Haze Comments by Kristan Reed

it sucks to be a ps3 owner. lair, heavenly sword and now this. waiting months even years for such desultory offerings. To any ps3 owner interested in playing games that actually deliver the goods just cut your losses ,swallow your pride and get an xbox. Just think you won't have to kid yourself anymore.

own both then when you get pissed at losing online with the 360, you can smash the ps3 controllers off the wall, no loss there at all!

What Nocturne said.

I'm somebody that came in from over 10 years in the PC wilderness, after having finally retired my Mega Drive in about 1996 or so. I came down on the Xbox 360 side merely because MS seem to have a good selection of genres and titles (not to mention the brilliant dreamcast inspired 360 controller), and Sony has done a piss poor job of buying exclusive title rights, average at best and piss poor at worst.

Despite being an Xbox owner I want competition as its best for the consumer, a little competition does wonders for quality standards. I am however starting to wonder if Sony hasn't just missed the boat, but got lost on the way to the docks. MGS4, Little Big Planet (the only PS3 title I am genuinely jealous of), and GT5 ... and few prospects on the horizon, you must be joking Sony?

Sir_TimAlot is right.

As for the whole console battle thing, weaselrat, I own both so I don't care which is better. Whichever one it is, I already have it. It's liberating.
I only bought the PS3 because it's a good Blu-Ray player. I bought the xbox solely for Mass Effect (and then BioShock came and blew my socks off). Conclusion? Up yours, shitpickle.
Brand loyalty is normal but video gamers take it way too far. You should only be 'loyal' to the extent that it stimulates competition in the market, making you, the discerning customer, better off in the end.

As for my use of the word "shitpickle", it's not really an insult. Consider it a cute nickname, or an affectionate term I use to encapsulate my perception of you.

I personally don't know if this game is worth a 4/10. I've played the demo, and it feels more like an above average shooter experience to me. It's better than other games I've played.

But, just to point out something, you can't have it both ways EG. If you go and rate something as badly designed as Lost the game 7/10, you can't come on your high horse and claim Haze is somehow so bad in design that it warrants a 4/10.

Remain consistent.

Oh well.

After playing crysis Haze really did feel like a PS2 game, it just seemed empty. There is better on PC easily but there is also better on the consoles.

@ Nocturne
Seems like clutching at straws to me. Second Sight was never great anyways, and people are holding on the groundless idea that all those who were involved in goldeneye and perfect dark are all now part of FRD. For all we know, those people may still be at rare (PDZ is better than haze, in a bizzaro sort-of way).

And it's not a theory, it's an hypothesis. A theory needs at least some evidence, whereas the "B-Team Theory" (as it will now forever be called) is groundless, especially when haze has been thier most important game since the first timesplitters. It is easy to look at the score now and blame the game on the mysterious "B-Team", but a year ago, it was thier flagship title. How the "B-Team" was involved in thier flagship title (up until now) doesn't make sense with me.

And like I said before, nekotcha always made it clear that it was the primary game they were working on.

Well I really enjoyed PDZ and never understood all the hate it got.

The people that made GE and Perfect Dark good are obviously still at rare. Seriously, how can you really compare the two games - one was released 2 and a half years ago and was rushed for launch, whereas Haze has got an extra 6 months to polish.

The storyline is intresting however the game is shite in a bucket,piss poor doesnt do it justice.
Those who say the ps3 is underpowered will change there minds in a few weeks,Ive played the finished version of metal gear solid4 its simply stunning amazing visual and audio.
Buy yourself a decent hd tv and surround sound kit,be ready to play the best game released yet on next gen.
Its fantastic.
If you havent got a top hd tv and surround sound kit you will lose a massive part of the metal gear experience,without a doubt the best sounding game you will ever play.

"H4zelol"

QFT!!

Just for the record: Haze got pretty poor reviews on all the sites that matter and e.g. a 6/10 on Gamespot with their 7-9 rating scale for major titles is easily equal to or even worse than a 4/10 on EG.

BOOSH! (Ha, ha - that HAS to be the next internet meme.)

Fingers crossed we get the full horrific account of this games birthing process on Gamasutra in a Postmortem article.

you didn't like it then?

