HAZE

Can't see for the Haze

As Public Enemy, that hard hitting gangsta rap group from the 80's would have said, "Don't believe the Hype"... Since way before this game's original release date of November 2007, it was touted as a console saving game and it would put the PS3 on the world stage, but thankfully this release date got pushed back and Drake's Fortune came out to save the day.

Haze, eventually for released late May early June 2008, and quite frankly, it wasn't worth the wait, the game's bubble go burst because it took so long to come out, which is a worry especially when you consider that Killzone 2, is suffering from the same hype and delays...considering Killzone 2 has been on everyone's lips since 2005 when they launched the rendered promo vid of the game.... anyway, I digress.... Haze....

well the game is a First Person Shooter (FPS), so it's a well established genre and should therefore be a Call of Duty 4 beater but alas it wasn't.

The premise of the game is that you play a character called Shane, who has done what every young man of his generation wants to do and that is serve in the armed forces of the Mantel Corporation, which appears to be a mass army for hire who are in a war with a bunch of rebels lead by a guy known as Skincoat. All the Mantel soldiers appear to enjoy fighting for Mantel and seem to be able to run faster, shoot better, heal quicker than their rebel counterparts. The reason for these abilities is down to the suit they wear. It has a device call an Administrator, and this device injects a drug called Nectar into the system of the suit wearer thus giving him enhanced abilities.

As a good soldier you are sent out to fight without question and it's all good as far as you concerned, but as you get more information about the war you begin to have concerns, and eventually one of your missions involves capturing Skincoat and it so happens when he is eventually caught it is you who catches him and it's just you and him. He gives you a speech and a half and sows the seed of doubt in your mind about the whole war, when you colleagues turn up, they begin to torture skincoat and you eventually snap turn against your fellow mantel fighters, which causes the helicopter to crash.

You end up in the rebel camp and skincoat is there too, you both talk again and he reinforces what he told you before, you have become a fully fledged rebel and as you are no longer on Nectar you lose all your advance abilities, but you do gain other skills, like being able to merge a Nectar Administrator with a grenade, to make a Nectar Grenade.... the reason for the administrator its that it regulates how much Nectar a Mantel Trooper gets, because if they get too much Nectar then everyone they look at is highlighted so they can't tell the difference between friend or foe, but throwing a Nectar Grenade it produces a concentrated plume of Nectar, thus overdosing any Trooper who gets caught in the cloud. You get other skills like being able to dive whilst in a fire fight, you can fake death which can often get you out or trouble, as Nectared Troopers can't see dead people as the affects of war are hidden by Nectar use, so dead bodies disappear from a high troopers sight, so play dead and they can't see you.

As a rebel, your main aim is to take down the Mantel mobile HQ which culminates in a head to head fight with your ex Mantel unit leader. Alas this Finale was a major anticlimax

Gameplay

This for me is all about picking up a game plugging in without reading the instructions, and alas this game fell short, but not because of the actual shooting a gun, but mainly because there wasn't enough gameplay. I would say this game must be about 50% free moving video (FMV), i.e. areas of the game where you never had full control of your character. Did you know from putting the disk into the PS3 and actually firing my first shot in anger during the game took near enough 8 minutes, it just dragged. But when you were actually playing the game, it wasn't too bad all in all and had the usual buttons doing the usual thing. But due to the excessive use of FMV for gameplay I'd have to give this a 7/10.

Content

This for me would be the storyline and for this game, I would say the storyline was ok actually, though from switching from Mantel to Rebel happened a little too easy for me and the dialogues was tedious at times. One thing I did like was before you switch to a Rebel, there were times when your administrator would hit a glitch and you'd lose your Mantel abilities for a few minutes, only when you become a rebel do you get an idea as to why this was happening. Also near the end of the game, there is doubt thrown out there as to whether the rebels’ motives were for the greater good. So for content I'd have to say 8/10.

Simulation

Here is where there were some major flaws in the game. There were times I'd be in a fire-fight with a Mantel trooper and one of the rebel fighters the computer was controlling would just run right into the middle of the fight and take the full force of my shots, he'd slump to the ground and you couldn't heal him and it would come up with You killed Sanchez or whatever his name was. In any other game the just wouldn't happen. Also the game was pretty linear most of the time, but the biggest issue was the AI it was so poor, so I'd have to give the game 6/10 for simulation.

Music

To be honest I can't say I really remember the music, there were no outstanding tunes or atmospheric tracks, not even the music for the credits was that good, so 6/10 for the music

Graphics

See now if the graphics had been anything near half as good as the rendered part of the trailer at the top of this review, link entitled "Can't See it for the Haze", we be looking at a possible 10/10 but alas no.... nowhere near that score. When, consider the delay for this game, you'd have thought the graphics would Call of Duty 4, Drake's Fortune, even Assassins Creed quality, but these graphics were no better than when I used to play Unreal Tournament on my obsolete PC... I mean they were ok at times, but then there were other times when the graphics were just clunky and quite frankly poor. Sorry but if games like Ratchet and Clank, even World Series Poker can deliver good graphics then I'd expect better from Ubisoft, especially considering they produced Assassins and Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, they know they can do better and for that reason these graphics will be getting 6/10.

Pros of Haze

In my opinion the only Pros for this game is the fact the online gaming is pretty good insofar as you can invite you PSN friends and having the two distinct abilities of Mantel Trooper and Rebel, depending who you are controlling online, it can dictate your tactics... i.e. a rebel can't just go running into a room guns blazing as if a Mantel trooper is on Nectar you'll glowing like that crystal Clark Kent found in the barn in Superman the movie... so if you do get this game, then just go online

Cons of Haze

Biggest con of this game was just the delay after delay, which created hype and more hype and basically the actual game in a word....POOR.... Too much dialogue, which then made the actual game play too short.... actually I'm being too kind... there wasn't much going for this game to be frank, with all the hype and the poor delivery.... nah not a good game.

OVERALL DJTC SCORE

This game gets a generous 6/10

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