Haze is not a great game, and it has some major flaws, but it can still be a lot of fun. But you should rent it first.
+ Some nicely designed levels with some intense shootouts
+ Fully customizable controls.
+ Good Story
+ No loading times
+ Nectar overdosing is incredibly fun
Cons:
- Awful voice acting
- Absmal dialogue
- Close to non-funtional AI
- Limited weapon selection
- Unskippable cutscenes
- The blood looks patethic
For the record, this review is based only on the single-player experience.
I did not feel like spending more time with it.
What is better than to review a good game, to butcher a bad game. Haze has some incredble action sequnces that is held down by pretty much every single part of the dialogue in the entire game.
The story takes place in the near future with you filling the role of Sgt. Carpenter who is part of a private military organization called Mantel. The U.S. has dispatched Mantel to capture a terrorist threat named Skincoat and remove his "Promise Hand" militia from the land. Soon an event causes Carpenter to switch sides and fight against Mantel. The story is unfortunately ruined by god awful voice acting and abysmal dialogue, it's a real shame too because Haze has a very interesting premise. It questions what is right and wrong and who is the just side in war? If anyone, No matter how righteous ones views may be, does killing in the name of it make it the "right" side? And esspecially to its credit, Haze does do a really good job of making sure you know why you had to switch sides. You begin to see the Mantel and Nectar for what they really are, and it really makes you want to start fighting against them. Once you do switch sides, the game proceeds to give you further, and even more convincing reasons for why Mantel needs to be stopped.
Most people also complain at the games graphics but it is actuall really not that bad at all. Textures may be poorly done but the lightning and shader effects in the game makes up for that and a lot of postprosessing effects help to make the environment look more real. As a matter of fact, the graphics look almost identical to the visuals in Soldier Of Furtune: Payback. If you have played that game you just have to imagine what it would look if it was just a little worse and you got Haze.
Some people say Haze looks like PS2 game but this is simply not true. There is no way a PS2 could ever run Haze, and it certainly looks way better than most 2006 PC games.
As for particle effects, it can go either way. Fire, from the Promised Hand Flamethrower, looks terrible. Its pretty much just four flat textures put together with no effort to really blend them together, same for when you catch someone on fire. On the other hand, fire pretty much anywhere else looks quite impressive. But better than all of that, is the smoke generated from environmental fire. It looks realistic, and almost as if it has its own model.
Haze plays as any other FPS you have played in the recent years but with a few twists added in. In the beginning you will have access to Nectar which is a performance enhancing drug/stimulant. Using it in combat makes you move faster, shoot more accurately, melee enemies with tremendous force and spot opponents even through foliage. However, with every high comes a low. Using too much Nectar will cause you to overdose making it difficult to differentiate friends from enemies and brutally distort your vision. These force players to use it at just the right time and just the right amount to overwhelm their opposition, but when things are not going well it's hard not to push yourself over the limit. It's an interesting balance and it's unfortunate that your time spent as a Mantel soldier is so short.
As mentioned, you will soon switch sides and fight for the Promise Hand rebels. Your gameplay style takes an interesting twist upon this event as you begin to use your previous faults, to your advantage. Rebels can throw daggers doused with "Nectar" to make soldiers overdose and turn on their enemies. Or you can fake your own death if you've taken substantial damage and rise to your feet after your enemies turned their backs and finish them off. This becomes a very useful ability but borderlines on unfair because you can almost endlessly use it and they'll more than likely fall for it. Haze's campaign is quite long and while not all of the levels may be memorable it does certainly have its moments: from the opening battle in a dense jungle, to defending a rebel village in a fierce thunderstorm and a very cool finale assaulting a giant land-carrier tearing across the land. It's hard not to be impressed by some of Haze's set-pieces.
Haze plays really well. The action is fast-paced and combat heavy, and the weapons feel accurate and powerful. Weapons selection wise, each faction has its own variation of assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles. Also, each side also has its own unique weapons, such as the trooper's rocket launcher, and the rebel's flame thrower. However, as is the case with most first-person shooters, if the enemy has a gun that you like, all you need to do is shoot him and take it.
In addition to the first person shootings there is the typical vehicle sections all of which not surprisingly control very poorly, and the vehicles take damage over time but never last long enough to finish a section. The developers seemed to realize this though so whenever your vehicles start emitting the sounds that indicate they're about to explode (up until then it's very hard to gauge vehicle health) you can just hop out and the game will spawn a brand new carbon copy of your now burning wreck of a vehicle a few dozen yards away.
Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't without its problems. The AI can act brainless at times, and you will see things such as enemies that stand still in front of you until you shoot at them, or teammates that run in front of your fire. You will also see enemies that moves back and forth on the side of a wall. And i have neven been run over by a car driven by an AI teammate that I had orders to protect. There was one part towards the end of the game, where my teammate kept shooting at me and when he stopped, he decides to shoot at a wall. They also tend to sometimes start running in circles and will not stop until you kill them. Not to mention that they have no self awareness and usually team kill their own soldiers with grenades, as well as firing a rocket launcher into a wall they stand next to if they auto-target you through the wall. As you play in harder difficulty modes however, the AI actually seems to improve slightly. They'll move around a lot more, and are certainly better at shooting you.
My final gripe with the gameplay is the level design. I have gotten lost on more than one occasion, and had to spend time backtracking or walking in circles just trying to find an oddly placed door.
Before I am through, I would like to mention how the single player campaign has no loading screens, save for one when you first start the campaign, and also whenever you die you will go through another quick load. But it is a nice treat that whenever you complete a mission and head back to base or wherever, you don't have to worry about the game stopping to load the next level. You just hop on the chopper, and away you go.
But the worst part of game must be the voice acting/dialouge. You will hear the cheesiest and most annoying dialogue you have ever heard. I cannot even find words to describe how it sounds. So i guess i could tell you a few examples of it, you will quite often here things like "Damn, we just knocked these asses down like skittles!" and the occasional (Read: Often) "BOOSH!", not to mention idiotic one-liners like "Man, did you see that kill? I must be the baddest motherf*cker on planet mothaf*cka", "Is there a medal for being the most badass gangster? Cause that's me" or "I am an Ass-Kicking Machine". And then they will over and over again say things like "Dude, i totally kicked his ass big time", "I was born ready" or sentences that only consist of swearing ("Damn, this sh*t is f*cking screwed". And finally they try to be funny using old and boring sexual jokes which i hope for the sake of mankinds future were not meant to be funny, however, i fear they were. And of course, if you add the horrible voice acting to it, i do not even need to tell you how it sounds.
As for people saying the guns do not sound powerful, I do not think they realize what guns actually sound like. The gun sounds in this game are spot-on what i would imagine them to sound like. The guns sound and behave relative to their size, so you will not be hearing explosions coming from the Rebel assault rifle.
But if you look beyond its presentation and flaws you are bound to find something to enjoy if you are a true FPS fan who does not mind playing something that is not going to astonish you. Games fall into the entertainment genre and whether or not you find yourself impressed by Haze but simply just entertained, then a game has fulfilled its purpose.