Haze

"The Good Fight...or a Skewed Reality?"

Let me start by saying that while I enjoy all kinds of games, I have a lot of experience with FPS's. HAZE has a lot to live up to, following Call of Duty 4 and releasing just before the much anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4. By its own right, HAZE may not surpass these two, but it gives you a hell of a good time, both on and offline. The gameplay is solid, the storyline is very good, and the online is every bit as fun as Resistance, CoD4 and Warhawk. I would like to apologize in advance for such a long review, however I felt it necessary to give you all an in-depth look at the game. I hope you enjoy this review!

Story Mode
As you all may or may not know, you begin the game as Shane Carpenter, a young Sergent fresh out of college. The year is 2048. Conflict has engulfed the world, and countries no longer fight wars themselves. Instead, they outsource it to Private Military Corporations, the best of which is Mantel Global Industries. Mantel utilizes a performance-enhancing drug called Nectar, which allows their Troopers to have increased accuracy, strength, and morale. It also shields them from the horrors of war like blood and death, so the Troopers will stay optimistic and eager to "Fight the Good Fight." Shane was recently transfered to Boha, a hostile region in South America where Mantel is at war with the cannibalistic Promise Hand rebels.
It soon becomes apparent that there is something very wrong with Mantel and Nectar. Eventually, Shane changes sides, to fight for "the good side". This much you already know. But what the commercials and the demo don't tell you is how deep the story goes.

Rarely do FPS's have good story lines that run as long or as deep. As you progress, you begin to discover the horrid things that Mantel and their Nectar have done, in addition to the REAL reason why Mantel is there. Here is a hint, it is not because of the so-called "cannibalistic" rebels.

Both as a Mantel trooper and a Rebel, the story offers mysteries, discoveries, and suspense, with an occasional funny moment. At around 6-8 hours on the Normal difficulty, you will find plenty of other reasons to enjoy this great story that aren't listed here (I don't want to spoil anything.)

Above all, this story provides a new twist on reality, where everything it NOT as it seems, and will have you questioning yourself all the way to the end.

Gameplay
Here is where the real meat of every FPS is at, the gameplay. The standard guns have a great feel to them--heavy but not too heavy. The shotgun feels the way it should, heavy and powerful, The sniper rifles handle great, with some kick but not too much. The special weapons like the Mini-Gun, knife, flamethrower and more all feel and handle very well, and are great additions to your arsenal. They offer new ways to kill, and new tactics to explore. The reloading, melee attacks, and grenades all feel very good. The default control scheme is very nice, but for those of you who don't like it, have no fear! You can fully and totally customize your control scheme to your exact liking.

The thing that amazes me about the game is its balance. It does something that few games can do. Call of Duty 4 had great balance, but that is because with the exception of the faction name and player outfits, the teams were exactly the same, with access to the same weaponry and abilities. Call of Duty 4 was and always will be a great game, but HAZE goes beyond that, and manages to balance two different factions with two different fighting styles. I am about to describe the different styles of both Mantel and Rebels, and the following is true for BOTH online and Story Mode play.

As a Mantel Trooper, you are more of a run and gun unit. You have more powerful weapons and vehicles. With Nectar, your enemies become clearly visible as they glow with a yellow aura, your accuracy improves, you take less bullet damage and heal your health faster, and on top of all that your melee attack becomes 10x more powerful. At first, you may not think Nectar is that important, until you experience your first true Nectar Disruption. You have no access to a weapon scope, you can no longer see enemies clearly against the dark and/or forested landscape, and your view of reality is altered. Or is it reality? In either case, you will feel like a superhero without his super powers. You will then truly experience how big of a role Nectar plays in your gameplay as a Mantel Trooper, and then you will appreciate how to make the most of it. Online, maps that are large and open favor the Mantel team, as their abilities can be used to the fullest extent on maps like these.

As a Rebel, you are equipped with less powerful weapons and vehicles, and you don't have access to Nectar. That does not mean you can't use it to your advantage, though. The Rebels are NOT a run and gun unit at all. You cannot rely on face to face shootouts, or you will surely loose. Instead, you need to get behind your enemy, and attack from all sides. Use close quarters and melee to your advantage. The Rebels, while not equipped with Nectar, have several very cool features. First, my favorite, the weapon steal. Sneak up to an enemy player, melee them, and then press SQUARE if prompted. You will grab their gun, and turn it on them. Then press fire and watch them get blown away by the weapon you just took from their hands. I don't know about you, but this is one of the funnest things in any FPS to do. It also makes for some very interesting online play.

Next, you can use Nectar to your advantage. After you kill a Mantel soldier, if you have a grenade in your inventory, you can take the dead soldier's Nectar Administrator, and latch it on to your grenade to make a Nectar grenade. When you throw it, it explodes and emits a cloud of Nectar gas. If a Mantel trooper is caught within the blast radius of the cloud, it will overdose. This will make it either shoot at its teammates or make it harder/impossible for it to shoot you. At this point, you can either let it take out your enemies for you, or you can get an easy kill. Nectar Knives work the same way as Nectar grenades. If you make a Nectar grenade with a knife equipped, you will smear some Nectar on a knife. Then, just get in close and throw the knife at a Mantel trooper and he will overdose. You can also overdose a Mantel Trooper by shooting or hitting its Nectar Administrator. Rebels are also more agile, and by double-tapping X while moving, you will leap forward. If you double-tap X while strafing, you will do a dodge to the side.
Or, you can plant traps. By facing the ground and holding L1 (default), you can plant a grenade or Nectar grenade into the ground. This can be used for tactical advantage if you know the enemy has to come through a certain door or passage, and is good for some easy kills.
Lastly, the fake death. This actually works quite well, when done sparingly. If you try this all the time, people online will catch on and wait for you. But if you only do it once in a while, it is a great tactic that works and will get you kills. Believe me, it has saved my life many times online, and in the story mode. Basically, if you are being shot and your health is low, press L2 (default) and you will fall to the ground. Then when your enemy runs past you or looks away, press X to begin getting up. When your screen is no longer blurry, press X again to quickly get back on your feet. BE CAREFUL, though, because if a Mantel Trooper is looking in your direction when you begin to get up, you will make for an easy kill, as it takes 3-5 seconds to fully get up. Smaller and more close-quarters matches will favor the Rebel team online.

