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
Occasionally, we like to get some original content up here that isn’t about the latest screenshot fest or killer game. This is one of those times. Here’s a new Evil Feature, published Monthly, about our failure to demand better gaming experiences from the folks who make them.
There is a spectre that is haunting the gaming world – the spectre of complacency. All of the powers have bought into it – the developers, the media, and the gamers themselves. That is not to say that every individual belonging to these groups has fallen prey to this spirit; those who have not are our brothers. Nevertheless, far too many have fallen victim and now spout the rhetoric of complacency, and to them we say enough. Today we take our stand.
For far too long we have been sitting on the sidelines as developers have repackaged the same tired gameplay and the same tired concepts. Rather than innovate, they stagnate, and we have let it happen. Machines of destruction have rolled through, and these machines have names: marketing, profit, deadline. Once used for good, they have been captured by the enemy and used for nefarious purposes.
We accept a world where a motion controller is innovation. Not I. I say, it is what a developer does with that motion controller that makes it innovative. We accept a world where high-definition graphics are innovation. Not I. I say, a good looking pile of manure is still a pile of manure.
"If you fall in this battle, there are no continues."
The time has come, my dear gamers, to take back that which is ours. We do not have to accept the hand-me-down games that we are getting, no matter how beautiful the wrapping paper. We shall no longer be haunted by a developer’s blocked creativity; we shall not stand for it.
To the media – gaming is no longer a children’s hobby reserved for Saturday mornings. If you consider your calendar, you will notice that the children who had that hobby throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s are now grown adults, and gaming has become a big part of our lives. As such, please realize we are adults. We do support your wish to keep mature content out of the hands of children, so please respect our wish to keep you out of our content. It only embarrasses you. We can handle both sex and violence in one game. Furthermore, please respect your own journalistic integrity enough to fully research your stories before lambasting us. Do you really want a repeat of the Mass Effect drama? Additionally, in respecting said journalistic integrity, please keep in mind that the same brain scanning studies done to note increased aggression caused by playing violent video games have also been done with violent movies; the results were the same. As Bandura, Ross and Ross noted in 1961, witnessing aggressive behavior increases aggression. We, as gamers, accept this. We do not dispute this. What we dispute is the invisible link continually made between video games and horrific violent behavior.
To the developers – Your machines of war shall be your own deaths. Let loose the reigns and watch what happens. Pull some money from marketing and put it into development, push the deadlines back a bit, and your profit will come. Your experts know that marketing over-saturation ultimately leads to a fall, but they will be long gone with their pockets full before that happens. Trust your development teams – they are the creative blood of this industry – and trust your audience. If you give us a worthy game, we will shout it from the mountain tops.
"We do not care about your profit margin."
We do not care about your profit margin. We do not buy your games to increase your revenue. We buy for us. If you go away, someone else shall take your place, so lift your heads and deflate your egos. Gaming is about the gamers, not the developers.
And to the gamers – do not allow yourselves to be led by the nose any longer. As has been mentioned, gaming is about us. We do not have to accept garbage just because we are told it is treasure. Ask for more. Nay! Demand more. Do not sit idly by as you are fed information from an advertisement. A beautiful pre-rendered cutscene does not a great game make. Previews, gameplay footage, early-access reviews. These are your weapons, and they all reside within your reach.
It is time to move forward. Do you realize the power that we gamers hold? No developer can tell us what to play, but we can tell them what we will not play. We can force their hand. They will give in long before we do. They have their eyes on a temporal, tangible prize; that being the lure of the coin. If we promise to cut the bottom of their coin purses, they will give us what we want. But, if we continue to feed them coins and quietly mutter our complaints, they will smile as they count their money.
The banner has been raised and the proclamation made to the leaders of the industry – we want you to survive, but we will game in your rubble if we must. If you fall in this battle, there are no continues.
(for more on this topic, visit our portable site, The Portable Gamer)
Sharing: It’s Win/Win
Posted on January 15th, 2010 at 4:44pm by feedback@gamesareevil.com (The Games Are Evil Family)
Filed Under: Demand, Gamer's Manifesto, Rant, better games, featured, features, manifesto, opinion, variety
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.
