I’ve been looking forward to Haze mainly because it’s made by Free Radical Design – most of the team made Goldeneye on the N64, Perfect Dark and the TimeSplitters games. Also, David Doke from the team’s a very nice guy and we’ve met and had nice chats on a few occasions. Unfortunately, this is not the FPS I was expecting and it fails to excite me on every level.
You begin the game as a Mantel super soldier fighting rebels in South America as you go after their leader Skin Coat – guess what, he wears skins for a coat – can you believe it? Unfortunately, these soldiers are a bit too thuggish for your liking and like to dose themselves up on Nectar, a drug that pumps you up, makes you see everything in thermal vision and makes you faster and stronger. A bit like Lucozade Sport then.
In a plot twist similar to the film Equilibirium, you wake up and realise what you’re doing is wrong and end up fighting the soldiers you were once all buddy buddy with.
Unfortunately the combat’s easy at the start of the game and even when you lose your powers it’s still easy thanks to the dreadful AI and the straightforward nature of the shooting and puzzles. They consist of just flicking a couple of switches, it makes the Crystal Maze look like rocket science!
Then there’s the technical issues. The resolution’s low, the textures are bad and there’s clipping everywhere. Enemies walk through walls more frequently than David Copperfield walks through the Great Wall of China.
Multiplayer’s a small distraction but won’t pull anyone away from Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 in a hurry that’s for sure.
Haze is everything an FPS of today shouldn’t be. It’s corny, cheesy, technically flawed and doesn’t do anything new or interesting which is what we’ve come to expect from developers Free Radical. Haze gets a very disappointing 4 out of 10.