@BadBoyBonner
I remember Gamasutra ran an interview with Haze's 'screenwriter' sometime last autumn which was quite interesting and, to be honest, sounded a few alarm bells for things to come (though perhaps hindsight is helping there). Most obviously, the interview shows that Yescombe wanted to produce a very self-aware commentary on the state of gung-ho shooting games (something it seems that some people are missing entirely); unfortunately the result seems to not be half as clever as he thought it would be.

By the way, this speculation on A- and B-teams can be easily confirmed, surely? Just look at the credit rolls of the games in question.

But, just to point out something, you can't have it both ways EG. If you go and rate something as badly designed as Lost the game 7/10, you can't come on your high horse and claim Haze is somehow so bad in design that it warrants a 4/10.

Remain consistent.

@Crofto

Your Sony badge is shining brightly, Crofto...as usual. If this was a 360 exclusive game we wouldn't hear such words from you. Yes, you are consistent..consistently sucking Sony's a@&.
How you could even make your argument by comparing an adventure game (which are scarce this gen) to an FPS (which we are overloaded with) is beyond me. You're also not taking into account that each reviewer (you act like EG is a reviewer's name) see games of different genres individually.

Ridiculous.

"In my previous comment the term 'underpowered' was intended to be understood relative to the marketing and promises of Sony, which the Playstation 3 has clearly failed to meet (the notorious Killzone 2 trailer is a case in point). "

Take a look at the new, pre-alpha, footage and wait for the final game. Or go on making uninformed comments, whatever you prefer.

Take a look at the new, pre-alpha, footage and wait for the final game. Or go on making uninformed comments, whatever you prefer.

@Sevens

Granted. Looks great except that they showed that footage in 2005 and KZ2 isn't coming out till 2009...4 YEARS later. While we'll have had already played 2 Resistance games, 2 Motorstorm games, 2 Viva Pinata games, 2 Gears of War games, 2 PGR games, 2 COD games, 2 Rainbow six games added to a new Mario, Metroid, Smash Bros & a Zelda game before we play Killzone 2.

Uhh..something's wrong here o.O

So the delayed, hyped, AAA exclusive turned out to be rubbish.... when Killzone 2 comes out even the mighty "epic fail" won't be enough!

bastards.

Really excellent review Kristan. I enjoyed reading it a lot, and whilst you certainly dished out the dirt, I think you avoided ranting and kept it concise and to the point.

I certainly won't be buying a PS3 anytime soon. If only MGS4 and LBP were on the 360!

i never gave much attention to Haze... im sold with MGS4, the next gen shin megami tensei, disgaea 3 and the great FF XIII... and the last 3 are not coming until the end of 2009... but no hurries... i still have some hours in lost odyssey and mass effect, best xbox 360 games in my honest opinion... killzone and gears are not very persuasive to me... and haze? its just another regular FPS with not much to offer...

Wow. Just, Wow. Maybe 2009 is the year of the PS3?

I mean what noteworthy exclusives are left? MGS4, LBP, GT5, KZ2, Res2 as far as I know.
If at least 3 of these 5 are not 10/10 games, I predict GAME OVER for Sony. The videogame department at any rate.
Blu ray may still save it, what with the cross platform games getting stronger, so long as they can undercut dedicated players.

"All readers on this site should know that 360 is the superior console by now."

Clearly they don't otherwise EG wouldn't be feeding up a frenzy with it's comparison articles. I for one don't understand where the revelation in that statement is. A console two and half years into it's life cycle is of course going to have more content, if managed correctly. Whether that make's it a "superior" console is a matter of taste, as Nintendo will no doubt attest. I personally, couldn't care less for 360's brand of hardcore games. Give me games that challenge, intellectually and artistically. More games like Rez, please MS.

I suppose the rest of the reviewing sites/magazine aren't just being harsh; I guess it's pretty true about Haze.

I was watching the first clip in the review and not all the dialogue seemed poor; some of it felt right in whatever context of a story has been revealed to date. Of course playing and reading could lead to two completely different branches of opinion, I'll give it that.

No one could possibly be using this shite game to prove something about PS3, right? I mean, compare the jungles in this game to Uncharted...

But yea, FRD really screwed this one up bad. Seems like it was a mess for a long time and they spent the past 5 months or so just trying to hammer it into some sort of shape they could release it in. I hope this is more of a small Second Sight style bump in the road rather than a gigantic disaster that shows they're not fit to code on current gen platforms - I mean, the engine for Haze is home grown and from everything I have read it needs to be taken out back and shot.

