Haze is an odd one to say the least. The final game from Free Radical Designs, the development studio that brought the excellent TimeSplitters series, Haze had the pedigree and the hype prior to release. It was deemed “The Halo Killer,” it was going to be the early saving grace for the PlayStation 3, the band Korn could not stop talking about Haze - everything is going well for the humble first-person shooter. But that was 2007 and 2008, Haze was going up against absolute juggernauts like Halo 3, Gears of War, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; it needed not only to impress, but to blow all expectations out of the water.
Haze released in May of 2008, got middling reviews at best, and not even 12-months later, Free Radical Designs was bought by Crytek, and was put to work in the Crysis mines, porting those games to the Xbox 360 or something.
Nowadays, Haze gets a lot of shit thrown at it. Some people claim it is one of the worst exclusive games on the PlayStation 3; some say it’s one of the worst games of that console generation; some say it’s one of the worst games ever made! What went from mediocre reviews in 2008 has somehow spun itself into a toxic waste dump in 2024. Can Haze really be this bad?
Well, it ain’t Rogue Warrior bad but it sure isn’t the prettiest girl at prom either.
You play as Shane Shepard, a soldier for a pharmaceutical company named Mantel. Mantel has a death grip on a drug called Nectar, a drug that is designed to make soldiers harder, better, faster, strong; as well as causing hallucinogenic effects causing them to not be aware of what is happening on the battlefield. Shane’s squad is tasked with heading to the Boa region of South America, and liberate the area of rebel forces that have taken control of the region. After a few missions, Shane’s nectar administrator goes haywire, causing him to see the horrors of his actions, which inevitably causes him to leave Mantel, join the rebel forces, and put an end to what Mantel is doing in the region.
While there are moments in Haze’s story that are almost interesting, it’s overall forgettable. Most of the characters are boring, there feels like there’s little to no stakes, and overall there’s nothing there to keep your attention. It’s a story that’s been done before multiple times, and for the most part there’s not much new that Haze is bringing to the table,
One thing that actually did strike me while playing Haze was the writing. Once you defect from Mantel and join the rebel forces, the writing is actually okay. There is poignant discussion about falling into propaganda, having your life dictated by drugs, and Shepard coming to terms with the atrocities he has been committing on Mantel’s behalf. I was almost impressed with some of the writing, is this really the Haze that people have been dunking on for so many years?
Unfortunately, what also struck me while playing Haze was the writing whilst you are employed with Mantel. I know that the game is trying to make you hate these dirtbags, but I wasn’t expecting a major - for the time - AAA-game (not developed by Rockstar) to be throwing around words like “faggot” and “retard” in its script. I get the intention behind it, but it was certainly wild to hear that; even Mickey Rourke in Rogue Warrior knew where to draw the line! Asides from the potty-language, the writing for the Mantel characters leans more on the “we’re dumb and want to shoot up some nectar and shoot some fuckers” dialogue, rather than the more thoughtful writing found on the rebel side.
Also, the amount of reused dialogue while playing the game is kind of ridiculous. I get that you will have to reuse to some sound-bites for NPCs in gameplay, but the amount of times I heard “Remember that you’re doing this for Merino!” or some slight variation of that for the majority of the game just became grating. Whether you’re traversing on a beach or fighting off a swarm of drop ships, the NPCs will yell the same things to you, with the same inflections, over and over again. At least the guys in Mantel were saying funny things while you play alongside them.
At its core, Haze plays like your standard military shooter of the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 era. You get two guns, you get grenades, you can aim down your sights, you can shoot guys, it’s in first person. The game checks off all the mandatory boxes that any mid-2000s shooter needs to check off, but with some additional twists. Haze’s story is broken up into it’s two sections, when you’re with Mantel, and when you’re with the resistance forces, and the extra game mechanics you have access to varies wildly between the two points in the story.
The first portion of Haze when you are in Mantel, you have access to a super-suit that administers and measures your nectar levels. At any point you can inject yourself with more nectar so you can go super human or something. Once the nectar is flowing through your blood stream, you are able to see enemies highlighted in the environment, run super fast, and punch guys all the way across the map. You do have to make sure that you’re injecting a proper amount of nectar though, as injecting too much will cause you to overdose, which in-turn will make Shepard fire on his own, and you won’t be able to discern friend from foe.
