Haze (PS3)

I had played all of Free Radicals previous games before, and the Timesplitters series were some of my most played fps games on my xbox. I heard about Haze on release and decided it would be worth buying if I had a PS3, at the time I only had a 360. So after I got a PS3 for Christmas, I decided I should buy Haze and judge it for myself. Graphically the game is mostly excellent, there are some textures that appear low-res, but this is an issue in nearly every game I've played, lots of the textures in Half-Life 2 have exactly the same issues so I don't really see how Critics can blame Haze for this. The Storyline is excellent, there were many sections that actually made me question what NATO and other forces were doing in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, and how the insurgency encountered is actually an act of defence not aggression. The controls work well and there are a few places in the game where the six-axis controls work well, noticeably when your character is set on fire. The online is fantastic, as well as standard deathmatch gamemodes that Timesplitters did so well it also features more in-depth skirmish modes, which are like mini-missions with 8 players on each side. Overall Haze is an excellent game that unfortunately got shunned by the critics.

I bought this game as I had seen it reviewed on a game show and wanted a FPS for my new PS3. I was quite surprised by the quality of this game, the storyling isnt great to be honest but the gameplay is ejoyable. Half of the game you are fighting with the treasured necter which makes you semi-super-human, you heal faster, run faster, can see enemies, mines etc... and it is good fun getting your "hit" of necter. Then, things take a turn for the worst and you are without necter for the rest of the game (I wont go into details as I dont want to spoil the story for people). One of the down points is that your character can only carry two weapons at once, it is good how you dont need to rely on health packs, you just need to douck out the fighting to let your health stabilize. The vehicles are good fun to drive, and there are a good amount of levels to play. The game is great value for money and worth buying for the solo play and for the online play. The game gains longetivity from this, alas it is the way these days that people say a game will not be popular unless it has online content. I feel this is not true, the game is very playable solo, the online content is a nice little extra, capture and hold levels, deathmatch, etc... There is also free downloadable content from the PS3 store, which is always a good touch. Also, download the Haze theme for your PS3, it is quite nice :) And so, I give this game 4 out of 5 stars, it is good, but not the greatest FPS I have played, but do buy it, it is fun.

Great game, i would call it the best ps3 game ever. Some people call it the Halo killer and they would be correct this is the Ps3 version of Halo, the Halo killer.

Lets start with the good part. Haze is an absolutely brilliant story premise with it's chemically dependent soldiers waging dubious wars in foreign parts backed by a shadowy, all-powerful private military corporation. It has both sci-fi intrigue and uncomfortable echoes with current real-world events. However make no mistake Haze is utter, utter drek. I don't work in the software industry and in truth I don't really know how it works but I would imagine it's something like this: Sony really, really need a big hit exclusive game for the PS3, which at the time of writing is little more than a really expensive Blu-Ray player (in my house anyway). Free Radical are given a large money advance to start developing Haze. Things are going well and the deadline is still miles away. Sony start ramping up the hype surrounding Haze. Behind the scenes Free Radical are experiencing some problems and that deadline is getting closer. Sony's PS3 is being crushed by the 360 in Europe and the US and so they ramp the hype up to fever pitch, still not in possession of a Bioshock sized hit exclusive. Free Radical start to panic as the deadline draws near. Under pressure from Sony not to let the release date slip they abandon some of the lofty plans they had for the game. Time they hoped to spend smoothing textures, filling in detail and deepening the experience no longer exists. Release date comes and tellingly they are too scared to give pre-release copies to the press. Says it all doesn't it. My first problem is that this simply isn't a next gen game. It's a PS2 generation FPS with tarted up graphical textures. Here's why: The whole point of the PS3/360 generation of consoles was supposed to be not just graphical advances but processing grunt too. In Haze you are supposed to be part of an army and yet your team consists of two or three other guys and your enemies never number more than four at a time. It's simply pathetic. Like Medal of Honour Frontline - and that was nearly a decade ago. In the early levels when you can use the drug Nektar to heighten your fighting skills it is tempting not to do so as using it causes dreadful visual distortions on screen that are far too frequent to be anything other than nauseating and annoying. For a supposed premier FPS the voice acting and some of the character models are terrible with the ambient character dialogue of the guerrillas grating particularly badly. The cut-scenes too are long and bland with uninspired dialogue and often nothing but the waxy, inanimate face of another character to look at. The set-pieces blow chunks too with dull vehicles bumping about in small, linear levels quite contrary to the laws of physics. The scene in the copper smelting plant with the drop ship versus the missile turret would have been laughable even on the PS2. When you get behind the wheel of a vehicle yourself things don't get any better. While the control system is very good, connecting with the scenery results in the vehicle coming to an almost dead stop. As if all this wasn't bad enough, the weapons are lifeless and uninspired, the visual effects lacklustre and the levels totally and utterly linear. The god-awful `play dead' feature is worthless and only the Nektar grenade feature managed to raise a smile. Having paid the going rate for this game certainly didn't. When I had only had my 360 for a few months I considered Ghost Recon - Advanced Warfighter a big disappointment but this is exponentially worse. I really didn't want to be saying this but this game is getting sold as soon as I've finished the story mode (I want to stay with it just to see how bad it'll get) and sadly it is nothing more than another blow to the PS3 at a time when it really doesn't need it.

