Intro
For those of you that haven't heard of this "Hot New Release" (as the board at the local electronics store did tell me), HAZE is some new game that apparently has some form of bee fetish. You run around the first couple of levels as... some guy (whose backstory is so insubstantial that I totally forgot his name) that apparently enjoys running around in a bee suit while on crack. That's pretty much what this game feels like, and I'm freaking serious.
Story
This should be a pretty short section, as there really isn't much to talk about. This game's plotline is about as deep as that of Red Faction 2, only without the previous game's support to at least back up the shallow storyline with another shallow storyline. At least then we had some freaking explanations.
Rather, in this game, you start off in an elevator, with several of your squad mates, riding up to the surface of some aircraft carrier. From there, you board what looks like a bee-ified rip-off of the Pelican from HALO and ride it to a random battle against people who shout things at you in Spanish in the middle of some jungle country in whatever-the-hell-country-this-is. You quickly find out that the tutorials are worth fuck-all, and the only way to actually see the enemy amongst the brush is to pump yourself full of drugs, called "Nectar," in order to make things glow for some arbitrary and not-at-all-explained reason.
From there, you kill a bunch of people as your co-squad-leader-person (whom you're apparently equal to in rank although he and all of your subordinates talk down to you like you're a child) continuously voices his hatred for his fellow man and spouts self-congratulatory machismo bullshit as often and annoyingly as possible. All of your squadmates do exactly the same thing, and behave much like coked-up frat boys (WARNING: It is very tempting to shoot them. There is no consequence for doing so).
After you complete the first jungle-bound inject-and-shoot-athon, you are then sent in to some random desert region, evidently in the same country, to go and fight a random crazy bastard who wears a bunch of human pelts as a coat (creatively calling himself "Skincoat"). You then chase him through a rather bland and neutrally-colored facility, the color randomly washing out of your screen as your body shows negative reactions to the drugs that evidently give you psychic visions of loads of previously-killed enemies. It was not long after this that I stopped playing, and I assure you there is nothing more to mention.
Gameplay
Let me start off this section by saying that this is perhaps the most god-awful and unbalanced gameplay you will ever experience. The speed of the game is very inconsistent, one second being crack-headed and fast-paced to the point of not ever knowing exactly what in the hell made you spontaneously explode, and the next being closer to sitting on your couch stoned out of your mind wishing for Cheetos. For instance; in the first vehicle section, on the second stage (desert region), the vehicle that they put you behind the wheel of is absolutely bullshit. For some arbitrary reason, whilst driving, the vehicle randomly decides it feels like activating a self-destruct timer and starts beeping before going KABOOM and killing your entire squad who are too mentally deficient to jump out along with you. When you do jump out, your co-squad-leader-person-thing begins yelling in your ear via headset to get back in your vehicle. This raises several questions, such as, "If he knows I'm out of my vehicle, why doesn't he know it just blew up?" You?ll find moments like this throughout the game.
The main glaring issue with HAZE, as aforementioned, is a general lack of balance. They seem to have attempted to go the HALO route, in making the full auto assault rifles piss-weak and the starting handgun the single most powerful thing since the Stinger Missile.
To honestly sum up this section, this game is just absolutely filled with bad gameplay. Ammo for friendly weapons is rare short of having to kill squad members (which there isn't even a consequence for), you constantly feel that you?re running in a bowl of oatmeal, enemy A.I. is pathetic with their difficulty relying solely on numbers, and despite the number of them popping out from all directions there is absolutely no way to change your look sensitivity.
Cut Scenes
Albeit something hard to really get wrong, I have to give Free Radical a cookie for managing to cock this one up royally. One of the first cut scenes, you find yourself inside of the bee-Pelican listening to your squad-mates and co-leader-squad-person-majigger jabber on about something-er-other related to 'liberating' wherever, when suddenly the game decides to blank out, load for five seconds, show them standing there for about twenty seconds with no sound, then blank out for another five seconds, and then show them jabbering once again while the pilot informs you that you're about to land in a hot drop zone. For a clearer image of this, if you have ever played the level "Silent Cartographer" in HALO, imagine the landing sequence at the beginning of the stage with all of the marines conversing about how awesome it would be to bang the pilot, and that's about what you'd be looking at.
About a third of the way into the desert stage, your co-leader-squad-person-thing randomly drives up to you and runs over an attacking rebel, pinning him beneath the wheel. He then talks some self-congratulatory bullshit before standing up and shooting him the face. At this point, he turns around and begins speaking to you as the body disappears from beneath the vehicle, leaving it with one tire hovering, as though the vehicle didn't look retarded enough.
Controls
The control scheme for this game feels awkward and unnecessary, as though the developers felt some need to try and innovate in terms of what button does what. In all actuality they just managed to make about half of it feel counter-intuitive.
If that isn't bad enough, they managed to attempt and showcase the PS3's "exotic" SIXAXIS controls. The two ways that I ran across before putting my controller down were both annoying and in many ways idiotic:
1.) When driving, if a mine goes off near your car, it has about a 50% chance of lighting on fire. Apparently the best way to put this out is shake your controller up and down very quickly in a masturbatory movement whilst still attempting to steer, as we all know that's how one puts out fires.
2.) When holding a grenade, you have some weird option to shake the controller to prime it. Totally useless and requiring too much effort while the "R2" button is still working on your controller.
Conclusion
Don't buy it. That's really all I can say for this game. If you happen across it in a dollar bin at some point, purchase it only if it comes with a free PS3. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go call up the local game shop and see how much I can get for this thing on a trade-in?
