First off this review will be very short, shorter than my normal reviews. Why? Well, frankly because this game doesn’t deserve any more “press.”
Haze is one of those shooters that had a lot of potential, but never was really able to capitalize on it. This “gem” is brought to you by Free Radical Design, a company that was formed from a splinter group of the Goldeneye/Perfect Dark team. Also, this team designed the Time Splitters game. The bulk of the aforementioned games were great. Knowing that, you would think that a something they created on a current gen system would be just as outstanding. Unfortunately, that is far from the case.
Haze follows Sgt. Shane Carpenter, a soldier in “Mantle”, a sort of PMC of the future. You are sent into South America to help stop the rebels known as the “The Promise Hand”, led by a man calling himself Gabriel “Skin Coat” Merino… seriously. Over the course of the game you are able to dose yourself with Mantel’s super elixir called “Nectar.” Basically it is just a drug that heightens your awareness, skill level, and generally makes you a giant douche bag (but more on that later).
Over time, Shane’s Nectar administration system starts to fail. Only then does he begin to see Mantel for what it really is, a giant smash and grab corporation. He’s shown the true repercussions of prolonged exposure to Nectar, that being death. Naturally, Shane then joins forces with the rebels to try and put a stop to Mantel. Free Radical tries hard to put a big morale lesson in Haze, but honestly, by the end of the game I didn’t care enough anymore to bother paying attention.
Getting down to the game itself, visually, Haze looks atrocious. Seriously… The textures, are just flat out ugly. It’s chock full of glitches and bugs, not to mention that at points I would get stuck in different parts of the map, because the collision detection was so spotty. Controls were run of the mill shooter and let’s be honest, kinda hard to screw up. The weapons of Haze brought nothing new really to the table, and sitting here thinking about the game I couldn’t list a single one to you.
I guess it doesn’t sound all that bad. There is a lot of spoken audio, seeing as how most of the game is told through verbal exposition. Which brings me to my biggest gripe with this game. I will start by saying that I understand what and why they were trying to do with the soldiers of Mantel. When you first meet the other guys in your squad, I was seriously surprised they weren’t wearing pink polo’s with the collar popped. There was more high-fiving and “dude bro” moments in the first section of the game than in the entirety of the beer-pong world championships. It was annoying to the point of being painful. Again, I understand why they did this though. They were making the point that the Nectar alters your sense of right and wrong, as well as making you a team player in your squad. I just don’t think they had to do it to such a nauseating degree. I was so happy later on in the game that I was given the chance to shoot the Mantel guys. I found myself unloading clip-after-clip into them, just to release stress.
Given the pedigree of it’s creators, and the potential graphical upgrade offered by the PlayStation 3’s cell processor, I was hopeful that this game was going to be something I would initially like and continue to enjoy over time. Much to my disappointment, Haze didn’t deliver on any of it’s promises. I have played much worse games in my life, however this one ranks high on the list because of the sheer disappointment it brought with it.
Sharing: It’s Win/Win
Posted on May 19th, 2010 at 5:30pm by feedback@gamesareevil.com (The Games Are Evil Family)
Filed Under: News, Playing Through The Pain, Playstation 3, Rant, Review, Reviews, featured, opinion
Ok, so I have done a couple of games for this column: one wasn’t that bad, the other was pretty terrible. This one, I think tops them both. Easily the worst game I have played in a while. Where to begin…
Why not start with the tragically ironic name for the game. “Box Office BUST” couldn’t possibly be any more fitting unless it was named “Leisure Suit Larry: Why are you reading this? Run away if you value your sanity at all!” Now that I think about it, I think that one sums it up pretty well too. Also, the fact that it is developed by a group called “Funsta” is very sad. This game was anything but fun.
En Vogue said it best "Never gonna get! Never gonna get it…"
It’s hard to understand several things about this game. First off, where did they get the budget to hire voice actors like Shannon Elizabeth, Artie Lang, Dave Atell, Jay Mohr and even Peter Graves (of Biography Fame)? I am sure that most of these people probably don’t have a lot on their plate at the moment, but still… The money they spent to get their voices into the game should have been spent to try and make the game fun and playable.
Continuing with the fun… The game itself is damn near unplayable. I don’t mean that it is just a bunch of juvenile tripe sewn together with the thinnest of story plots, so as to move the “story” along, though it’s that too. No, I mean that the game is physically difficult to play. Bear with me now, I use these terms very VERY loosely. Your worst enemy in this game is the camera.
Playing a “platformer” where you jump from place to place with risk of falling to your death should be pretty forgiving with its camera movements. Not so here. Mid jump, most of the time, the camera will spin to a new angle perpendicular to where you were before. This is jarring enough to make you push the controller a different direction, thus plunging your character to his death. What makes this worse is the fact that during these segments there is usually a timer going, (even Larry’s “in game” comments about how the timer isn’t needed) giving you undeserved stress to complete the section with precision. I spent at least an hour trying to get from point A to point B that should have taken me 2 minutes because of the camera issue.
Next up is the graphics themselves. During both of my first two playing sessions with the game I glitched through a wall or some sort of exterior stationary structure, which caused a mission and sometimes game ending crash. Besides the camera, the driving mechanics (yes, you read that right) are atrocious. That is really all I will give them time for. Just know they suck and there is NO way to fix them.
Larry and Larry on a highway to hell.
Let’s get to the meat of this game, *ahem* the “story.” You play as Larry Lovage the nephew of the original Larry, Larry Laffer. Your uncle owns a large porn movie studio and he hires you on to sniff out a mole in his own studio that works for a rival studio. Seriously… That’s the plot. Anyone that bought or plays this game for “fun” must have a sick twisted grasp on that very word. As for the tween boys that got a hold of this thinking they would see some video game boobage, I feel especially sorry for you. Granted I could only tolerate this game through the first half, but I never saw any “action.” Further more, the game actually makes you feel more like a loser because, your in game character is treated like shit, and walked on for the entire game (I’m guessing). Also thinking about it now, there were lots of ridiculous jokes about sex that would make even the lamest of comedians cringe. There was no real humor, save one line when Larry walks through water that made me giggle every time.
This is truly one of the worst games I have ever played. Considering I have been playing games since before most of you readers were even born and spanning almost three decades, that is a pretty tall order. Never the less, Larry was able to accomplish this feat. I guess congratulations on that… Not only did you ruin several nights of my life, Larry, but you managed to sour my good memories of the previous PC games from the late 80’s.
Posted on October 20th, 2009 at 2:42pm by feedback@gamesareevil.com (The Games Are Evil Family)
Filed Under: 360, PC Gaming, Playing Through The Pain, Playstation 3, Review, Reviews, Xbox 360, featured, headlines, opinion
I guess it doesn’t sound all that bad. There is a lot of spoken audio, seeing as how most of the game is told through verbal exposition. Which brings me to my biggest gripe with this game. I will start by saying that I understand what and why they were trying to do with the soldiers of Mantel. When you first meet the other guys in your squad, I was seriously surprised they weren’t wearing pink polo’s with the collar popped. There was more high-fiving and “dude bro” moments in the first section of the game than in the entirety of the beer-pong world championships. It was annoying to the point of being painful. Again, I understand why they did this though. They were making the point that the Nectar alters your sense of right and wrong, as well as making you a team player in your squad. I just don’t think they had to do it to such a nauseating degree. I was so happy later on in the game that I was given the chance to shoot the Mantel guys. I found myself unloading clip-after-clip into them, just to release stress.
