Haze

It's awesome! Wait, no it's not.

	Version PS3	Developer Free Radical	Publisher Ubisoft	Genre FPS

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By Ian Dransfield

Well this is annoying. I want to like Haze solely because it's from Free Radical, and that awful part of my brain that still accepts frothing-at-the-mouth hype as a viable means of promoting a game has a place reserved for Haze in the 'well it must be good then' section. But it's just not. This is one of the biggest letdowns in years, purely from a hype perspective. We were promised the world and have ended up with a cul-de-sac in ASBO County. But that's all I'm going to talk about the hype - it's totally unfair to mark a game down for the marketing push, as some publications do, so instead I'll just rip on it for being: SHONKY.

That's right: shonky. Haze is shonky. Shonky shonky shonky. It isn't terrible, it doesn't feel unfinished and there is heart behind it - especially in the story - but the whole package is just poor. For many, many reasons. We can start with the much-reported mandatory 4GB install, which though it only took seven minutes to install on my console did take up a big splodge of space - space that a lot of people (who haven't refitted their console with a bigger HD) may not have to hand. There we have the first silly part. But then the game starts.

Players are confronted with the world of a Mantel trooper, surrounded by meathead soldiers smacked up on the miracle drug nectar - you know the drill: super vision, increased speed, harder to kill, better at sniping blah blah. Basically it makes your squadmates into Brucie off GTAIV, albeit a less comic genius version of the ALPHA, with them all running around shouting "DUDE!" and high fiving. Basically, it's just like the real Army, but with less illegal drug use (SATIRE IN YOUR FACE). So you go on a mission and are introduced to the positive benefits of nectar, how it makes you a better trooper and how it lets you kill rebel scum piss-easily. It's a good enough system in that you are near-forced to rely on the drug, causing something of a genuine addiction.

Soon enough you realise the drug isn't all that great - for one it actually sanitises your view of war, making dead bodies disappear (which I initially thought to be a technical issue - more on that later though), hiding blood and the like and making you a fearless war-machine. It makes life more like a videogame, essentially. A subtle social commentary, maybe? Who knows. Anyway, you end up on the side of the rebels and are stripped of your nectar powers and blah blah the story continues. It's interesting enough, but certainly nothing you won't be able to see coming from twenty decades away if you have more intelligence than that of a common gnat. But what about the game itself?

Well, it's shonky. Like I said. The main game plays like every other FPS you've played over the last decade, offering nothing new outside the nectar/counter-nectar powers. Though these factors are interesting enough they do have their downfalls - the counter-nectar rebel weapons especially. Yes, you can plant traps, use nectar grenades to overdose enemy troops or throw drug-laced knives in their faces, but, well, I didn't. I used three mines when told to, only to find the enemy just unleashed the 'onslaught' from completely different places to where I was told, I used knives three times and missed every time and I used a nectar grenade once only to find the Mantel troopers just got really high and carried on shooting at me anyway. So, even with all these semi-interesting ideas on show, I played through the vast majority of the game ignoring them, playing it like a standard run-and-gun shooter. Granted, this may have hampered enjoyment of the experience, but when you're a rebel should it not be that these coked-up super troopers are ruddy difficult to take down, thus forcing you to employ guerrilla tactics? Evidently not, and even clad in full body armour you can take down Mantel's troopers with a single headshot. This is why I ignored faffing about with nectar weapons, as they were clearly superfluous. When there's so much reliance on these aspects of the game in the pre-release hype (I mentioned it again, sorry), you would expect there to be some enforced reliance in the game. They get it right with the nectar itself, so why not for the other side? It's like they just gave up trying once they'd got the ideas in there. Bah.

