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By Keith B (9th Jun 2008)

How the suits at Sony’s marketing department must be scratching their beleaguered heads, as the platform-exclusive Haze landed a few weeks ago and has already been sliding towards the bargain bin.

It’s a situation that needs close examination, because Haze isn’t just a disappointment because it failed to live up to the hype machine that has been rumbling on since its unveiling three years ago. It’s because it’s failed to live up to even the most mediocre shooters on the market.

The plot is interesting though. You play as Shane Carpenter, a member of the Mantel Corporation’s marines who are dispatched to the Boa region of South America to combat rebels. Exactly what the rebels are rebelling against isn’t explained although as soon as the script kicks in you're under no illusion as to what’s coming. The utterly repulsive characters you’re thrown together with in your squad with are some of the shallowest, almost intellectually-challenged bunch of idiots you’re ever likely to meet. For even the most disinterested plot-avoiders and gun fanatics can’t miss the blatantly obvious idea that your buddies act more like a bunch of drug lords than a marine unit. That’s because of Nectar, a super drug that, once administered, bestows boosted attributes and combat abilities onto the recipient. The problem is, it’s not entire stable.

What is worth mentioning is the fun that can be had from Nectar use. Aside from faster movement and sharper accuracy, the enemies literally glow, making them ducks in a barrel once you’re unloading lead. What’s not so good is the fact the developers rob you of this ability in the opening levels.

I’d normally avoid making direct references to the plot but because this plot twist has such a detrimental effect on the game, it’s impossible not to. You see, you realise the truth about the drug and in the blink of an eye have joined the rebels. The rebels don’t have Nectar, but they can play dead. Once on Nectar you can’t see dead people (the drug prevents you from realising the pain you’re receiving or inflicting by adjusting your perceptions). So your tactic for the rest of the playthrough is to play dead when things get tough. That’s just a repulsive tactic to have to play.

Things get bad for Haze before you even get to the stage of realising the plot, and by the time it happens it’s entire possible that you will have lost the desire to explore the game further. That’s not a joke. It was a real test of my professionalism to play through Haze at all.

First of all, there are the initial feelings I couldn’t shake. The seven minute install wasn’t the worst I’ve had to endure but the classical music looping every two minutes was irritating. Then when it carried through to the most mundane menu screen I’ve seen it was really starting to grate. Where in the hell is the effort? The regular loading screens only display a couple of different messages so if you hadn’t grasped the whole propaganda thing the Mantel Corporation spews forth you can’t help seeing it here.

Once your game does begin you’ll see that it doesn’t look next Gen (or this gen). Running at a paltry 576 resolution is a complete and utter joke in this day and age, and how Ubisoft thought this acceptable is another thing that needs examining. And through this resolution your eyes will be greeted by some of the worst textures, animation, clipping and graphical instability you’re likely to come across. Making it worse is the fact that there are plenty of scenes where you’re looking right into the face of a character, or others where, if you stand in front of an NPC their mouth and cheeks will twitch incessantly. It’s like the programmers have said: “look, we put in facial movement” and forgot to turn it off after a few seconds. Your NPCs thus look, again, like they’re mentally unfit for duty.

The environment is poor, the enemies are awfully drawn, as are your team mates and it’s not uncommon to have two of the exact same character in your squad. How hard is it to make sure that, if the player has two AI team mates then they’re two different characters, instead of clones? From here it’s becoming more and more difficult to make an investment of time or energy in this release.

There are vehicle sections too which make more than a nod to Bungie’s Halo series, except without any of the fun elements that made driving a Warthog such fun. The acceleration and braking are unresponsive (when you stop accelerating you grind to a halt, as if applying brakes, instead of coasting to a stop); the turning is woeful and the unnecessary boost on just about everything from a truck to a quad are, again, doing nothing more than removing any form of realism or association with the ever-weakening experience.

Multiplayer is worth a mention in context, because this is something that you may get some fun from through the drop-in drop-out four player co-op, although I’d bet against there being much in it. If you play as the Mantel, you get access to Nectar which gives you all the aforementioned super strengths and abilities and also the negative of not being able to see dead people. If you play as the rebels, you can scavenge ammunition from any dead bodies in the game and get to play dead. Let’s not think too much about how futile and army would be if you couldn’t see people who stayed still on the battlefield.

You have your traditional game modes which can get interesting, as rebels coat grenades and knives with Nectar to cause the Mantel players to overdose, this firing without control at friend or foe. But even a slight bit of tactical nous from the Mantel team can see the rebels hopelessly obliterated in a matter of minutes.
So, Haze isn’t the killer app that Sony has been waiting for. The fact it’s nothing short of obscene means that heads should roll over this.