I really don’t mind the nectar mechanic in this part of the game! It’s a nice balancing act while you’re playing: do you let your nectar levels subside and rely on your own senses, or do you max out your nectar levels to go super-human, whilst trying not to overdose? It’s a little annoying when you accidentally overdose and you semi-lose control over Shepard, but there is some promise with the nectar gameplay. With a little more polish and some other mechanics thrown in, I could honestly see a full-game being built around nectar alone, but that might be the drugs talking.
However, once the story changes gears and Shepard leaves Mantel to join the rebel forces, Haze completely changes its gameplay style, ditching nectar completely and moving towards more “guerrilla” tactics.
Once you join the resistance forces, a swath of tactics are open to you. You can steal Mantel soldiers’ guns by running up and punching them in the head. You’re able to play dead once you’ve gotten to low health, allow enemies talk walk past you, and then get right back up and flank them from behind. You can take grenades and plant them in the ground to be used as a make-shift land mine. You can even plant these inside a metal floor! I don’t know how but you can! You’re able to turn grenades in “nectar grenades,” causing enemies to overdose and shoot each other once detonated, the list goes on!
Haze completely opens up once you leave Mantel, and honestly, the gameplay gets a lot more fun. Your options open up completely and it becomes much more interesting than the bog-standard shooter it was, minus the nectar mechanics. It’s also awesome how the game completely changes its gameplay style at the midway point: you have finally become comfortable with the balancing of nectar in your body, only for it to be taken away from you, forcing you to almost relearn the game. Bold move, Free Radical!
However, you aren’t going to be playing with these game mechanics for very long. Honestly, one of the bigger issues I have with Haze is its egregiously short runtime. You can easily beat this game in about three to four hours, and it’s simply not enough time to really flesh out what the game is trying to do. I was really enjoying the guerrilla gameplay mechanics in Haze: the hiding of grenades in the ground, playing dead, stealing weapons; but by the time you really get a handle on these new mechanics, the game’s over. I try not to harp on a game’s length, developers should never feel forced to hit some arbitrary number for how long a game should be. But when you’re trying to do all of these things in your game, you need some more time to truly flesh them out.
But maybe the campaign being only four-ish hours isn’t a bad thing after all. Haze has a reputation for a reason, and there is quite a number of things that make Haze a bad game. Haze has multiple driving segments, all of which are horrendous: controls feel very loose and you never feel like you have great control over any vehicle. A.I. for the enemies is atrocious, with a lot of enemies just standing in doorways not reacting to your presence, or running directly at you with reckless abandon. Every weapon in the game feels very weak and really aren’t that fun to shoot, level designs are uninspired: there Is simply a lot going wrong with Haze that anything interesting the game tries to do is completely overshadowed.
Also, near the end of the game you are placed in a level where the majority of the time you are either driving the stupid-ass car, or you are going through a cave shooting at stationary turrets. Sometimes they are sitting on the ground, sometimes they are in cover, and sometimes they’re even hanging from the ceiling! So much variety!
I hated that fucking level.
Also, Haze does have online but no one was playing it in 2024 when I played this game huh go figure.
Haze looks ugly as sin. Washed out colours, boring environments, tons of brown and greys, there’s almost nothing appealing with Haze’s aesthetic. Around the halfway point you are driving a quad on a beach with one of your buddies sitting on the back holding your waist, and I guess that part of the game looks alright; other than that though, this game is ugly. It doesn’t even have the crutch of being an early-sixth generation game, as games such as Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare had released, and look and perform far better than Haze. As well, Killzone 2 would be released less than a year after Haze: which hey that game is ugly as sin as well, but at least it’s technically impressive. Haze just stinks, and I would never hangout in its world.
Haze is trying way too hard to impress anyone. There are some interesting gameplay ideas presented, and some of the writing is almost well done, but it’s completely overshadowed a tidal wave of bad decisions that it’s hard to look at the game in a positive light. With all that being said: it’s definitely not the worst game on the PlayStation 3, it is not the worst game of the generation, and if anyone actually believes this is one of the worst games ever made, than you gotta play some more bad games! Haze isn’t good, and it’s easily Free Radical’s worst game, but come on, at least they were trying to do something.
I would certainly play this again over Rogue Warrior.
OPTIONAL.
Also, a note on how forgettable the story is: for the entire review I have been calling the player character “Shane Shepard.” That is not his name. It’s actually “Shane Carpenter.” It’s such a boring name that I just assumed I had it right at the start of writing this review.
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