Online
I had my doubts but the online is fun as hell! It doesn't have ranks like CoD4 or Warhawk, but the absence of ranks is quickly forgotten when you get a taste of the addictive "Award system". Basically, you can choose between Ranked and Unranked matches. Then you can choose between Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Team Assault. The first two are pretty self-explanatory. Team Assault is a SOCOM-like game mode where each team is given a set of objectives which can be completed in any order. It is your job to not only complete your objective, but to prevent the other team from completing theirs. This makes for some insane online battles which are extremely fun and intense. If you like SOCOM, then you will feel right at home here.

The award system is great. After each match, you are given about a minute or two minutes. There, you can look at 3 screens. The first shows both teams separate. The players of each team are shown, as well as their number of kills and deaths. The second screen is a Stat Page that includes all players of both teams. It tracks an insane amount of stats, for example: Most kills, person with most reloads, person who was high on Nectar the longest (also shows you how long), person who lived the longest, most overdoses, etc.

It is a very long list that you will be looking at for a while, if you choose to look at all the stats. Lastly is the award system. It is like the XMB where you scroll through it, and there are many awards that you can earn. Some are good, like "Most Deadly Player" and "Best Killing Streak", but some are not good to get like "Most Friendly Kills" and "Most Suicides". Its not an active ranking system, but the leaderboards tracks all your stats and how many times you earn each award, so it is actually a very addicting system. So much, in fact, that I am wondering why I am still typing this when I can be playing HAZE online. It may not seem like a good system, but in practice it is very fun and implemented well. In addition, the absence of ranks takes the elitist attitude away, so you can still strive for good stats without the bias towards lower ranked players. And trust me, online people try to get those good awards. I would rank HAZE's online amongst the best on the PS3 right now, up there with Warhawk and Call of Duty 4. The only downside is that so far, only around 7,000 people are playing. I would also like to add that thus far I have never experienced any lag at all.

Graphics and Voice Acting and others
The graphics in this game are nothing to complain about, but they aren't as good as Metal Gear Solid 4. There are a few bugs with the graphics. In one of the first cutscenes, the door of the helicopter is blurry while everything else is fine. Also, sometimes the character faces animations look kinda sloppy. But these are relatively minor, and do not take away from the fun factor of the game. Overall, the graphics are good, not great, but they get the job done and give you some nice visuals. If you only play games with the latest and greatest up to date graphics then HAZE is not for you. But again, the graphics are good and isn't anything to complain about if you like the game.

As far as the voice acting goes, it is very good. At the beginning, you will be faced with two frat-boyish type trigger-happy goons and an overly-demanding Sergent. The voices for these characters fit the part well, and provide some comic relief as well as an insight to the storyline, when you begin noticing that there isn't something quite right about these guys.....
As you move on further into the game, the acting becomes downright serious, when you are faced with the reality of Mantel's horrors. It is great in that it gives further depth to the storyline and helps you get a feel for what is going on. Of course, many people overlook the fact that the voice acting is helping to tell the story, and that is where some of the bad reviews come from.

The friendly AI are definitely not the brightest in the bunch. They will stand in front of you every once in a while. Also, they generally don't know what to do, or where to go, and will often shoot the bad guys but won't really kill anything. The enemy AI is a different animal altogether. While not as smart as other games, enemies will jump out of the blast area of grenades, and come from the sides as well. Another tactic they use is to hide behind things, or charge you all at once. Again, not the smartest AI but good enough to give you a nice challenge.

Of course, this game has a couple issues. There are some minor glitches that may occur during gameplay, like dead soldiers landing in funny positions or occasional uneven textures. Once during the first helicopter flight, there is a few seconds where all the noise cuts out. And again, sometimes the facial expressions aren't as good as they could be. Every once in a while you will freeze up (it only happened to me once) and it isn't too much of an issue. These prevent HAZE from getting a higher score from me, but let me be PERFECTLY CLEAR that these issues do not in any way take the fun out of the game or make the game unplayable. They are easily overlooked if you enjoy the game.

In closing, I again apologize for the length of this review. I wanted to give everyone a very detailed review so you can get a good picture of what HAZE is all about. I would also like to use this as an opportunity to say that HAZE is not deserving of all the bad reviews. It is just what the score says: "Great, fun to play, with some minor but no major flaws." It is not a Game of the Year, but in no way is it a bad game. By its own merits it is an above average FPS which brings several new features to the table like two different kinds of gameplay; "run-and-gun" and "attack-and-evade", the ability to use and abuse Nectar, fluid gameplay, an involving storyline, and a great online awards system. Its no Metal Gear Solid 4, but if you are looking for a very fun game with a very good online aspect and great gameplay, then give HAZE a try. Whether as a Mantel Trooper or a Rebel fighter, you are in for a very fun time.

SCORE (not average): 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/30/08

Game Release: Haze (US, 05/20/08)