It's also kind of discouraging that FRD seems to stumble when they try to do anything more than goofy TimeSplitters games. Seem to be lacking the talent to take on more serious fare and Haze is nothing if not proof of that.

They should have stuck with the monkeys...

"Wow. Just, Wow. Maybe 2009 is the year of the PS3?"

Wow. Just, Wow. Do you need a poor review from a game few had high expectations of for something that should be obvious to all?! From 2007 till 2010/2011 it was/will be the years of the Wii...

Haze 2 will be better.

Playing Haze right now, the game is 6/10 material, nothing like what this reviewer is claiming.
The tone of the review is so mean spirited and hyperbolic that I took issue with a couple things:
Reed seems to have a problem "pushing buttons" to trigger scripted events; you musn't like the COD series, then, because Infinity Ward has been doing this (COD2 Russian Campaign is terrible for that) for years.

Revitalizing comrades with a button isn't anything to complain about; Gears of War did the same.

Braindead AI? I'm not understanding this complaint. Haze doesn't have 'good AI' but it certainly isn't of the heavily scripted HL2/COD4 variety. AI dives away from moving vehicles, sticks to cover and when exposed, becomes a moving target.
But then, Reed also claimed that the Chimera in Resistance had 'poor' AI, so it's clear he doesn't what he's talking about.

I would ignore this review and the other irresponsible, reactionary 4/10 scores across the net. I'm not sure if this is post COD4 syndrome or reviewers trying to prove that they can be tough after the GTA IV 10/10 hilarity, but Haze is 5-7/10 material.

This review stinks of a pissed off critic who wants to punish a game for not living up to its hype.

"This review stinks of a pissed off critic who wants to punish a game for not living up to its hype."

You often see that when reviewers have an uncomfortable feeling after fully buying the hype for a game released shortly before... They feel the need for establishing credibility by showing that they can be harsh.

"Playing Haze right now, the game is 6/10 material, nothing like what this reviewer is claiming."

I love how people are bandying around a score of 6/10 like this makes it worth playing. I have better things to do with my time than play sub-standard games but then I own more than one console...

The 6/10 comments aren't meant to advertise the game, they are meant to counter the notion that the game is a god-awful abortion. You know what a 4/10 game is? Two Worlds..an utterly hideous, horribly performing piece of garbage that doesn't even run at 20 fps. That's 4/10 material. I don't think playable, mildly enjoyable (but ultimately average) games should get anything below passable scores. There needs to be some level of consistency here.

Bummer..!

I think a fair few people are missing the point of a 4/10 score...given the fact that 5 (being the halfway point on a scale of 10) is average, and given also the fact that Haze would appear to be a below-average product (I use 'appear' as a quantifier simply because I haven't played it myself), then 4 out of 10 would translate to 'this game is below average'. QED.

This all depends, however, on your definition of an average score...hell, I used to write for C+VG at the start of the 90's, and their idea of an average score then was 70%...

AHAHAHAHA!

Nice to see the fanboys are out and about.

"B-But, its really a 6/10 so its still good really!"

I laugh in your deluded faces and get back to playing a large selection of top notch games on my Xbox.

Seriously, LBP, & MGS. That is literally all you have and they arent even out yet. You can say what you like about Blu-Ray, Processing power, sales figures etc. The thing that matters is games.

PS3 has only a handful of decent games. Xbox has buckets of top rated games. Thats all there is to it. Everything else is irrelevant.

I think this needs a bollocks score as a wake up to ALL to STOP MAKING BOLLOCKS FPS games.

Sony's big problem right now, is that, based on the libray of titles, they are trading on the brand and nothing else.

Now, thats great short term, but long term, thats a very dangerous proposition, becuase if you cock it up, you'll never get that brand loyalty back.

As others have said, Sony have not created the killer library of titles they need, in order to

a) Convince more people, like me, who have an xbox to purchase a ps3 as well
b) much more dangerous, convince developers that is WORTH their time coping with the learning curve on the equipment.

