Haze Review - The Halo Killer

feeling good buddy you look psyched hell you look so good i wish i was you it's gonna be a fun day haze is one of the most disappointing things ever made by another human being developed way back in 2008 for the playstation 3 exclusively by free radical design and when you look at the pedigree of that developer well that disappointment starts to make sense i mean free radical are the guys responsible for the awesome time splitter series okay not to mention the team was made up of guys who also worked on goldeneye and perfect dark they'd even splintered off at some point to create the crisis series so these are some pretty well established dudes responsible for some of the best shooters we've ever had and seeing how hayes ultimately turned out just makes that whole thing even more upsetting looks pretty clear to me hayes got hyped a lot back in the day apparently even being referred to as a halo killer though i have no idea where that originated from a lot of people have claimed that that was said in a gaming magazine though i can't find a single piece of evidence of it being called that but either way the only thing that killed halo was halo and the only thing that killed this game was free radical okay i'll take a look such a shame too it was their one and only title for the seventh generation consoles it even had a theme song written by corn with one of the most hilarious and misleading music videos of all time it's a game that's taken me years to get into not because i've been busy or distracted but simply because it's just such a tedious shooter and that every time i've tried to play it i get bored within the first hour or so stop playing and then forget it exists remember your promise to merino flank through haze is like going to a fancy restaurant and expecting to eat lobster mourney but instead they bring out fish fingers playing haze is like going to a dog show and they bring out that prized dog but instead of parading it around it just takes the on the floor and then rolls in it and then finishing haze is like crapping in your pants and then going around and telling people about it have i made my point yeah i think i've made my point looks pretty clear to me now haze if nothing else does have a critical premise takes place in the future 2043 to be precise where a huge corporation named mantle has a monopoly on the pharmaceutical market with an enhancement drug called nectar despite the enormous and lucrative potential this thing has it seems they mostly just use it on their private armies juicing their soldiers up constantly which makes them stronger tougher and all around just more switched on like a 13 year old hopped up on energy drinks and cheese flavored doritos these guys are cooked off their goddamn chops heads up my boys it's that time again [Music] sure is better than coffee and a slap in the face and this isn't an entirely made-up concept i mean it's pretty well documented that the cia used to give soldiers in vietnam and better means to make them perform better even as far back as world war ii there's evidence of soldiers being on experimental drugs the kind of drugs that upper middle class kids ingested music festivals yeah your plan is a guy named shane carpenter which might be the most unsuspecting name for a hero i've ever heard i mean out of all the badass names they could have gone for it's about the most unedgiest name in a game that's overflowing with edge anyway shane's just been sent to south america on a reassignment where he's been given the task of tracking down a supposed terrorist group called the promised hand and it shouldn't take more than this intro sequence to see that the guys you're working with are all a bunch of psychos but this guy called deval taking the cake don't you worry this whole prologue has some of the weirdest dialogue and voice acting i've ever seen what's up buddy i can't tell if it's supposed to be ironically cheesy because i mean these guys are living in this doped up fantasy world or if it's just outright bad with roles given to voice actors who just aren't that good you suck some balls like this bit of dialogue here is a perfect example listen to this you look psyched hell you look so good i wish i was you it's like he just accidentally ran the words together but they kept the taking you look psychedel you look so good i wish i was you yeah then you've got these two side characters pesci and watch strap who keep bumping chests like a couple of frat boys and what sort of a name is watch strap anyway like what are they calling that they say is that because i'm skinny see oh it's like a watch strap sir what cause he's skinny that doesn't make any sense doesn't make any sense it's not really a very good looking game either i know it's nearly playstation 3 title so you can't really knock it for that but there's loads of weird looking character models and facial animations blurry textures not to mention just a blurry image overall then all these shoddy animations like this animation for reviving your allies it's like shane just kind of waves his hand in their direction and that somehow brings them back to health and what are they doing it's like they're kneeling or praying or something okay let's go the whole point of this prologue though is just to kind of show you how well-equipped mantle's armies are and also how these soldiers seem to be completely devoid of self-control as they're constantly getting these hits of nectar every few minutes you've also got to wonder why the rebels are having such a hard time with these guys considering their helmets are these bright yellow eyesores that may as well have a goddamn bullseye painted on them the only thing that would make these guys easier to spot is if they had a neon sign on their backs once that finally lets you shoot something you're introduced to this mechanic where you can give yourself a quick dose of nectar increasing movement speed and damage resistance but also highlighting enemies that are off in the distance but it doesn't take all that long before you start to see the cracks and your neck dash supply starts wicking out showing these glimpses of what's actually really happening and again it is actually a pretty cool concept like when your supply is cut off you see the world for what it is for instance a room you're in might actually be full of executed civilians but once that sweet sweet nectar kicks back in the room appears empty and clean every now and then it seems like your suit starts to malfunction and it gives you too much of the stuff causing you to od you'll lose control of your actions for a short while and it's a cool gimmick that shows the dangerous and unpredictable nature that this chemical has what it's all just setting up though is the eventual changing