For those of you that haven't heard of this "Hot New Release" (as the board at the local electronics store did tell me), HAZE is some new game that apparently has some form of bee fetish. You run around the first couple of levels as... some guy (whose backstory is so insubstantial that I totally forgot his name) that apparently enjoys running around in a bee suit while on crack. That's pretty much what this game feels like, and I'm freaking serious.
Story
This should be a pretty short section, as there really isn't much to talk about. This game's plotline is about as deep as that of Red Faction 2, only without the previous game's support to at least back up the shallow storyline with another shallow storyline. At least then we had some freaking explanations.
Rather, in this game, you start off in an elevator, with several of your squad mates, riding up to the surface of some aircraft carrier. From there, you board what looks like a bee-ified rip-off of the Pelican from HALO and ride it to a random battle against people who shout things at you in Spanish in the middle of some jungle country in whatever-the-hell-country-this-is. You quickly find out that the tutorials are worth fuck-all, and the only way to actually see the enemy amongst the brush is to pump yourself full of drugs, called "Nectar," in order to make things glow for some arbitrary and not-at-all-explained reason.
From there, you kill a bunch of people as your co-squad-leader-person (whom you're apparently equal to in rank although he and all of your subordinates talk down to you like you're a child) continuously voices his hatred for his fellow man and spouts self-congratulatory machismo bullshit as often and annoyingly as possible. All of your squadmates do exactly the same thing, and behave much like coked-up frat boys (WARNING: It is very tempting to shoot them. There is no consequence for doing so).
After you complete the first jungle-bound inject-and-shoot-athon, you are then sent in to some random desert region, evidently in the same country, to go and fight a random crazy bastard who wears a bunch of human pelts as a coat (creatively calling himself "Skincoat"). You then chase him through a rather bland and neutrally-colored facility, the color randomly washing out of your screen as your body shows negative reactions to the drugs that evidently give you psychic visions of loads of previously-killed enemies. It was not long after this that I stopped playing, and I assure you there is nothing more to mention.
Gameplay
Let me start off this section by saying that this is perhaps the most god-awful and unbalanced gameplay you will ever experience. The speed of the game is very inconsistent, one second being crack-headed and fast-paced to the point of not ever knowing exactly what in the hell made you spontaneously explode, and the next being closer to sitting on your couch stoned out of your mind wishing for Cheetos. For instance; in the first vehicle section, on the second stage (desert region), the vehicle that they put you behind the wheel of is absolutely bullshit. For some arbitrary reason, whilst driving, the vehicle randomly decides it feels like activating a self-destruct timer and starts beeping before going KABOOM and killing your entire squad who are too mentally deficient to jump out along with you. When you do jump out, your co-squad-leader-person-thing begins yelling in your ear via headset to get back in your vehicle. This raises several questions, such as, "If he knows I'm out of my vehicle, why doesn't he know it just blew up?" You?ll find moments like this throughout the game.
The main glaring issue with HAZE, as aforementioned, is a general lack of balance. They seem to have attempted to go the HALO route, in making the full auto assault rifles piss-weak and the starting handgun the single most powerful thing since the Stinger Missile.
To honestly sum up this section, this game is just absolutely filled with bad gameplay. Ammo for friendly weapons is rare short of having to kill squad members (which there isn't even a consequence for), you constantly feel that you?re running in a bowl of oatmeal, enemy A.I. is pathetic with their difficulty relying solely on numbers, and despite the number of them popping out from all directions there is absolutely no way to change your look sensitivity.
Cut Scenes
Albeit something hard to really get wrong, I have to give Free Radical a cookie for managing to cock this one up royally. One of the first cut scenes, you find yourself inside of the bee-Pelican listening to your squad-mates and co-leader-squad-person-majigger jabber on about something-er-other related to 'liberating' wherever, when suddenly the game decides to blank out, load for five seconds, show them standing there for about twenty seconds with no sound, then blank out for another five seconds, and then show them jabbering once again while the pilot informs you that you're about to land in a hot drop zone. For a clearer image of this, if you have ever played the level "Silent Cartographer" in HALO, imagine the landing sequence at the beginning of the stage with all of the marines conversing about how awesome it would be to bang the pilot, and that's about what you'd be looking at.
About a third of the way into the desert stage, your co-leader-squad-person-thing randomly drives up to you and runs over an attacking rebel, pinning him beneath the wheel. He then talks some self-congratulatory bullshit before standing up and shooting him the face. At this point, he turns around and begins speaking to you as the body disappears from beneath the vehicle, leaving it with one tire hovering, as though the vehicle didn't look retarded enough.
Controls
The control scheme for this game feels awkward and unnecessary, as though the developers felt some need to try and innovate in terms of what button does what. In all actuality they just managed to make about half of it feel counter-intuitive.
If that isn't bad enough, they managed to attempt and showcase the PS3's "exotic" SIXAXIS controls. The two ways that I ran across before putting my controller down were both annoying and in many ways idiotic:
1.) When driving, if a mine goes off near your car, it has about a 50% chance of lighting on fire. Apparently the best way to put this out is shake your controller up and down very quickly in a masturbatory movement whilst still attempting to steer, as we all know that's how one puts out fires.
2.) When holding a grenade, you have some weird option to shake the controller to prime it. Totally useless and requiring too much effort while the "R2" button is still working on your controller.
Conclusion
Don't buy it. That's really all I can say for this game. If you happen across it in a dollar bin at some point, purchase it only if it comes with a free PS3. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go call up the local game shop and see how much I can get for this thing on a trade-in?
