HAZE REVIEW

Hey this is Diana_Explosion with my first game review of Haze.

After I had played the demo I had high hopes for this shooter. Even after everything I had heard about it, I wasn’t going to judge until I had played it myself. I had loved the demo. You got to be a guy in a bumblebee-esque suit with a gun. What could be more fun than that?!  Something about the bumblebee thing amused me so I figured I would love the full version.

What the demo had lacked were cut scenes but they were there in full force on the full version. The script was poorly written, and it was nothing exciting or innovating.

The story made itself painfully obvious.  I didn’t have to reach the point where I switch sides to figure out what was going to happen. The story didn’t start getting interesting until you had become a rebel.

Graphics were above average.  While the characters were realistic, some of the backgrounds looked almost cartoon-ish. There were bugs in the game that would have random characters appear during cut scenes, the continuing bumble bee theme does get a bit old, and they really shove the yellow, black and honeycomb patterns down your throat.

The voice acting was horrible for the AI characters. The two guys who yell “boosh” made me want to take a q-tip and jam it so far into my ear that it erased that stupid word from my memory. The in game music didn’t inspire much enthusiasm when playing. It didn’t have that oomph you get listening to it while completing missions. I have the Half Life soundtrack on my ipod and I love to listen to it in my spare time. Haze lacks this type of soundtrack. It was generic and nothing to remember. The rock band Korn wrote a song entitled Haze about the game. It was released coinciding with the games release and is much better than anything the in-game music had to offer.

I found that motion with the joysticks is fluid and basic combat controls were simple and easy to remember. I was most impressed with the controls for the Mantel vehicle. I found it easy to control the camera, steering and acceleration, which was great for me because on some games like GTA 4 I couldn’t stand the vehicle controls. As for the action button I sometimes found it to be quite finicky.  You had to be standing right on top of an object for it to work properly, and sometimes your squad had to follow you to where you had needed to use it, and then get in the way. You sometimes had to spend a few seconds positioning yourself correctly to get the button work. The only other problem I had that was control related was the Control menu. I had missed the controls for reverse on the vehicle and had to use trial and error because there is no vehicle tab in the control menu to use as a reference.

I did enjoy the “Nectar” idea; the glowing enemies make for much easier head shots. Although with the good comes the bad.  The “Nectar Disruptions” begin to last longer making it impossible to aim down the sight and just an overall pain. You also have random overdoses on Nectar by no fault of your own. I was usually pretty careful not to go to the dark side and overdose. So it came to me as a surprise that when I was running down the stairs while the rebels were blowing them up I got hit with a bloodstream abnormality.  I didn’t even do anything, it just happened.

The multiplayer part was decent enough. You get an option to use either Mantel or Rebel weapons, or a decent variety of maps. Playing as Mantel you have to watch out for Rebels sneaking up on you and overdosing you on Nectar. The game type was a little confusing for the one I had played. Instead of your run of the mill capture the flag or let’s say slayer you have to stop the rebels from signaling a helicopter than boarding it. They have recently released the new map pack “Domination” that comes with a new game type called “Capture and Hold” for those still playing this game online.  Either way it was fairly fun to play but I don’t foresee it as being as popular as many other multiplayer games now like Team Fortress2, Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3.

For me I think once I had played the game all the way through I didn’t have a need to play it again. While I enjoyed the gameplay I simply don’t think I could deal with the acting or the cut scenes a second time. That and the experience wasn’t so spectacular that it would have me coming back for more.

Overall, I give the game a 3.5/10. I enjoyed the gameplay for the most part, but the story, the acting and the random disruptions made me to throw the controller out the window. I would have to say the best part of the game was driving the Mantel vehicle. I am a die hard FPS fan and even I had trouble getting into this shooter. Thanks HAZE you have tested my will power not to shove screwdrivers into my temples.