Haze

Posted 4 years ago By - Brian Edey

When Ubisoft first showed off Haze the game wowed many people for its graphics and unique gritty science fiction vision of the near future. It did not take long however for those initial impressions to be forgotten or turned to disappointment with the game after many delays and confusion regarding what platform the game would eventually end up on. Fortunately the game is now out and we can see if the title was worth waiting for and if the actual hype machine would pay off.

Haze is about a corporation who has a private army of drug addicted soldiers who are nothing more then mindless zombies looking for a thrill. This army has been sent to South America to fight enemy rebels and return freedom to the world, but of course nothing is at it seems as your view of the world becomes hazy and through a series of events you change sides and bring the fight to your former employers and brothers in arms.


Gameplay

To be blunt, the actual gameplay of Haze is mediocre mixed with a side order of boring and I have to say this is really disappointing because we know the developers, Free Radical of Time Splitters fame have done much better games with far superior gameplay. There is not one aspect of the gameplay which does not have at least a minor issue, from vehicle control, weapons, movement and more. It feels like the game was rushed out the door.

The vehicle controls are just bad and take too long to get used to before you are done with them and off on foot, it is very easy to over steer, crash into walls or other obstacles and overall you are thankful when the actual ride is over. Weapons are extremely bland with a basic shotgun for each side, machine gun for each side, sniper rifle for each side, see where I am going here? The weapons almost all feel and work the same as their counterpart on the Mantel versus Rebel side of things and to nit pick, a multi-billion dollar corporation should have some very nice toys compared to what some rebels who were not even armed last week have.

The only saving grace gameplay wise, and it is a small one, is the co-op. It is basically the single player game, but now you get to shoot your friends in their nectar administrator (thing on their back) and see them literally freak out, it never gets old but you do not wear one long enough for that part of the game to influence what comes next, joining the rebels. Multiplayer was generally average and I fail to see how it can compete with Warhawk and other PS3 multiplayer titles, even if they are few and far between.


Graphics

Being a PS3 exclusive title you would think the graphics would rival the best on the console, but you would be wrong. The graphics are sub-par after the first level, which is the same level as the demo (jungle) and those graphics are just slightly above average. The rest of the game has muddy textures, poor 3D models and effects and are just low quality compared to what we have seen in other titles.

Level design in the game is also bad, but it does have a few bright spots with a couple of very nice laid out levels later in the game that show some thought, but there are a few bad ones which are dull spots, especially in the driving levels. They are boring and absolutely designed poorly for any action game, especially with the quality of games we are used to this generation.


Audio

Audio wise the game also suffers here with some of the worst voice over work in a long time. Emotional stunted voices, over the top acted scenes and very bad accents are everywhere, I literally believe they sound like a heavy French accented individual trying to sound like an American imitating someone from South America and failing at the attempt, and worst of all the voice work was out of place for what was happening. But possibly the most annoying aspect is your friends who are fighting side by side with you never shut up and say the same few things hundreds of times through out the actual game. After hearing “No Mercy for Mantel” for the 100th time you pray for the game to be over.

It is not all bad as the game has some good sound effects for most of the game, they are not top of the line movie quality, but they sound good and fit most of the time. The guns and explosions could use some more power behind them audio wise, but overall they are good especially if you have a DTS sound system.


Value

Haze came on the scene with a huge amount of potential and failed to deliver. This easily could have been one of the must have PS3 titles and missed the mark dramatically. There is no real value game wise for long term gameplay with a linear story and boring gameplay most players will only play this once and move on to something better. Free Radical was lucky Sony allowed a game this under developed on the console and Ubisoft published it this game feels like a bad budget title.

Bottom Line

Stay away unless you want to play a FPS then rent this very short bland title

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