Haze - PS3

What we don't know about most games is what goes on behind the scenes. Why were things made the way they are, why did a game turn out has bad has it did or good has it did. What are the factors in what makes a game what it is from BEHIND THE SCENES.

Well I know a guy who worked with Free Radical while it went through all its turmoil and ended up closing. We talked quite a bit about "HAZE" and why it ended up being the game that it is and not the game that the company wanted it to be.

It starts right on the cover, with the number of players that play online being wrong. It says 2-16 on the box but apparently that's wrong. Apparently the whole reason for being the underwhelmed game that it is, is because the developer pushing for deadlines. Not wanting to wait for things to be done. Like some little kid screaming, "I want it now, I want it now!!"

And not matter what industry you are in, we all know how things turn out when they are rushed and not given the proper amount of time to get things done. So knowing what I did, I was super excited to play this game and get my thoughts on this. Mainly because if you go online to most all reviews sites and they ALL shit on the game of how horrible it is. So knowing what I know now, will I have the same experience that most review sites have?!



So after playing this game, I must admit I laughed my ass of in places. The weirdest and strangest things would happen. The dialogue, oh good god, it was just horribly bad, so much so that I just chuckled at the majority of conversations.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. The game is a normal FPS, nothing wrong with that. I really like the ability to get ammo of your dead enemies. The play dead option is really original when you are almost dead. So for the most part, its your standard FPS, we've all played them, what's wrong with that?!

But after the conversation with my friend, this game is bang on for a game with the feel of not being finished. So many bugs and just insane things happening that made me laugh. So let me make a list of weird things that had happened.

CRAZY SHIT IN HAZE

1) Who needs Land
While driving in my buggy after a reload, the game reloaded, but there was no ground. Just sky all around me. I couldn't see me or the buggy, just sky. And when I drove, there were dirt tire tracks in the sky. so I hopped out of the buggy and I didn't land on invisible land, I went straight through. I fell and fell until the game decided I had fallen too much and died. lol, That was pretty funny. This bug was popular, I had it happen 3 times, all on driving levels.



2)My Finger is the Gun
One point my buddies were all around me, but none of them had weapons. Now they all had there arms in the position has if there was a weapon there, like it was invisible. But no gun, so I wanted to see how this would play out. Would they shoot invisible guns or would they just point and nothing happen. Well we moved along and then get to some enemies, I take flank next to my guys and watch has the fire fight erupts. All my guys raise their invisible guns and ..........
they all die. Apparently the game told them that they had to pretend they had guns. I enjoyed this bug alot. It happened only once, but it lasted the whole level.

3) Quick Growing Grass
When enemies pop up in the distance, its gives you that little indication that something moved. But the very last level, all the grass on the level would sprout up in front of me has I ran. It was like the old GTA, where geometry would just pop in the closer you got to it. But were still pretty far away to begin with.Well the same thing here, but instead of buildings, its little bundles of grass popping up all around me. It was funny and unnerving, I wasted a few too many bullets on grass bundles thinking it was a head.



4)Stationary Guns arn't Literal
Every gun post that I came too didn't have firing animation. Yes, I could control the gun and bullets would come out, but the actually gun didn't have any movement. By this I mean, the bullet belt didn't move, there was no gun casings, nothing. It was like getting a stick that fired deadly bullets.

5)Zooming Missiles
If you use the bazooka, missile launcher, what ever it is. And you are standing behind some cover and you put your cross hairs on a target where the cross hairs are touching the cover. Don't shoot because you will shoot the cover and you will kill yourself. But to get around this, just zoom in. That's right, I didn't move the cross hairs up, but because I zoomed in and now the cross hairs were past the cover, I could now fire and not blow myself up.

6)Me Speaka Good Words, arrrggggghhhhhhh!!!
God, the script for this is awful. After spending no more than 2 min with my HAZE squad I wanted to kill them myself. The 2 numbskulls who said "Skoosh" every time they liked something . All the Haze characters acted like, if you gave the entire hillbilly south weapons of mass destruction and told them they each get 4 strippers for each bad guy they kill. INSERT KILLBILLY JOKE!!
Then when I finally got over to the rebel side. Throughout the rest of the game, all they did every few min was remind me of my promise to the rebel leader. "REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE!!!" over and over. God, the script made me want to kill all my teammates.

Oh there was this one part where a big speech was just told my the rebel leader then outta nowhere one of his soilder goes up to him and say,"Sir, I'm scared" But it was done the way a little kid would go up to a parent and say that he doesn't want to get a needle. It was a riot.

Those were the funny bits. Then there were things that I would have like to seen, but again, not enough time to do what they had to do, so you get what you get.


The SERIOUS lack of variety of weapons is sad. Same goes for the enemies. You get shot gun, machine gun, sniper, flamethrower, bazooka, and pistol. This is the standard in all games, what everyone wants, is to get that COOL, specific weapons that really defines a game. There was nothing like that here, again, probable due they didn't have time to put that stuff in. Same comment goes for the enemies, you fight the 3 same enemies throughout the entire game. You want to see something new, but it never happens.

The enemy AI ranges from BANG your dead, to me walking around them and they not noticing me until I punch them in the head. Its all over the place.

Overall, if I didn't get the inside scoop, I would have shit on the game aswell. But after hearing the inside. This game reaks of having not enough time to get it done. Everything could have been fixed with more time and money. Both of which Free Radical weren't given. So out of all honesty, I can't recommend playing this game, Not because its so bad its awful. But because you are playing an unfinished game. No body every said, "here, go play at that playground, its not done, but we don't care, we need people in it now,"

Meanwhile the playground has swings hanging by one rope, the monkey bars is now just monkey and there's no see in the saw. So being fair with the score, I can't rate what is not done.

HAHAHAAHAHAHAH, after watching the trailer, it looks like what the game should have been. Even the voice there is cooler than the voice they give you in the game. The voice in the game reminds me Woody Allen.