of allegiances and you don't really need to be an expert judge a character to tell that the people you're working with aren't exactly the good guys and not even halfway through what's already a pretty short game you end up having to flee from your squad and team up with the rebels oh and this is kind of one of the biggest issues i have with this thing is that it just never goes any further or shows any more of how this drug is affecting the rest of the world it's all just limited to this smaller conflict between your squad and the rebels i knew it there's no real figurehead for mantle i mean the closest thing you get to an antagonist is duvall who's not even your commanding officer and this guy calls you buddy so often that you just know the script's been written by someone from a non-english speaking background but we're gonna get you fixed up and ready to move buddy it's gonna be a fun day it's just such a small scale for what realistically should be a much larger scale conflict and it just feels like a bunch of random characters shooting at each other in the jungle the desert and a bunch of other dry barren dusty looking shitholes yep hayes came out around that period in gaming where you had a lot of titles coming out that went for that gritty and realistic color palette which means you're going to see lots of green gray and dirty looking environments and haze is a classic example of this it doesn't even explore what happens when shane stops taking nectar either i mean the guy goes from doing frequent heavy doses to suddenly going cold turkey and he doesn't seem to really be all that worse for wear there's one short sequence in a swamp that kind of looks like you're moving through satan's butthole which had a jump scare that actually caught me off guard and to be honest it kind of needed more stuff like this to mess around with the player's head because after that it just kind of seems like he's fine and his neck to use is just a distant memory if he had limitations or other factors that came as a result of him abusing the drug well it might have made the other half of the game more interesting i mean like what if when he was off the nectar he starts hallucinating during combat and can't tell who his friends are and who's the enemy it's not really that hard to make some halo comparisons either you've got basic squad mechanics here with allies that follow you around and often help you out you've got regenerating health and even like the first halo the second level takes place almost entirely on a buggy but it just lacks everything that made halo so engaging and enjoyable you apes you're meat not to mention just comparing this thing to halo is like comparing a bottle of single malt scotch to a bottle of dishwater the enemy ai for instance whether or not you're playing as a mantle soldier or a rebel is pretty bad they often just stand in one place shooting at you and they don't ever really use any kind of smart tactics outside of lobbing a grenade your way or just retreating apparently this has some kind of advanced ai system called conspire which is supposed to make the enemies more intelligent or something but once you start playing you'll quickly see how that's just complete horseshit it's far from being a hard game though and about the hardest thing you have to contend with is trying to not fall asleep because it really just is such an unexciting and unfulfilling experience the nectar gimmick i think is definitely the highlight of the game so yeah what a perfect idea was to completely remove it once you team up with the rebels and then take it away for the other two thirds of the campaign it'll be like playing due maternal and then after a couple of hours they take away your flame belch and your chainsaw when you're playing as a rebel they try to introduce all of these new mechanics so you can dick around with the mantle soldiers you can shoot the nectar supply on their back causing them to od or even craft a makeshift nectar grenade which causes people caught in the blast to go haywire and attack each other and yet this kind of thing is a neat idea and it looks cool the first couple of times you do it but i mean shooting them in the head and calling it a day is a far more effective not to mention efficient strategy if the mechanic that differentiates the combat from just being a standard shooter isn't as useful as just playing the game as a standard shooter well then you've got a bit of an issue you suck some balls my point is why would i bugger around with throwing fancy grenades or shooting someone in a very specific spot when i could just achieve the same result in two seconds with a short burst of gunfire to their face you know what i mean probably the dumbest idea in this game though is this concept of playing dead you see because of how nectar apparently works corpses don't show up to mantle soldiers so the idea here is that you can play dead if you take too much damage which means that the enemies are just gonna leave you alone and you can in theory pop back up after their backs are turned and then shoot them now this is kind of stupid for two reasons firstly just in concept alone this doesn't make all that much sense i mean how does this drug define what a corpse is and isn't is nectar somehow able to register life signs on a body or is it just the perception that someone is dead simply because they're on the ground if that's the case then why don't all the rebels just play dead every time there's a mantle desk squad that's rolling through their town either way that kind of sounds like a pretty massive design oversight and secondly it takes so long to get back up on your feed after playing dead that enemies are just often aware of you again anyway i don't know man just this whole concept it's such a lame and pathetic idea there's one mechanic where you can bury grenades in the ground so the mantle soldiers walk over them and lose their legs from the knees down you can even do this on a surface that isn't dirt like shane just grabs dirt out of his pockets or something to cover this thing up things like this are just such a perfect example of how sloppy the whole thing is and how many undercooked mechanics the game has just never really offers up anything all that interesting from level to level and i think a lot of these chapters are just completely mundane and lacking any excitement for one of them for instance you've got to guide this missile on the back of a truck as it slowly passes over this huge bridge let me help you then you're sent back to the bridge right after it to arm a couple of c4 charges after that you're tasked with driving across the country on a motorbike to reach an observatory 90 of which can just be completely bypassed in whatever vehicle you're in anyway before then having