Introduction
What the hell happened here? The idea of Free Radical developing a new first-person shooter exclusively for the PS3 had many gamers drooling in anticipation. After all, that’s the same company that made Timesplitters, and that company formed from the same company that made Goldeneye and Perfect Dark (Rare). Those games were all really good, and with that in mind, how did we end up with a piece of crap like Haze?! I had bought this game out of curiosity for only $15, and thought that for that price, I would at least get my money’s worth. I was wrong.
Single Player
The single player campaign mode takes place in the near future, with the world in chaos. You play as Shane Carpenter, who is a soldier for Mantel Global Industries. The soldiers’ mission is to go to South America and fight against a guerilla faction called the Promise Hand and capture its leader, a psycho called Skin Coat. The Mantel soldiers use a drug called Nectar which makes them stronger and more alert in combat, but it also affects their minds and make them have fun while killing people. In a predictable plot twist, you find out that Mantel have been feeding you lies and you then are fighting with the Promise Hand against Mantel.
At least, that’s what I
think the game’s story is about. But the story’s so poorly told that trying to figure out exactly what’s going on will give you a headache. I had to get most of the story out of the game’s instruction booklet, and that’s a
never a good sign. But if you can get past that, you’ll still have to deal with the fact that the campaign mode is only 6-8 hours long. And since it’s the only single player option you get, that just leaves the…
Multiplayer
In multiplayer, you can play against others online, or play through the campaign in co-op mode. Playing against others online, unfortunately, is limited to deathmatches and a mode where you simply complete objectives. And besides, do you really think that you can find somebody else that’s willing to play this game? Probably not, since most PS3 owners are busy playing Killzone 2.
Fun Fact: Haze was originally planned to be released on the 360 and PC (as well as the PS3, of course), but that got canceled.
Haze’s gameplay ranges from poor to terrible. The beginning of the game plays like a typical first-person shooter with the ability to use nectar. Using nectar makes it easier to see your enemies (makes them glow), and
supposedly makes you move faster and aim easier (I didn’t notice a difference at all). You lose the ability to use nectar roughly an hour into the game (when you switch sides to the Promise Hand), so you really don’t get much chance to enjoy using it, anyway. When you’re a part of the Promise Hand, your nectar gets replaced by new skills, such as the ability to steal an enemy’s weapon, as well as being able to “play dead†when you’re low on life. (A\apparently the nectar prevents Mantel Soldiers from seeing dead bodies). It’s too bad that being a member of the Promise Hand is as dull and uninteresting as being a Mantel Soldier.
Making matters worse are your allies. Not only are they unbelievably annoying with their stupid, repetitive lines (“This is the most fun I’ve ever had with my pants on!â€), but the AI is absolutely pathetic. As a result, your allies (as well as your opponents) move, aim, and behave like a bunch of drunken four-year olds. It also doesn’t help that the stage designs are so utterly confusing. There were many occasions where I was running around in circles trying to figure out where the hell I was supposed to go. Considering that Haze is a linear game, this flaw is inexcusable.
The controls are yet another aspect of Haze that needs to be improved. The control scheme (which uses the R1 button to shoot) is okay, but the analog control is far too sensitive, which makes shooting something more difficult than it needs to be. There are some spots where you have to use the Sixaxis controls, but I don’t even need to explain how annoying that is. The game also has a problem with glitches, whether it’s in the animation, graphics, or AI (my allies are trying to kill me!). On top of that, you’ll have to sit through an installation process just to play it, and the load times are
still too long. Honestly, the best thing I can say about this game is that it actually
is playable, but just barely!
Graphics and Sound
Every time I play Haze, I have trouble believing that it’s actually a PS3 game. That’s because the visuals are horrendous! The polygon count is laughably low, with character models and environments looking positively
angular, and textures that look hideously blurred and pixilated. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the textures exhibit some extreme “pop-upâ€, which causes certain details in the characters and environments to not appear until you’re a certain distance away from them (translation; very close). I remember a good number of PS
1 games having that problem, but Haze is a PS
3 game. Needless to say, the graphics are terrible, and look like a first-generation PS2 game. I even compared Haze to Metroid Prime 3 on
Wii, and guess what?
Metroid Prime 3 looks better!
The audio isn’t much better. Throughout the entire game, you have to deal with your allies and enemies shouting random lines every 20 seconds, and they
never shut up. You hear the same lines being repeated constantly throughout the entire game. Thankfully, you can turn off the speech from the options menu and shut them up, but there isn’t a lot of music in the game, either. So if you turn off the voices and subtitles, the game just sounds empty most of the time (all that’s left are the sound effects)..
Overall
Haze is a joke. It seems that every single piece of the game (the graphics, the sound, the gameplay, the control, the plot…) falls short in one way or another. Nearly every other FPS on the PS3 is better than Haze, so do yourself a favor and skip it. You’re better off just spending an extra $40 on Killzone 2.
+ Playable - Bad graphics
- Bad sound
- Bad gameplay
- Bad plot
- Shallow . Avoid 
Re: Haze 
Linear Mode
