Extreme hype is the leading cause of disappointment in electronic entertainment. Someone tells you for five years strait that their game is going to change the face of the industry, with infinitely branching social interactions, worlds without borders, and gameplay so open you can literally deal with situations in any way you can imagine. And then what do you get after all that wait? Fable… ugh… Anyhow, Haze wasn’t hyped to the degree that some games are, but at one time it was thought that it could truly be one of the PS3’s killer apps, a real system seller. In the end we are left with just another solid yet uninspiring shooter that tries some new things with the genre but not quite enough to stand out. Forget the hype, Haze simply doesn’t live up to it. That said, there’s still a solid shooter for fans of the genre to enjoy here so don’t give up on it completely. The real tragedy here is that Haze had the makings of a truly magnificent game but never quite lived up to its own subject matter.
Haze takes place in a not so distant future where the developed nations of the world have dissolved their armies in favor of simply licensing out their combat operations to the mercenary mega-corporation Mantel. Mantel is good at what they do; their soldiers are constantly hyped up on a drug called Nectar that not only gives them incredible combat reflexes, but also prevents them from seeing the violence and horror of war around them. Strong and happy soldiers make for a solid fighting force, but things are obviously not as simple as they seem. When your character’s Nectar distributor malfunctions early on in the game your eyes are opened to the reality around you and you begin to question the real motives behind the company you are fighting for.
From a basic standpoint the story is really entertaining, and the ideas presented within it are quite interesting. Moving from the total nonviolence of the earlier stages of the game, where enemies don’t bleed and the bodies disappear after they die, to suddenly seeing all the death and pain around you, as enemies writhe on the ground as they die, really causes the violence to be more striking and meaningful, more than any other game I have ever played. I love violent games, but something about Haze’s presentation of it makes it horrifying and sickening. It makes you wonder if war is really worth it, and if being blind to it is really a good thing. The problem is that the game’s actual scriptwriting is simply amateurish and uninspired. There is a ton of unnecessary cursing, and the motivation for characters’ actions is rarely explained and often seems manic. It’s as if the original script for Haze was lost in a fire or something and they decided to use a fan fiction instead.
The gameplay on the other hand, while far from original, is solid enough that had the story been as good as it could have the game would have been excellent. It’s kind of like Halo with a few tweaks on certain gameplay aspects and all of the conventions expected of modern shooters like a gun sight zoom and recharging health and all that. Controls are fully customizable so if you don’t like the defaults you can turn it into a CoD4 clone or a Halo clone or whatever suits your style. After mapping the driving controls out to mimic Ridge Racer I found them to be the most responsive of any FPS driving section I’ve ever played.
The weaponry in the game is really its only major downfall, since it limits you to machine guns, shotguns, handguns, flamethrowers (which suck), rocket launchers, and sniper rifles. It may as well be the original Doom. The campaign is fairly short so you won’t be too likely to get bored out of your mind using them, but it really sucks a lot of life out of the multiplayer. Using Nectar effectively without overdosing yourself, and playing dead once you become a rebel makes up for a lot of the weapon monotony though and is particularly interesting in multiplayer mode. As a Mantel soldier you can drug up and become a powerhouse, but you can’t see the death around you so if a rebel plays dead they are invisible to you. It’s surprisingly well balanced and is about the only thing that separates it from other modern console shooters.
The graphics are typical of a modern game. I never really looked at it and said “wow” but I also never found it ugly. The good thing is that the areas you traverse through the game are highly varied and there is rarely any backtracking. I was rather annoyed though at the lack of a convincing physics engine and the fact that things in the environment would sometimes disappear after being destroyed. Haze doesn’t exactly give the cell processors a workout. As far as sound is concerned, the music is well done and the acting is as good as it can be given the lackluster script. I’m sick of all the silent shooters out there so it’s nice to have one with a pretty consistent soundtrack.
It’s almost unfair to review Haze’s multiplayer in the post Call of Duty 4 era we live in. Haze is a product of an age gone by. Unlike CoD’s quick violent skirmishes where people die quickly, Haze is one of those shoot ‘em for an hour games that were popular in the Quake era. If you would play Halo over Call of Duty then Haze is your game, otherwise just forget about it.
All in all Haze is a decent shooter that simply cannot live up to itself, or even other games in the genre. Considering it can comfortably be beaten in two sittings I would say its definitely worth a rental for PS3 owners out there, but I have a feeling if you paid $60 for it you would be disappointed. Haze is merely another acceptable game in an over saturated genre.
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6.8