For the following three reasons I’ve decided against writing reviews: standards, attention and finance. I can’t afford it, I can’t stand it and when I read back on our own site administering a nine out of ten to Mass Effect 3 I can’t help be feel it’s all a bit pointless. So instead, I’m using the power of retrospect to pry open some long forgotten discussions about a few games that, while a complete disaster in their day, could have been something worth really remembering.
So, who remembers Haze? It’s only one syllable, but it was the single greatest disappoint on the PS3 before Socom 4 trundled in. It was a disaster, but thanks to abundantly undeserved amounts of hype the game sold modestly well for an exclusive on a console that was only out for over a year and a half. Developed by Free Radical, the creators of the amazing Time Splitters series, Haze was dubbed as answer to Microsoft’s stellar Halo franchise. I never bought into the hype, not even for a second, but somehow a lot of people did.
You took control of one Shane Carpenter; a twenty-something jar head on the payroll of a pharmaceutical powerhouse by the name of Mantel. Mantel like to sodomise mother nature, and so have developed a drug that when administered makes their grunts see only sunshine and daisies and makes them all but the perfect killing machines. The plot surrounds some South American rebels by the name of the ‘Promised Hand’ that need sorting out and Carpenter and company are just the idiots to do it. Roll on seven hours of morbid mundaneness and a series of credits and you essentially have my opinion of Haze.
So what did the critics think? Unsurprisingly the game was panned by anyone who tries to find enjoyment in life and any media outlet who had previously touted it as a winner quickly moved to forget they had ever heard of it. Within two months the word was out, the price was slashed and the online community who bought into the hype all but hanged itself in shame. Haze, for all it’s promise, was a dud, but that’s enough for our history lesson.
You see I never gave Haze a second thought once I finished the campaign and sampled the mediocre online component, but a rare conversation with a former colleague a few months ago brought it back to the front of my mind. We were discussing disappointing games, and what if we had we the power to travel back in time and take control of the development team. Y’know, after I told a younger version of me to never ever start smoking, invest in Facebook and never ever get his hopes up on Northern Ireland ever qualifying for the European Championships.
Let’s start with what went so badly wrong. The first, most glaring fault, was that the developers, for all their pedigree, had absolutely no idea what the consumer wanted. They assumed, quite wrongly, that the presentation didn’t matter. Haze’s final product, quite frankly, looked worse than a dog’s dinner. It was released around the time that everything that anyone really cared about was the graphics, since we’d only just taken our first few faltering steps into the seventh generation and we were all mostly focused on what games looked the best. Suffice to say, a PS3 exclusive boasting the visual prowess of a PS2 didn’t raise eyebrows.
Then came the plot, oh sweet mother of Jesus the plot. Granted, this was before every developer worth it’s name had had a crack at the FPS market, but even in it’s day Haze was shockingly average in the writing department. Within the first three levels of the game Shane would discover that the company he was working for were, surprise surprise, actually the bad guys. Oh, did I just spoil the game for you? Well I would apologise had Free Radical decided not to warn you about Shane’s impending defection on the back of the damn box!
So what could they have done better? For a starts picture this; Free Radical releases a short teaser trailer at E3. In it, we have a corporate spin doctor challenging us to enlist in his start of the art army to wage war on the drug cartels scorching humanity in places non pronounceable. Now imagine that from that point on all gameplay, details and trailers only depict you as the stand up patriot fighting the good fight under said corporate spin doctor’s banner. Then, when the game released a year or so later, you play through the first few levels and notice only a few subtle clues as to what is really going on. A vanishing comrade, perhaps. Or maybe a few unexplainable wails for help to undermine your faith in the cause.
Suddenly, you realise that you’ve been had. You’re not the good guy, you’re not killing a ruthless drug supplier but a desperate militia trying to defend what little it has from your master’s greed. You break away, you find yourself standing alongside the men and women you once tried to kill. You find yourself looking through the worlds with eyes anew,staring down the barrels of your former pay masters.
Without so much as touching the core plot, I’ve improved it. How? By not undermining the only plot twist I had at my disposal. Free Radical readily informed anyone who listened that the campaign would be a tale of two halves, or three levels and then the rest of the game. There was no impact, no drama. Any and all potential shock at the revelation of finding out you’re really just an idiot with a gun was wasted by the fact you put in the blurb on the back of the box! Spoiling a plot is a job for a Wikipedia contributor, don’t do it for them!
Next we had the gameplay. Despite all my complaints, I’ll admit that haze was at least functional with more than a few interesting ideas. You had two sets of responsive, albeit unoriginal, weapons and more than a few ways to use them. Nectar, the basis of the plot, was a drug that both enhanced and crippled a Mantel soldier. Enough of it made you an elite killing machine but too much of it made you feral and incapable of recognising friend from foe. The drug could be extracted from fallen Mantel grunts and used to create grenades or coat throwing knives. The same grenades could be planted in the ground as mines to set up effective ambushes. All of these were good but underutilised ides.
So here’s my idea. Sadly Free Radical is no more, usurped by Crytek to form it’s UK branch, but while that means I may never get to see Time Splitters 4 it does give me a chance of one day seeing a Crysis inspired Haze sequel. Imagine this, an open South American world to explore. Much like the one we will see in the upcoming Far Cry 3, but one where you are the rebel and must act like one in order to survive. Ambush supplies, stock pile whatever you can and build up your forces to remove Mantel and their numerous up to the minute outposts from your land. Then, occasionally, engage in a few story essential attacks in different regions.
I would buy a game like that in a heart beat. As for the multiplayer? While I don’t see any harm in keeping the four player co-op that Haze offered for the campaign, much of the competitive aspect would have to go. Some modes, such as the P.O.W mode, would probably make for some interesting matches but many of the game modes Free Radical offered were untouched even during the busiest of days.
Then we had the AI. The second letter of which stands for intelligence, which the characters on both sides of the fence in this game are severely lacking. This game was made in 2008, post Halo. Abysmal intelligence can’t be justified, and all but killed the game. Maybe, just maybe, you could have explained away the Mantel grunt’s actions a they all seemed to be equipped with only one solution to any problem; walk towards it and keep firing. While this might have been a side effect of Nectar, the rebels had no such excuse. Fix this please.
You also have to ditch any and all aspirations to create another escort mission. This isn’t even up for debate, it’s just a straight forward ‘don’t you f%&$ing dare!‘ Any escort mission is bad and is judged according to how frustrating they are. They’re never good, the best ones are just over with before you know it and don’t need to be repeated. The best, and only, move to make in this department is to make absolutely no move at all. Don’t touch them, let them do their thing far away from and us and we’ll do our thing over here far away from them. Suave?
Of course, Crytek UK doesn’t need to touch any of my ideas with a ten foot pole. Haze was, and forever will be, an unredeemable stain on Free Radical’s otherwise very remarkable history of game development. It was also, however, a game that had more new ideas than most generic first person shooters. Who can tell? In an industry where new ideas seem to be running out ( Modern Warfare 4 anyone? ) maybe one day Crytek will look back on their younger, idiotic, selves and think that maybe they were on to something great but just went the completely wrong way with it. I mean the kind of navigational failure that leads you to drive a promising car off a cliff and towards a steep, but brief, descent into complete and utter failure. That was the case with Haze, in my opinion at least.
One final note; ditch the yellow and black colour scheme won’t you? It doesn’t exactly scream covert expertise, particularly in a predominantly green environment.
