You know I love a good first person shooter, but with the continuous drivel the industry keeps pumping out it’s getting harder and harder to justify buying one. This is especially true if the game is from a new and untested IP. It’s gotten toa point that if the first person shooter doesn’t have a number after it I’m not going to look forward to it and you know what it’s becoming an almost unwavering fact. The game to further prove this is Haze.
Story:
A Private Military Company called Mantel serves as the clean up crew to the world. If you need a rebellion that needs to be crushed just give them acall and you’re problem will be solved by the time Breakfast is on theplate. What makes them special is the use of the drug called Nectar. It turns ordinary people into super charged frat boy jackasses. You will see these guys fist pumping, hooting and chest thumping. The only thingthese roid freak nimrods don’t do is tap kegs and drink from beer bongs.
Mantel is tasked with getting rid of the rebellion called the "Promised Hand,"which is led by a man called “Skin Coat.” He is called this because he supposedly skins his victims and proceeds to wear them as clothing. Instead of putting you in the role of the average Mantel trooper they put you in the bootsof Shinji Ikari wannabe Shane Carpenter. Carpenter is the only person in the group that isn’t blown over by the effects of Nectar and eventuallydisbands from the group. Eventually Carpenter meets Skin Coat and helps his rebellion defeat Mantel Corps.
This story is so hard to get into because you don’t root foranybody frankly I just wished for something to drop out of the sky and obliterate the whole planet because I didn’t give a flying crap about anything that went on in the story. It’s poorly told and it’s really just bland. To be honest the sequence before you meet Skin Coat in the swamp I fell asleep on. It was boring, I didn’t need to shoot anything and it was just endless wandering so I just put the game on pause and fell asleep only to wake up and finish it.
Gameplay:
The first portion of Haze is interesting and gives the game some personality. This is because of the usage of Nectar. When you use Nectar you’re able to move faster, see your enemy better (they glow on screen)and practically punch the rebels through walls. But if you use too muchof it you will overdose on it and lose control. Then everything on the screen will appear black and you will just shoot wildly. If you’re playing co-op it will lead to many team kills. Overdosing is rather frustrating because it takes far too long to getout of it and eats up your ammo. The other thing that Nectar does is actlike the FCC in a bottle; it does this by censoring violent imagery. While Carpenter is a part of Mantel the Nectar system will occasionally malfunction and he will see the world as it really is. He will see thedeath that he is responsible for and hear the bullets impacting his enemy’sbodies. You also notice how Carpenter never sees the grim fashion of Skin Coats “interrogation,” but that’s almost where the kudos end.
For something that was advertised so heavily the use of Nectar in Haze reallyis minimal. You use it for about two stages and then play as a rebel andit’s really uninteresting. The weapon set maybe different (in appearance), but I just found myself using the Mantel weapons and running and gunning it as if it was a generic shooter. The rebels have a different skill set, but 90% of these are just fluff. The only thing that I really used was the ability to play dead (so Mantel won’t see you) and the ability to make Nectar grenades. The gimmick with the Mantel grenades is that if you toss one into a room full of Mantel grunts at least one will overdose and take the rest in the room out. First in order for this to work they have tobe in the blast radius and the other problem is that they tend to spot thegrenade and flee from it. So it comes off as more of a gimmick that worksevery now and then, but it’s best not to rely on it.
As far as weapons go it’s a rather uninspired selection. You have ashotgun and an assault rifle. You will occasionally find a sniper rifle and rocket launcher, but that’s it. Aside from those I had a flamethrower for about 15 minutes and then ditched it, and there is also a minigun (old painless from Predator this thing isnot). I walked around with nothing but a shotgun and assault rifle…oh wait there’s also a pistol, let’s rejoice at that. The only remote saving grace for Haze is that it’s pretty fluid. It’s nowhere near as cumbersome as Turok, nor is it the glitch orgy that was Blacksite: Area 51, but jeez it really just lacks imagination. And since Ican find so many older more original FPS’s than this in a bargain bin or heckin my own personal collection (I’d rather play Red Faction (that’s right PS 2’s Red Faction) than this).
Graphics:
This game is sorely lacking in the graphics department. The character design is about as
palatable as sawdust bread or Civil War era hard tack biscuits. The mantel troops come in two flavors: average with assault rifle or big and bulkywith shotgun. That’s all you have. The textures on everything seem so dated, it doesn’t make it an ugly game, but it’s not eye catching. Nothing pulls you in and holds you it’s just boring texture after boring texture.
Sound:
If I have to hear “for The Promised Hand” again I’m going to snap and start peeling the paint off the walls of my room and chew it like bubblegum. Rebels and Mantel troops say the same garbage every 15 minutes and never shutup and it becomes grating on the nerves. The music is okay and the gunshots are pretty standard fare, the voice overs once again are irritating. Characters tend to wax poetic abouta plot you don’t care about.
Replay:
Haze offers co-op and adversarial modes that we have seen in much bettergames. If I wanted to shoot people I can do it in better fare like Call of Duty 4, Rainbow 6: Vegas 1 & 2, or Metal Gear Online. In fact there’s better a chance of somebody playing GRAW 2 (maybe even GRAW 1) online before they would even think about playing this. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work it’s just that there is so much better out there.
Overall:
Haze was developed by Free Radical, which include many of the people behind Goldeneye 007 for the N64, which many console players of my generation cut their teeth on as gateways to the genre on consoles and the whimsical, but wonderfully executed Timesplitters franchise. And to be given this; something that I barely want to touch ever again is heartbreaking. Haze is so painfully average that the only reason why Ubisoft released it when they did was to keep it out of vaporware territory and to beat MGS 4 to the shelves.
Kinda sad when a director doesn't ...