For all the specialist enthusiasm about videogames growing up and accepting a more artistically-informed method of storytelling these days, looking at a product like Haze it’s no wonder that the industry is still trapped in the early stages of social acceptance. This is a title that had lofty ambitions to create a commentary on the ‘nature of war’, dealing with the sanitisation of combat as a starting point, and viewing both sides of the conflict rather than the usual gung-ho nationalistic representation. Whilst you can never knock ambition in itself, unfortunately Free Radical’s execution of the concept leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and a nagging feeling that this is a medium with a hell of a lot to learn.
Be all you can be
The plot revolves around a young soldier by the name of Shane Carpenter, who signs up to do ‘good things in bad places’ for the mega-corporation Mantel Industries. Using a hallucinogenic drug called ‘Nectar’, the Mantel troops are able to fight harder, move faster and view the battlefield as an idyllic, blood-free environment; stripping away the horrors of war in their entirety. Through a series of mishaps and sabotage, Carpenter’s Nectar administrator eventually begins to malfunction, allowing the reality of the battlefield to present itself in shocking bursts. Arterial spray and deafening pain are coupled with a with a subtly hued and stylised palette of colours, neatly accentuating the differences between the hellish environment and the manufactured reality. It isn’t long before Carpenter realises he’s potentially on the wrong side from an ethical standpoint.
All of which is a promising concept for a modern-day videogame to make a concerted effort to bring a real-world political discussion to the table. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the references to the US and the middle east, with a running commentary on the fact that all Mantel really wants is the ‘Nectar’, and the promised liberation of the people is simply a smokescreen for true reality of the war. “Once people have all the facts, the right decision is easy” opines the ‘terrorist’ leader at one stage, after becoming the subject of a propaganda campaign that leads the Mantel soldiers to believe he wears the skin of his enemies as a coat. Subtle it most certainly isn’t.
Unfortunately though, due to some incredibly ham-fisted exposition and an appalling script, the audience is never quite engaged in any meaningful manner. Where Call of Duty 4 presented a stimulating portrayal of remote warfare in the airborne AC-130 news-footage stage, Haze is content to take the opposite route and bludgeon the subject matter to death with wise-cracking Mantel soldiers and clichéd ‘people of the earth’ opposition. You have to applaud the sentiment in an age of largely-vacuous gaming entertainment, but the execution simply falls under a lack of development.
Mechanical failure
Of course not all of the value of any videogame is purely derived from plot and storytelling, and unfortunately Haze also suffers from being crushingly average in terms of mechanics. Combat – although smoothly implemented – generally feels lightweight and lacks any true sense of kinetic feedback, enemy AI is woeful throughout, and the level design frequently confuses and necessitates back-tracking. Environmental triggers are used inconsistently, whilst vehicle and on-rails sections are pure filler material – barely stretching the game past the five-hour mark as it is.
On top of all the above comes the now-legendary sub-HD resolution that the game engine renders at. Quite rightfully not an issue in titles like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, the visual quality here suffers no end, with blurred texturing and an almost vaseline-like sheen throughout. Enemies can be difficult to spot as a result, and the bland design of the environment simply compounds the lack of visual flair. Particle effects like Fire are almost laughable at times, and the amount of clipping would shame even a title developed a decade ago. Audio glitches throughout, the physics engine creates a good variety of break-dancing corpses and vehicles, and overall – despite the lengthy development time – everything just comes across as being completely rushed.
Nectar points
Which, bizarrely, isn’t to say that Haze doesn’t offer up at least a modicum of entertainment for those of you desperate for a PS3 shooter. The framerate rarely drops throughout, and whilst the enemy AI makes for unchallenging and sometimes unfair combat, in the brief moments that everything comes together and works as it should, Haze offers up the same fast-paced run-and-gun action that Free Radical has made its trademark over the years. The use of Nectar on Grenades and knives to overload the Mantel opponents (sending them into a friendly-fire frenzy) offers up some genuinely new gameplay dynamics, and the four-player co-op support is at least welcome. Competitive multiplayer options are limited to three game types stretched over six maps however, and although technically proficient, the online segment is a mere diversion.
So not much to recommend unfortunately, which is a shame considering the talent of the studio backing the project. Haze once looked like a title that was going to make a mark on this generation of gaming, and it’s a big disappointment that we didn’t end up with the technical proficiency and artistic talent to match the initial vision. Roll on Timesplitters 4.
Professional enthusiast, videogame "journalist" and all-round spectacular sofa dweller. "