Clearly, FRD has struggled with the ps3 dev kit. No one WANTS to put out a bad game, and i'm damn sure they tried their best, but if this is the best they could do on the PS3, what does that say about it?

i also feel that LBP is not the killer app everyone thinks it is

sure, people might buy it, but do you really see your self creating masterpieces?

I've seen this before on construction kits for rpgs, sounds great, you get into it, but after two or three attempts, you just give up

its a technical exercise nothing more

Thats unfair, especially if you look at the joy others have had on the PS3 with exclusive titles. Also big question mark that Bethseda, they of the "we don't need to patch game breaking bugs" Oblivion, actually show that you can port and port well.

What it does show is FRD have done a shit job. Complete mystery as to why, and the only people who can shed light on that is themselves intenally. No chance of that though because that would be like shooting their rep into complete flames for future titles on any syste.

Well no, the thing about LBP is that you don't HAVE to sit about creating stuff. You get the 50 levels that come with the game, but then you'll get the chance to take advantage of the genius of others around you. Oblivion has the construction kit, no way would I dig into that, but some of the stuff I've seen people do to Obv (and Morrowind too) is amazing. The time and talent is something you can take advantage of. Thats the selling point that is being focussed on.

@Redeye:
http://www.eurogamer.net/scoring_policy....

Four - getting into the realms of poor

When you see a four out of ten anywhere you know the reviewer's had a fairly miserable experience and is issuing caution to potential punters to stay away from it. Somewhere there will be some semblance of playability, but it's the kind of game you wouldn't even really want to suggest renting most of the time. At best you should maybe borrow from a friend or have a look in-store (or download the demo if it's a PC game, naturally) if you're really curious and want a second opinion. There are maybe some redeeming features in there; maybe it's technically acceptable in certain areas with some decent graphics, but completely ruined by broken gameplay that's possibly full of bugs, a terrible control system and all manner of collected irritants like bad camera system, offensively bad script and voiceovers, rotten level design, and probably stupid AI quirks or balancing that's too easy or too hard. But games that have scored this badly and suffer from these exact issues often sell very well indeed, so there's no accounting for taste. If you don't like wasting money, then stay the hell away from a four. There are so many better games you could be looking at.

"offensively bad script and voiceovers"

:D

"Sony's big problem right now, is that, based on the libray of titles, they are trading on the brand and nothing else."

Guess the PS3 library is not for you but there's plenty to play (though less of course than on 360 though with that console's bias towards shooters it will not satisfy all people). Sony's big problem isn't the 360 (that's quickly becoming irrelevant when it comes to taking away future sales of the PS3) it's the Wii. The machine is so successful that this is bound to be reflected in the future games library for PS3: more (and better quality) development resources will (and probably are alread) shifted towards Wii, which will negatively impact PS3's library.

"This all depends, however, on your definition of an average score...hell, I used to write for C+VG at the start of the 90's, and their idea of an average score then was 70%..."

Mine still is... I'd hardly want to play something I could rate less than 7, it's 8 upwards (unless were talking about a particular license that I'm personally interested in)... and this is another crap game on PS3. If I had a half idea of buying the system, at this rate I really couldn't be arsed...

@Les

I think you are wrong. The Wii is something entirely different. The 360 and PS3 have much more in common, and the 360 has the edge. I think the console war is between Sony and MS.
I dont know who wins but i certainly know who should.

The 360 has 2 current games and 1 upcoming game that I would like to play, I quite like the jRPG presence on the machine. It the succeeding console bunged bluray, wireless, quiet fans (and this comes from someone who finds the PS3 obtrusive), plus a bit more of a sophisticated front end, could be very tempting... even without my staple faves of MGS and Final Fantasy on board. Because I've owned all the brands in the past, I'm not really bothered by the "loyalty" tag, but for this current gen there is no way I'd swap my little shiny black box.

For what its worth, I think the shooter market deserves the knockings its getting, and needs this to continue. Killzone 2 is shaping to look and sound gloriously beautiful, but I'm reading previews saying that underneath it is yet another standard FPS to add to the market.

Les is right.

"with that console's bias towards shooters"

Yet the 360 has a far wider range of games than the PS3. RPG's, racers, RTS's, puzzle games, party games, platformers, even quirky games like Katamari.

Not wishing to fan the flames but just wanted to point out that misconception.

I think there are too many shooters on BOTH consoles. Or should I say, shooters without merit.