Haze is a first person shooter which is now exclusively available for the Playstation 3. It also marks Free Radicals first foray into the present era of high definition technology. For any fan of FPS’s or indeed gaming in general, Free Radicals pedigree is impressive and should be immediately apparent. With such classics such as Goldeneye and the Timesplitters series, hopes were understandably high for this game. Haze attempts to put the player through an emotional rollercoaster, as a member of a Private Military Corporation (PMC) you are soon put going forward to tackle rebels responsible for ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide in a South American country.
You play Sergeant Shane Carpenter, recruit of the PMC called Mantel, an organisation which uses a unique drug called Nectar to enhance their combat abilities. Set in 2048, Mantel is a media savvy corporation, who want to prevent the death of their soldiers, which would obviously cause bad press. So Mantel provide their employees with all the best technology, support and of course Nectar to keep them alive and fighting fit. However all is not how it seems, the acts of the Mantel soldiers become increasingly questionable. To the point where Shane switches sides to fight with the rebels. Known as the Promised Hand, they take the fight to the ‘evil’ Mantel organisation.
The story however doesn’t really hold up to well over any kind of scrutiny. Throughout the journey you’re designed to come to this big moral decision that Mantel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And that switching to the rebels, a third of the way through the game, is a decision that you, personally have made. However in essence, this decision was heavily pre-designed and requires absolutely no thought from you, neither does it make you think. The story is very much like “morality for dummies”, with the Mantle troops being painted as the spawn of Satan and the reincarnation of Hitler. Whereas the rebels are portrayed as the tree-hugging hippies who would never normally hurt a fly if it wasn’t for the evil invading Mantel Soldiers.
The gameplay for Haze is a difficult attribute to assess, predominantly because it is so hit and miss. So let’s start with the good, the shooting mechanics are solid and work very well, but then we should expect nothing less from Free Radical. The controls are responsive and come off very well. The task of actually shooting feels natural and is accessible, while actually taking time to master. What’s even more impressive is that Free Radical don’t just manage this once but twice, as the mechanics shift completely with the change to the rebel team. Mantel troopers have a special ‘zoom’ ability when you activate precision aim mode. However this is stripped when you change sides and replaced by a completely new feature. So not only do both work well but this offers a unique value of reality, completely shifting the actual shooting mechanics mid-game.
As might be expected the ‘combat-enhancing’ Nectar plays a large part in game, as part of both the Mantel and Rebel forces. The use of Nectar is well implemented and never feels forced, despite occupying such a large part of the story. As a Mantel trooper, Nectar enhances most of your abilities. Shane will now move faster, aim further and probably most significant, is that while ‘doped up’ all enemies become highlighted, making them much easier to see and shoot. It’s not all positive as the drug is self administered, there is always the ever present risk of overdosing. This causes a lowering of all your senses to the extent that friend and foe become indistinguishable, and Shane starts firing at whoever he sees. So an important lessen here is to use Nectar responsibly.
Of course with the switch, Shane loses all the benefits of the drug. However with the ability to overdose, Nectar can be used against the Mantel troopers. Grenades can be augmented to include the Nectar packs from defeated soldiers, this then produces a cloud of the drug which causes overdoses to any unlucky Mantel soldier who happens to be in the area. Causing them to ‘freak out’ and start fighting among themselves, which can prove very useful. The same result can be gained from shooting Mantel troops directly in their Nectar packs as well as getting them with Nectar infected knives. The Rebels have some other unique abilities, which help to create a sense of balance against the powerful Mantel troopers.
Now that the good aspects out of the way, it’s worth mentioning the negatives, which unfortunately are not short in number. First is Haze’s incredibly bad AI, it is dumb beyond belief. At the end of the game my notes were full of examples of AI behaviour which should not be expected in any game. The main worry is that friend and foe alike seem to have an innate predisposition to commit suicide. They feel happy just to stand and get shot at until they die, they must be under the impression that cover is for wimps. These guys also don’t have the best self-awareness; they can be shot from the side or behind and not even notice. In one occasion moans and groans were heard from one soldier, I tuned round to take a look and he was just standing there in fire, fair enough I thought, he was probably just fed up with the war, and just watched him till he died. Mantel soldiers are particularly suicidal, one scenario happened twice to me in quick succession. One of my Mantel team-mates was forced into an overdose, at the end of which he will explode. However my two other team-mates, quite happily stood right next to him. Needless to say they died when my overdosing soldier exploded, thus taking out my whole team. The AI may be dumb, but it doesn’t stop them trying, bless them. For example they seem happy trying to kill you at long range with a shotgun or a flamethrower, even though there is zero chance of even hitting you. But one of the most annoying aspects is that throughout the entire game, your team-mates constantly walk right in front of your bullets. This is at it’s most frustrating when you have just lined up the perfect rocket, then as soon as you fire, one of your bloody guys pops their head up and boom, we all die.
Free Radical made a big deal about having their own, in-house scriptwriter, compared to many studios who hire external ones. However I’m sorry to report that this set-up just didn’t work with Haze. The dialogue is poor, the voice acting even worse, and like the story line, is just far to over the top, without the slightest hint of subtly. Within the first few levels the word “Boosh” came up six times, throughout the review I will quote interesting sections of dialogue. Not only is the dialogue itself bad, but it gets repeated far too often. Free Radical seemed to forget that that every mission involves Mantel and the Rebels, and that the player will be hearing the same taunts and ‘battle-cries’ throughout the entire game. It’s so limited that after a few levels you would have heard that everything each side have to say, it just gets repeated over and over and over again. There some instances where I lost it, I killed the rest of my team just to shut them up!
