Graphics and Gameplay
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The graphics in Haze are a mixed bag. At some points in the game, players will experience rich detail, nice lighting effects, and realistic textures. Yet other areas fall flat. Some players may feel as though they've entered a new game as a result. Also, the graphic detail may be mixed simultaneously in the same areas. For example, in the tropical forest areas, while outlying foliage appears lackluster, plant life you'll encounter on the ground looks superbly done. While many may simple overlook these inconsistencies, they are apparent and noteworthy. However, the overall design remains consistent throughout and is fairly pleasing to the eye.
Oddly enough, the portions of the game where graphic detail totally missed the mark are in the interactive cutscenes. This is rather unusual since cinematic sequences in games usually sport a high level of detail and often reflect more polish than character models during actual gameplay. Regardless of whether corners were blatantly cut or not, the game moves along quite smoothly at a comfortable frame rate, with only a few minor hiccups. Players can expect similar graphical quality while playing online. Overall, the visual experience is only passable and hardly takes advantage of the level of quality the PS3 is capable of producing.
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The gameplay in Haze is fairly straightforward. Anyone who has played a first person shooter on the PS3 should feel right at home. If not, players have the ability to customize nearly all of the game's controls to their liking. This brings up the one element of customization that should have been present but wasn't; control sensitivity. Being able to adjust how fast the aiming reticule moves onscreen has become the standard in console shooters, but was lost in Haze. While some may feel comfortable with the default sensitivity, others who may have just come from another game might require some time to adjust.
Other negative aspects of the game worth mentioning include clumsy AI, limited camera panning, inability to fire weapons during vehicle sequences, and the lack of varied weaponry. On the AI front, issues with your enemies are plentiful but are not nearly as evident as with those on your side who accompany you into battle. The most notable issue is the fact that members of your team will constantly run into your line of fire causing players to miss their targeted foe. This, along with your teammates' being unlikely to kill any of the enemies they face themselves, lends itself to enough frustration to prompt players to leave them behind and push forward alone. While this seems entirely possible in some missions, your teammates will magically appear at the next objective even after driving a fair distance away from where you left them. And when you do rejoin your team, you can rest assured that its members will spout off the same five or six lines of cheesy dialog over and over again.
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This brings up to the vehicle sequences. In Haze, you'll encounter a few types of vehicles that you can commandeer, including ATVs and futuristic dune buggies. None of these sequences involves full-scale war while in the driver's seat, but there are enemies present who will appear along your path to the next objective. While the ability to fire at your enemies while driving would have been helpful, weapons are simply not at your disposal. There are, however, weapons mounted on some vehicles and they are utilized by your squad, but your computer controlled teammates will never jump into the driver's seat and allow you to use them while traveling.
While you're piloting one of these vehicles, players only have the ability to pan the camera 90 degrees to the left and to the right. The main purpose of vehicles in Haze is to transport players from one objective to the next, but there are some instances where your vehicle is attacked from behind by pursuing enemy crafts. When this happens, the lack of being able to fire at them is cancelled out by the fact that you can't see them in the first place. If you do have a squad mate operating a mounted weapon on your vehicle, you can bet the enemy will not be affected. Thus, it is usually better to simply try and outrun your attackers or, sadly, jump out of your vehicle and fire at them while on foot.
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shabby - Monday, May 26, 2008 - link
I see you guys missed that haze actually runs at 576p rather than 720p, would of been nice to mention.JarredWalton - Monday, May 26, 2008 - link
Not owning a PS3, I can't really say either way, but would rendering at 1024x576 and then stretching to 1280x720 result in a sort of "anti-aliasing"?Furen - Monday, May 26, 2008 - link
A simple strech would actually amplify aliasing, since you would stretch the edges even more. I'm pretty sure that the upscaling algorithms used probably are the equivalent of some of the higher-quality upscaling methods we see in DVD players, so the effect may actually be decent--but nowhere near what it would be if you rendered in HD natively. So much for Sony's "every game will run at 1080p" BS...mmntech - Monday, May 26, 2008 - link
Keep in mind that this is a third party title, being distributed by UBIsoft, a company who has earned my ire many times over on many different platforms. The developer takes the blame for this one since the graphics in Haze aren't exactly going to tax the system. Given that it's a PS3 exclusive built from the ground up, that's particularly disgraceful. If nobody at the company can program for the Cell (I assume this will be their excuse), fire them and hire someone who can. All other PS3 games run fine at 720p or 1080p. Sony does take some blame though since in the PS blog they said Haze would run at 720p when in reality it's only being upscaled to 720p. That is deceitful. If you're using a display with non-standard resolutions higher than 720p (say a 16:10 computer monitor like I do), the image quality further deteriorates since it's being upscaled twice.Technicals aside, Haze seemed like a pretty generic dystopian future first person shooter to me after I played the demo. There's nothing spectacular about it. You go around shooting terrorists while doing drugs. It's like Vietnam except with fancy yellow and black suits. It's not a bad game but it's not great. Over hyped and under substance. I'd rent it but I wouldn't fork out $60 to buy it.
ats - Thursday, May 29, 2008 - link
Very Very few games for either PS3 or XB360 actually render to 720P let alone 1080P.Neither of the consoles have either the graphics power or memory to really support heavy shading and textures at real HD resolutions.
Slash3 - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
No other comment on what you've already said, but here are a few other titles that do not run at 720p or higher resolution on the PS3:Lair: 800x1080 (no, really)
COD4: 1024x600
Dark Sector: 1152x640
Metal Gear Online: 1024x768
Haze is 1024x576
MGS4 is rumored to be 1024x768 as well.
The downside is that through the low rendered resolution + upscaling, you lose a lot of fine detail. It still looks great in motion, since you retain the modern particles, lighting and rendering passes for effects such as depth of field, HDR lighting and such, but you lose definition - literally.
I honestly don't think it would be such a big deal if people hadn't been force fed the notion that this console generation would deliver all content in 720p or 1080p format when it's simply not the case.
slashbinslashbash - Monday, May 26, 2008 - link
Reading the review, the game sounds a lot like Halo, although it seems Halo has a better weapons selection and a better multiplayer experience. I would have liked to see more explicit comparisions of each mode: single-player, multiplayer, and coop. Also comparisons of graphics, sound, etc. Halo 3, like it or not, is the standard-bearer of console sci-fi FPS gaming (distinguishing from historical or more-or-less realistic depictions like CoD). Not to mention, Halo 3 is exclusive to Xbox 360 and thus seems to form the most perfect competitor to Haze (bring on the "Hazo" comments). I, being mostly happy with Halo 3 and the 360, and not owning a PS3, would like to know how Haze fares in comparison.I'm not trying to be snide or anything, it just seems that this game is squarely aimed at the same niche that Halo 3 occupies.... like probably someone at Sony decided to come up with a Halo competitor. Nothing wrong with that, but since the comparison seems so obvious, I would like to see someone actually do the comparison in a review, despite the flak they will take from fanboys on both sides. I know that I will own a PS3 eventually, and I owned all 3 (4, if you count the Dreamcast) of the last-gen systems.
EddieTurner - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Aside from being a FPS and having a four letter title beginning with the letters H and A. there is really no similarity between the two. Haze is a story about conflict between humans and just doesn't give off that Halo vibe at all. I don't think that was the direction the devs were going with this. But I agree, Halo is a fine game that has set some standards in console FPS's.