to run a gauntlet through a mine shaft that's full of gun turrets and yeah this game really likes those machine gun turrets which are funnily enough i think more intelligent and harder to kill than the trans soldiers followed by a ride on the world's slowest rail car which expectedly gets attacked by a chopper about halfway through its route if you ever suffering from insomnia well just give these levels a quick play through you'll be sleeping like a stone in no time about the only impressive sequence is the last level that's set on a land carrier which has this constantly scrolling background and i'm a bit of a sucker for that kind of stuff outside of which faction you're playing as it's just a pretty basic first person shooter and i don't think this shooting is fundamentally bad it's just there's not really all that much frighty to it i probably spent 90 percent of the game using either the assault rifle or the shotgun because there was just never a reason to use anything else when both of these weapons were so effective i think i used the sniper rifle maybe once or twice and that's only out of boredom and desperation to try something different you're also forced to use a rocket launcher to take out a bunch of gunships but that's about it you do get an absolutely baller hand cannon earlier on in the game though which takes out almost every single enemy in a single hit and sounds like a goddamn thundercrack and at one point you even get to use a minigun turret but it feels so goddamn weak that you may as well be using water pistol it's just such a small-minded weapon lineup i mean for a game that takes place in the future it's just got such a basic scope don't you worry enemies aren't all that varied either regardless of if you're up against the rebels or the mantle soldiers it's just enemies with either an assault rifle or a shotgun later on in the game you come up against the mantle elite but they're just the basic enemies with slightly more health points but i think that haze's biggest detriment though is the story and while the story doesn't always matter especially in shooters this is a game that takes its plot very seriously and i'd say maybe 25 of the time will be spent watching unskipable cinematics listening to people talk so it is a story that takes center stage and it's one that you're intended to pay attention to and it's all just so boring shut up or you lose your teeth like check out this brilliant sequence for instance where it's just you and this random rebel sitting in a drop ship for five minutes yeah i totally needed to sit through that shut up or you lose your teeth it often tries its best to come across as edgy or graphic but it just comes across as cringy and laughable which isn't helped by the voice acting either the tipping point i think for me though is during a bit where you find out that sorry spoiler nectar has a high potential to kill people who take it for too long which is fine i mean i think that's a perfectly sensible outcome for a drug that people are dosing up on every five seconds and once you accept that you can take control of yourself instead but what is mental solution to this well by just dumping all of the corpses of these soldiers in shipping containers in some abandoned tanker ship that anyone could find this super powerful conglomerate that has essentially taken over the world and has the power and reach to wipe out their opponents and competitors somehow couldn't just bury these bodies in a ditch somewhere or i don't know even better yet throw them in an incinerator i don't know man anything other than just awkwardly stuffing them into metal containers i'm sure that in the year 2043 there's got to be a hundred different ways to get rid of a dead body and then the other dumb thing is that you learn that this shipping container is off limits to the mantle soldiers as a means i guess of hiding the evidence even though it's already been established that these soldiers don't see corpses anyway what are you seeing to see what i mean it's like the first draft of a story that's been written by a little kid if the script had been written in crayon it wouldn't have surprised me all of the dialogue with juvar during the ending is just weird if this guy's trying to prove a point or something or make us see things from his perspective well you're sure not doing a good job at it that sounds pretty crazy to me and when you finally finish him off the noises he makes are just weird then there's his fun words mom don't tell your mum what that you died crying like a little yeah i'll try to not tell her that in the morning when she's asking me how i like my eggs cooked schweck that sounds pretty crazy to me one of the main saving graces here is that this isn't a very long campaign it took me roughly five to six hours to get through and although it did feel longer i was more than happy to have it finished sooner rather than later it's like getting a tooth pulled out or a band-aid ripped off you don't want it done slowly it's got to be done just rip the damn thing out so we can all get out of there and head off down the pub what for dinner the ultimate tragedy is that this was the swan song for free radical after this these guys split up for good and to be honest they deserved better and so did we think it's kind of ironic too in a way that korn did a song in this game's soundtrack i mean corn is a group that i loved growing up in high school and i almost thought that these guys peaked in the late 90s and the early 2000s and then here you've got free radical making their best games in the late 90s and also the early 2000s kind of fizzling away into mediocrity with this one look at you so i guess ultimately this thing was far from the halo killer it got made out to be and about the only thing that it killed was the chance of ever shutting up every mouth breather at the time who was still adamant that halo was the bestest first person shooter ever made still this is a fascinating case study to see how such a proud and accomplished developer could drop the ball so goddamn hard and on some level it is worth checking out just for that alone just remember your promise now it's time to set things right it's gonna be a fun day [Music] you

Channel: GmanLives

Views: 657,278

Keywords: haze review, haze game, free radical, worst videogame, hype in videogames, over hype, shooter game, playstation 3, one of the worst ps3 games ever, video games, playstation 3 games, resistance fall of man, call of duty, first person shooter, worst video games, worst video games ever, shooter games 2021, haze review ps3, haze game review, haze game ps3, gggmanlives, gmanlives, goldeneye, perfect dark, timesplitters

Id: JAL_YQgWAjk

Length: 18min 33sec (1113 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021