game were some of the most interesting I've seen for the PS3.

When I finally got my hands on the game I was impressed with how deftly the dragon winged and glided through the air.

While Stocker told me the team tried to adapt a control system that would make gamers feel like their holding a set of reins, jerking them around to move the flying beast, it still felt an awful lot like Warhawk.

That's not a bad thing, though I do hope they make the controls a little less sensitive by the time the game ships.

I played through the training level and a chunk of a level that had me supporting a mass of troops involved in a siege on a giant wall or bridge.

The training level had me flying through hoops, and taking out relatively easy to fight dragons.

Next it was on to a playable chunk of a level. In the level I was soaring over a giant bridge of some sort filled with two warring armies, mine and another, and the air was thick with dragons of different types.

I spent a bit of time locking onto to the other dragons and pelting them with fireballs and then went in for some close combat.

For close combat you need to lock-on and then get up close and personal and push another button. Once you're flying side by side you can shake the controller to body slam the other dragon or push buttons to have your dragon claw and bite it.

After a few minutes of that, my rider jumped on board the other dragon and I was able to pluck the other rider from the dragon with the help of my mount.

The combat was meant to be done along the lines of God of War where I had to match up directional shakes or button pushes with what flashed on the screen, but that wasn't developed yet, so any button push worked fine.

While the soaring combat was relatively fun, the incomplete melee combat felt a little too random and button-mashy for my tastes. I also felt a little let down by the cinematic graphics that showed the kill. If you're going to borrow from God of War for a combat style, and by all means that is absolutely fine, you really need to amp up those kill moves to deliver a big payout.

Fortunately, the game has another six months or so of development, so I'm sure a lot of that will be added as the game gets closer to gold.

After taking out some of the dragons and their riders I soared down to the bridge and flew through the openings and near the water, temporarily freaking out my real world handler who, I suspect, was worried I was going to glitch the game out. I didn't though and he was suitable impressed with some of the tight squeezes I managed to fly through.

Next I plopped onto the mammoth bridge and started tearing through the troops... until the demo guy pointed out they were my troops. Oops.

A short flight later and I was tearing into the bad guys. Again the game felt like it really wasn't delivering the visceral, bloody combat I was hoping to see. I mean, I'm on a dragon. I want to see it gobbling up terror stricken soldiers, melting armor, tail-smacking dozens of people screaming off the bridge. Instead I got a brutish dragon that sort of just muscled its way through the throngs of armor-plated baddies and attracted an awful lot of arrows.

The ability to go from sky to land with a simple button push and no sort of load screen is quite amazing. I would waddle my dragon through the crowds of men, scorching them with fire and then leap into the air and do a couple of strafing runs.

Another cool little feature is the ability to hover, an absolute must for dealing with those pesky catapults and other siege weapons.

While I sense I may very well love the finished product, right now Lair is simply the possibility of a great game. The developers are going to have to put in lots of work to polish the game up and add the sorts of moves and animations that well help avoid dreary repetition and lackluster play, but I suspect they have it in them. Brian Crecente