The “Halo Killer.” The “flagship” FPS title for the PS3. The game that will put the PS3 “on the map.”
Haze is none of those things.
After being delayed time and time again, I was really expecting a lot from this game. You can tell me to “ignore the hype and just enjoy a good shooter” all you want, but at the end of the day the flaws in this title make doing even that next to impossible.
Check out my Haze impressions after the jump!
Only the most delusional of PS3 fanboys could possibly call this a great game.
Is Haze a total piece of crap? No, it’s not. There are definitely some great, fun moments in the game. Nectar is a pretty cool feature (enemies glow, you can take more damage etc…) and some of the maps are really well done (minus all the back tracking). You don’t get a huge selection of weapons, but everything except the flamethrower is great. Shooting is pretty fluid and feels good, especially the assault rifle. The game looks decent, but is hardly something to write home about.
Everything good about Haze is overshadowed by its many blatant and painful flaws. The AI in this game is the very definition of the word stupid. I’m talkin’ frontal lobotomy-level intelligence. Bad guys shoot walls with abandon, run past you, stand still and ignore grenades. Your squad mates are just as dumb, but are even more annoying, at times, than the enemy. They don’t take cover, vehicles will run you over and the AI seems to take pleasure in blocking your line of sight all the bloody time. Watching the friendly and enemy AI fight is like watching a bunch of 3 year olds throw down. Actually, scratch that, even 3 year olds would be more useful in a firefight than the AI in Haze is.
Words cannot describe how bad the voice acting is in this game. I seriously feel like throwing up every time I hear “Remember your promise to Merino.” Especially in an FPS, you’d think a bad story and poor voice acting wouldn’t really be that big of a deal. Unfortunately, when they’re THIS bad, it makes playing through the campaign more painful than watching Fried Green Tomatoes with your Grandma and her sewing circle.
Co-op would be fun, if the AI didn’t suck. Multi-player is average at best. The rebels pwn all. The whole time your playing this game online your thinking “I’d rather be playing COD4, Resistance…hell I’d even rather play UT3 right now.”
If you simply MUST play this game, rent it or play it at your friends place. If your looking to get your shooter fix, there are far better alternatives. What I want to know is “what the hell were all the delays for?” This game absolutely reeks of “unfinished.” All of the problems in this game are so glaring it boggles the mind that they spent so much time on it.
Resistance 2 and Killzone 2 won’t see any competition from Haze when they come out. To think I could have spent my weekend having fun, playing GTA4, but instead I played a game that not only made me scream at the TV to “SHUT UP!”, but also more than likely killed braincells I will need to play LBP.
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9 responses so far ↓
1 Monkeyboo2 // May 27, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Haven’t played it yet, but i really couldn’t care less about co-op, offline or AI.
I wanna see the multiplayer, then i cann work out if this is a good game or not.
2 littlemonty // May 27, 2008 at 12:27 pm
maybe they we’re too busy creating so when you looked down you seen your body and strange details like that!
3 fastred // May 27, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I played it at my mates house and had loads of fun on thee multiplayer but im not going to buy it, maybe a rent it for a little while
4 Sean "Rothbart" Workman // May 27, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Whoever called Haze a “flagship” title or the title to put the PS3 “on the map” is an idiot. I could’ve told you that before Haze ever launched.
People blew the game out of proportion (aka bought into Free Radical’s hype). It’s not a horrible game, it’s just not a great game.
5 Meresin // May 27, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Haze rapidly devolved from a guaranteed purchase to a potential rental. Playing the demo destroyed Haze for me. The gameplay was decent, but it just couldn’t make up for the severe aliasing problems. I was constantly reminded of what it was like to play games on my old 386…There were jaggies everywhere back then, too.
This was even more obnoxious to me because I’d just finished playing through Resistance, and that game runs at a higher resolution, with excellent anti-aliasing, and more detailed textures. It made Haze look horrible by comparison, so I just couldn’t bring myself to shell out $60 for it.
6 Ghost sniper // May 28, 2008 at 8:02 am
Man when i saw the SS for this game back in November 07′ i was so amazed. until last month I saw gameplay….i re-thought about Haze. Then I played the demo….well…I tried to make myself like the game…
7 Makidian // May 28, 2008 at 8:17 am
I had hopes this was going to be a good game, and then I played the demo, so I split the money I had down on preorder between DBZ and what I already have on MGS4. Whomever it was that thought this game was gonna be a flagship title for the PS3, or even a Halo killer, needs to et back on their meds, even when I thought this game was gonna be good I never thought it was gonna be those things.
8 Deviant // May 28, 2008 at 10:20 am
If Haze had come out in the condition it is in now when it was first delayed i don’t think i would have taken issue with as many of the flaws it really has. But you really hit the nail on the head, wtf were they doing through all of these delays? The voice acting is pitiful, and the main character is a weenie… When Haze was announced as a PS3 exclusive i was sure we wouldn’t be let down, well i kinda feel like some one dropped the ball big time with this one.
9 asyouburn // May 28, 2008 at 12:50 pm
imo, free radical did a decent job on this game. you have to give props for making an engine themselves that runs so smoothly ( and not sucking the corporate genetailia that is unreal engine 3) . the game has absolutely no load times and keeps a constant framerate throughout. there are flaws, but every game has flaws. i don’t think its as bad as everyone is trying to make it seem. i feel especially bad for free radical. they’ve spent quite a few years putting this together. personally, i like it. the co-op is awesome.
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