Haze is one of those games that tries to be something special but just fails in so many ways. The story, dramatic voice acting, big guys in big suits and kick ass weapons and vehicles all feel like one of your epic FPS games but it just manages somehow to do it the wrong way. I understand that the Mantel troopers are supposed to be drugged up macho guys that don't feel emotion but that still doesn't change the fact that the voice acting is terrible and the characters just completely one dimensional. The main character Shane also has horrible voice acting and it's hard to kind of like the guy because he is just so dull and boring. The graphics in Haze could have been so much better. It's a PS3 game and there have been some amazing looking games on the PS3 so far but this is just embarrasing. In parts it tries to look like it belongs on next generation consoles and there are some nice smoke effects and textures but that doesn't make it acceptable that about 80% of the graphics are really poor. Close up they just look so bland and like a PS2 game and there is so little detail that you just can't feel any sense of realism during gameplay. Character models try to look cool but again they're just designed very much like older unrealistic games and just don't look good. I didn't think the story was too bad but it's not the greatest. It could have been better had there been better voice acting and more emotion involved. Playing as the troopers and rebels are both great in their own ways but some of the dialogue and over dramatic performances just don't appeal to you at all. Gameplay in Haze is actually quite good. Weapons feel tight and smooth and sound great. There are plenty of guys to take out round every corner and you aren't left with large amounts of time out of action. I really liked nectar alot and think it works really well and the rebels being able to play dead does really come in useful. Setting traps is also good and ammo is everywhere and easy to collect during battle to keep you going through the action. The game feels good to play and you can't really fault it much. The AI is rather weak though and you'll hear annoying dialogue being repeated all the time which just gets on your nerves. Multiplayer is the best part of this game. It's really good and FPS fans will really love it. You can use vehicles and there's a nice variety of maps and they're a good size for the number of players. It's great objective gameplay. Here's an example: As a rebel, you start off as a prisoner trying to escape whilst the Mantel troops are trying to kill you. As an escapee your hands are bound together, but you can kick. Also, you can play dead which helps a lot. The map is raining and it's night time, so when you're trying to escape you hide in the shadows. You need to get to one of the three extraction points where you call a chopper and get evacuated. Now you return as a rebel soldier with guns and nectar cover knifes. Now you have to help the remaining prisoners escape. However, if you get killed a certain amount of times as a soldier, you respawn as a prisoner and have to escape again. FPS fans will probably really like Haze but will be dissapointed by the graphics and annoying problems it has but will feel very satisfied by the mutliplayer and fast paced action that it offers. It's a real shame this game couldn't have had great graphics and some better voice acting it could have turned out so much better.

