Angry Robot

Thoughts on Ubisoft's Haze

What do I think of Haze thus far from my limited exposure with the demo? I’m intrigued! I want to play more. Yeah, the story is totally obvious and everything, the whole big evil corporation makes a drug that enhances you in battle and a rebel force fights against it. Good times!

The reviews for Haze have been less than awesome with the major sites saying things like weak plot, stripped down multiplayer (which doesn’t matter to me because none of my friends own a PS3, I’m in it strictly for campaign), and meh graphics. I think that they’re being a wee bit picky. I guess when you have an exclusive title for the PS3 one would expect something truly awesome. And yeah, from the demo the graphics were nothing special, typical Ubisoft jungle, we’ve all been there before. But I hesitate to hate the game so quickly, I really do want to play the whole thing.

Seeing the bodies disappear after I shot some rebels down was nifty, and then walking through a bombed out site and hearing these strange sounds when my super drug “Nectar” flow was interrupted was also nifty. I liked feeling all “oooh I think I’m a good guy but really I’m a bad guy oooh”. It actually reminded me of Shadowrun for a bit…if Shadowrun had a campaign mode…Or maybe it was because rebels were speaking Spanish…I’m getting tired of hearing Spanish yelled at me while being pelted by bullets. Can we get a new language up-ins for shooters please?

So why am I being so lenient with this game? Well, I only played the demo for one, and I just don’t think every shooter has to be revolutionary. I think of first person shooters kinda like action movies. Some are Rambos, some are Alien vs Predators, all are full of crazy unrealistic action and events. Sometimes I like a good crappy movie, and sometimes I like a little crappy game.

The really odd thing though…While I was playing my hands really craved a 360 controller! My fingers were itching to play on familiar shooter controls…it was actually kinda freaky and disconcerting. I’m like programmed for 360 shooters now…

I’ll do a full test on this beast next week, but as it stands now I’m not hating it, which is nice.