Speaking of not trying, or just not thinking, vehicle sections are an abhorrence. Jeeps and quad bikes handle like useless fat idiots, going from turning slightly to shifting at a 90-degree angle straight into a wall. And when you hit a wall you tend to come to a complete and immediate stop, and this even happens when you go off jumps sometimes. Shonky. As for flipping your 'mobile? Don't think about it. You can't right the bloody thing, as I found within one minute of setting off in a jeep: taking a turn, the atrocious handling took hold and I went off a cliff face, flipping the thing. I get out, assuming I can turn it back over with a Halo-esque move, but no. Eventually I ended up lodging a grenade beneath it to flip it over, which worked, but now left me with a near-dead vehicle. "Balls," I thought, as I was now sure to lose the vehicle as soon as an enemy bullet so much as looked at it, and lo - I did. But within seconds my attention was drawn to an on-screen marker showing me that a new vehicle had spawned. So... wait... what's the point in vehicle damage in the first place then? If you're just going to replace my vehicle, no questions asked, almost straight away? There's more? Yes. Parking a vehicle against a wall, exiting then realising you can't actually get back in the driver's seat, nor can you get in another seat and switch to the driver's position does not a fun experience make. It comes across as if Free Radical were trying to emulate the successful FPSeseses of recent years but on an entirely superficial level, by not actually playing what they were taking influence from or understanding the subtleties that make these games worthwhile. At least in Army of Two, another game that died thanks to pre-release guff, had developers with the smarts to kill sections that were proving unworkable. Vehicle sections should not exist in this game. Say it with me: sssssshonky.

Squadmates - this is outside of the co-op mode, of course, as they would be controlled by real people and not thick fucking arseholes that tend to ruin the game even more. Aside from having about three lines of dialogue between them which they constantly spout to you as you're trying to force your way through the game ("REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE TO MERINO!" is a personal favourite), these useless little bastards do nothing but get in the way. When they have the physical presence to get in your way and block access, you'd think you'd be able to easily push them out of the way - Christ, if Fallout 2 can do it ten years ago then this can do it now, surely? No. Sometimes they will move, a lot of the time they'll either stand there as if made from lead-filled concrete or they'll push back against you, forcing you in the opposite direction. Arseholes. And when one squadmate pushes you out into the open in a pitched firefight, well, just piss off, alright. That's not right. Oh, and lest we forget that the stupid, brain-dead cretinous morons will frequently walk in front of your ironsights as you're just about to pull the trigger - and yes, friendly fire does exist. Ah, but it doesn't matter when the little shits die, as you just get a replacement a bit further down the line anyway. This is a good thing, as they're so bloody useful, what with them emptying 20 shotgun shells and one grenade into an already-dying enemy. Seriously, what? And you're expected to revive these tossers when they take one too many bullets? Just piss off now, you're not serious are you? You are? Jesus.

Let's go back to those disappearing bodies, actually. Now, I don't want to complain about a technical aspect of the game that's as petty as this, but unfortunately the game forces me to. As mentioned earlier, when you're working under the influence of nectar, your sanitised view of life means rebels you kill disappear when their bodies fall to the floor - it's a nice effect and is used as a device to make revelations about nectar's effect all the more shocking when you come off it. So why, when working as a nectar-free rebel later on do I see bodies disappearing all over the place? I accept it's a moot technical issue, but when it is used as a method to highlight how screwed up Mantel troopers are, well, it's counter-productive and means the whole effect is lost. Guess what? Shonky.

Complaining over? No. I don't want my hand to be held tighter than parents in southern Portugal hold those of their children, but I would like some kind of indication as to what the hell is going on in the game. No radar I can live with - I am happy with that - I can work out where the shooty buggers are. A lack of grenade indicator, meaning unless you saw it being thrown at you then you have no idea it's coming? Now that's just rubbish. It's a game, it's not real life, you have to make some bloody concessions for the player so they can, y'know, play the damn thing. Being blown up by inviso-stealth-grenades is crap. And what about telling players when the massive thing they're escorting is being shot at, while the player has been forced to go three levels below it to sort something else out? You know, so the player can actually return in time to defend said massive thing and not just be presented with an 'It's been blown up you incompetent prat' message. Sorry for not being psychic, Haze, you twat. And all this time, when it's not actually telling you anything useful about what's going on, it's all to happy to flash up messages about your unimportant squadmates requiring assistance - just leave the inconsiderate bastards to die. They deserve it.

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