Early previews of Haze, (the once promising but heavily delayed PS3 exclusive) seemed to give away all its secrets. Sadly there are no twists or surprises for anyone that has paid attention to Hazes excessive previews. The much publicised defection to the rebels; Promise Hand would have been far more enjoyable without prior knowledge. The twists following are non-existent, with only a discovery in a cargo container providing any highlight for lead Shane Carpenter. From the opening moment, Hazes visuals are disappointingly shoddy; the jungles look weak, especially when compared to Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. Its laughable this is the best Free Radical could manage. There is nothing here, apart from a few fancy, ultimately pointless effects that couldn't have been done on the previous generation. Animation is also a joke, especially when reviving a fallen comrade. Bodies also levitate in mid air. Vehicle sections are just awful, so broken they should have been left out entirely. In fact only the shooting is solid throughout; and in parts above average. But surely this is to be expected from the makers of TimeSplitters. Strangely, Haze doesent have a very large weapon selection. The whole game would be seamless if it wasn't for split second blackouts that occur after every "cut scene". This is one of Hazes most frustrating elements and clearly used to hide loading times. Rather than use cut scenes to set up the story, Haze insists on telling every scrap of narrative from Shane Carpenters eyes. This can work, as Half Life 2 proved. But the plot is clunky and amateurish at best, the half second blackouts completely ruining any immersion this approach so desperately tries to create. There are too many moments where a cut scene would have worked better. And they can't be skipped, much like Assassins Creed. In the days of Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock, where so much is experienced by the player, these forced "cut scenes" feel prehistoric. The voice acting and sound is also a major failing. Carpenter has a different accent in-game to the demo video shown. The same, quotes are used every couple of seconds. "This way", and "No surrender" are heavily overused. By far the most cringe worthy however: "Is there a medal for being the most bad ass gangster, cause that me". Even worse is the fact many quotes are used by both Mantel and Promise Hand. It's only a small point, but when both sides are spouting the same macho cliché, it's difficult to believe they are fighting for anything different. Music is average at best. In the early levels whilst fighting for Mantel, it's even obvious when there are no enemies, as the gun disappears from screen. For me this ruined any tension or suspense. Early previews also suggested that overusing Nectar can lead to hallucinations and side effects, with Carpenter struggling to separate friend from foe. This does sound exciting, yet my first overdose happened without having used Nectar?? This section was even played twice, with it happening at EXACTLY the same point. So nowhere near as subtle or refined as Free Radical have suggested. Nectar is even too scripted to be considered a game-play mechanic. Its also a massive disappointment. The yellow glow caused by this drug is essential to even see the enemy. There are some nice touches, like when on Nectar; the sniper aim is much steadier. Landmines are very well designed. The levels, most notably the cargo ship have flashes of brilliance. But sadly this is too little, far too late for such a high profile game. Switching sides thankfully provide new gameplay options, but Haze remains a mediocre experience. New options include the ability to play dead. Nectar grenades can also be removed from Mantel soldiers and used as a chemical weapon. The games climax (aboard the Mantel Land Carrier) had the potential, in spite of everything to give Haze a memorable climax. Yet, much like the rest of the game, it disappoints in a big way. Once aboard, the level involves lots of backtracking, with atrocious signposting and design. Example; wandering back to the start of the level, and finding (purely by chance) that a door has now opened. The ending is also abrupt and unsatisfying for such a narrative driven game. In fact, many levels end suddenly, leaving the impression large chunks have been cut to finally get this game on the shelves. Haze would have been a terrible game if it'd arrived suddenly and without hype. It just hurts when such a big game fails to deliver, once again.

this game overall is brilliant! yes, some of the graphics are a bit dull but the story is quite good. It is quite short but good. Graphics 7/10 storyline 9/10 weapons 6/10 online 8/10

I love this game. It has a great storyline, great gaming engine and the graphics are smooth. If your a shooter fan give it a try.

There are a lot of reasons reasons i could see to have delayed this game more than it already was, but they rushed it to release (with a 6 months delay). What is done well in this game is done very well. If they would bring a stability patch, it would solve problems of this game. A higher res texture pack with a more efficient streaming would also make my opinion much better having paid so much for it.

Auf deutsch gesagt , ein s***** füren Herrn .das Spiel ist nicht gut und die Grafik ist auch misst . Nichts für mich 😠schade hätte mir mehr versprochen