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had with my pants on”
The shooting may work well enough, however what you actually shoot with, the guns, seem very underwhelming. Let us not forget that Haze is set in 2048 and that Free Radical have a good track history in coming up with exiting and unique weapons. However there is noting out of the ordinary and definitely nothing that excites out of Haze’s arsenal. Indeed some of the weapons featured in Call of Duty 4 look more futuristic and advanced than anything featured in Haze. The game also tries to add Halo style vehicle sections, with four players fitting into each. However for the most part these fall flat. You are rewarded for driving like an old granny, who only takes the car out once a week to the shops, rather than the boy racer who we all want to drive like in a game. Many of the routes are primed with explosives and the easiest way to get passed is just to drive very slowly up to them until they detonate and then carry on. Driving past at full speed, usually results in you getting blown up.
“That was like taking candy from a crippled baby”
Though the level designs are usually nice, most of the missions contained within them are horribly repetitive and just the standard video game fair. Additionally you are punished for ‘thinking outside the box’, try anything the game doesn’t want you do will result in either an instant death or an invisible wall. The most fun missions are without a doubt the on-rail sections; one in particular has you mowing down Mantel soldiers from on-board a helicopter. However the vast majority are going from point A to point B where you might have the exciting task of pulling a leaver or pushing a button, obviously killing everyone alone the way. They are occasionally broken up, but usually be nothing new, Haze features the usual escort mission, follow somebody else mission, kill anyone who comes at you for a certain amount of time mission, and the destroy the tank as it drives round and round and round in circles mission. All these have been done many times before and just looks like Free Radical are running out of ideas.
“You just made my s*** list”
Visually Haze just dos not deliver, especially as an exclusive title, which are usually meant to raise the graphical bar. Also you may know, Haze was natively rendered at a 576p resolution, which is then upscaled to 720p. This is noticeable, there is a distinct lack of detail in the game, and what there is has an alarming tendency just to pop-in. This isn’t much of an issue when travailing though the levels at a fast pace, which Haze allows for, however slowdown, and it becomes all too apparent. Parts of the game can and do look nice, but that’s it, ‘nice’, there is never that WOW factor, or much which makes this game ‘next gen’. There are additionally a few issues which seem to be borrowed from the PS2 era. The most noticeable is that bodies usually disappear within seconds. You can kill someone; they will fall to the ground, lay there for a second or two and then slowly disappear. On a technical level Haze does run well, the frame rate holds up very well, with almost no noticeable dips throughout the entire game. About 3.4 GB of data is dumped on the hard drive, but this helps allow for an almost load free game, with the exception of dyeing.
“Hoo Ha”
The single player offers a decent length campaign, well at least by modern FPS standards. I was able to complete the Hard mode in just under 11 hours. Obviously you would knock a few hours off for the easier difficulties or indeed a second play through. Even though I was under no desire to play the game through again, the only incentive offered is a fourth difficulty level, which is for those who would really enjoy the frustration. The multiplayer actually works well, but for the most part is again hit and miss. There is a drop in and out four player co-operative mode; this is online only with offline supporting just two players, and works well. Playing with other people often negates the games atrocious AI, though not always.
"Got wood"
Haze also features the standard fare of online VS matches. These are well implemented and clearly not just a second thought, like those seen in Dark Sector or Condemned 2. Going online and joining up is easy, and for the most part the teams are generally balanced, with perhaps the Mantel soldiers having a slim advantage. However this as well has its faults, and the multiplayer also offers nothing new and what it does offer has been done better elsewhere. It certainly won’t keep you distracted from Warhawk or COD 4 for long. One error comes with the re-spawning mechanism. It would be expected that in a team death match, players of the same team should start near each other, apparently not so here. In my experience there were plenty of unfortunate examples where opposition individuals re-spawned right in front of me, or in a room containing five guys on the opposing team. Needles to say this is unfair, with the guy on their own not lasting lone & clocking up another death. This is not as bad as it seems however, as for some reason Haze doesn’t keep track of your total number of deaths, a standard statistic you would think, but this means there is no way to work out your kill to death ratio.
So Haze promised us much, and was being made by a developer who could deliver them, so obviously hopes were high. However in the end Haze just does nothing to distinguish itself, some bits of the game are good, some bits of the game are bad. To the extent that the whole thing just falls into mediocrity. There is nothing much in Haze which hasn’t been done better elsewhere, and that’s its major problem. The game features some silky smooth gameplay which Free Radical are known for, and provides some interesting dialogue while it remains fresh. However it’s just a pity the rest of the game doesn’t take advantage of this. Here’s hoping that lessons have been learned and Timesplitters 4 can remind us why we love Free Radical so.
Alex S. from Link-Cable writes: "When shopping for new video games you can often trust the name publisher or developer on the box to be an indication of the quality of the game. Names like Nintendo, Square Enix, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Capcom, Xbox Game Studios and Sega are world famous because they helped shape the industry by releasing some of the most defining video games of all time. Though sometimes even these great gaming houses stumble and put out a stinker."
Splatterhouse remake . Loved the og’s at the arcade growing up . Hell the best thing about the remake was the og,s were included . And left alive by Square . That game had so much potential , but the gameplay was worse horrendous .
once Great studios getting destroyed is actually common. happened with ND and Last of Us2, Bioware and Mass Effect Andromeda/Anthem, Bungle and Destiny .
I'm pretty much certain that any Sonic game that comes out will be terrible, I've not enjoyed one since the original side-scrolling days of the MegaDrive.
For this Topic it says Good Studios that make bad games. Sonic Team hasn't been good in years.
Guns, drugs, and unnecessary war. Fun for the whole family.
