Haze Preview

By Tom Bramwell Published 5 June, 2007

Gunning for clarity.

We've overdosed on games before, but we don't usually overdose in games. And clearly for good reason: mainline a bit too much of Mantel Corporation's soldier-buffing war juice, Nectar, and you can't tell friend from foe, and everyone who crosses your sights eats lead whatever buttons you're pressing. Fortunately you go bright red, so people can pick you out. "Five seconds ago he was their best friend," says Free Radical Design's Rob Yescombe, chatting along to a four-man demo of upcoming FPS Haze during UbiDays. "But suddenly he's their worst enemy." There'll be tactical issues to consider in these situations: do you kill your squad-mate? Rob Yescombe looks like he'd kill his squad mate.

He's also the man who penned the script Haze is built around - "built around" being the operative phrase. Most games simply thrust you into scenarios; Haze wants to be about a story within that scenario. "All the other things are just like a bigger backdrop to it," head honcho David Doak will tell us later. So, first, the scenario. You are Shane Carpenter. You work for Mantel Corporation. "Mantel are a huge, multinational corporation with fingers in just about everything you can imagine - the rubber in your shoes, the ink in that pen, the gel in your hair. They're involved in it all," says Yescombe. "Of course they have their private military company that goes in because there's no more UN, no more NATO; these guys take care of business." As Carpenter, you're thrust into a three-day campaign in South America. So that's the set-up, but what's the story?

"Thematically Haze is very much related to propaganda and how we view the same event from different perspectives," Yescombe explains. "In war, there may be two sides, but there isn't one side going in thinking, 'we're the bad guys'. Everyone thinks they're the good guys." So it's about the ambiguity of your situation. "We're not doing a John Wayne war movie; we're trying to do Apocalypse Now. It's not a war-game; it's a game about war." Ambiguity indeed.

'Haze' Screenshot 1

The Haze engine is a proprietary affair, and it throws around detail like a second-phase next-gen title probably should.

We ask Doak what sort of techniques FRD will use to elicit emotional reactions that go beyond the typical videogame range, as we've been told is their aim. "We do a lot of the kind of denial-and-confrontation thing where you see characters and you have a relationship with them and that relationship changes because they do unpredictable things, or they do things that make you feel uncomfortable about being associated with them," he explains. "It's a big challenge, and certainly more of a challenge than I thought it was going to be, doing those things in the context of a war-game. Because, you know, who's the murderer in the warzone? It's a hard thing to do, particularly in videogames where life is incredibly cheap. It's an interesting thing to try to actually address the emotions of being a soldier in an environment which is by its very nature sanitised. I think we're going to make some good steps in that direction, and I don't see anyone else trying to do it."

Other things they've done to keep you in the game include a Half-Life-esque determination not to exit the first-person perspective. "Every time you show them a loading screen or a menu, you're pulling them out of the experience and reminding them they're playing a game," designer Derek Littlewood points out. As it happens, there's another good reason that Haze wants to preserve its illusion: it has other ideas about how to use the principles of a videogame. We really get an appreciation of this when "Nectar goes wrong". That helmet you see in the shots - the all-over yellow bumblebee hockey affair - is not just protecting you from the elements, Gordon Freeman-style, but it's actually filtering the world to some extent. During one scene in the UbiDays trailer, Mantel bombs out a village, and when you arrive, the charred bodies quickly disappear. The following day in our gameplay session, the Nectar helmet malfunctions. All of sudden there's pain, and screaming, and suffering. "And the bodies don't fade away; they stay there," says Yescombe. In other words, the Diet Marine world of the Haze helmet is shielding you to Mantel's own operational advantage. The helmet comes back on. "Now you're back in the same videogame world where bodies fade away and there's no blood."

'Haze' Screenshot 2

The Nectar "Focus" ability gives you the edge in low-visibility environments.

So we can expect Haze to look closely at the issues of morals, of how soldiers behave in warfare. This being Free Radical Design, though, we can also expect a rollicking good FPS to come out the other end, however weepy it leaves us. And there are some neat gameplay innovations flooding out of the Mantel silos too. Nectar's inherent usefulness to Mantel may seem to be laid bare (although we suspect there's more to it), and its inherent strength is the way it allows you to dish out and absorb more damage while in-use. But you can also derive various combat advantages from that handy backpack dispenser. "Perception" allows you to see enemies even through the dense jungle. "Foresight" gives you a "sixth sense" style warning pulse when a grenade's about to go off, or if somebody's about to melee-attack you from behind. "Focus" allows you to zero in on a target and dispatch them with a perfect shot, by tugging the auto-aim a little further into a target. There'll doubtless be other benefits, and over time Nectar regenerates. You can also "leech" it from your team-mates.

Their role in your four-man squad is also a point of interest. Last year, at E3, Doak and Yescombe were promoting the AI heavily, but Doak tells us that things have changed somewhat. "We're not taking it as obsessively far as we were going to. A lot of effort has gone back into concentrating on the Nectar system and things," he admits.

"That said, you're often dealing with four-on-four or four-on-six kind of firefights, and I think the AI gives a very, very good account of itself." Vehicles, which you'll take control of in various places, allow you to team up with a gunner on the back. Foresight helps you pick out mines on the road ahead, the vehicles will accumulate damage, visually, as bullets riddle them and bits fly off. And, to get back to the AI, the bastards can drive. "The driving AI is something that's gone in very recently and you really don't want to be trying to run around on foot when they're driving, because they're sliding the vehicles into you and stuff like that," Doak says. He hopes the vehicles will come across as a natural part of the game.

That's also true of the co-operative modes, where it seems every effort's being made to obfuscate all the backroom calculations. It's "drop-in", which in this case means that up to three of your friends can join your single-player game at any point, and you theirs, and that the overall group can be composed of split-screen, LAN or Internet hook-ups, and indeed any combination. Xbox Live's already shown us, to some extent, how this can be done with games like GRAW and Gears of War. That smooth experience is Doak's hope for PS3, too, which he says is "working really well" for them online. "The four-player co-op is a thing that we really wanted to do from the start. The whole structure of the squad in the game - they've always been there as seats for playing co-op," he adds.

'Haze' Screenshot 3

The quarry level gives us a glimpse of vehicles in action.

In the scenarios we see - a running jungle battle, striding through a bombed-out village, fighting through a quarry in a pair of co-op-controlled cars, and gunning through a gun-metal grey factory - there's an inevitably heavy emphasis on combat, but it won't be relentless, despite the lack of loading screens. "The pacing is punctuated by things like dropship pick-ups and stuff that take you somewhere else, and then there are talky bits, so that's where we do a lot of the plot development and the character development," Doak says. What's more, the gameplay itself should be as varied as the 12 different but narratively coherent locations the game explores. "What you're doing is not always just going gung-ho, smashing some rebels in the jungle. There are times when you are being pressed by overwhelming numbers, there are times when you have a distinct thing like some escort stuff to do; there are even times when you don't have a gun."

Often when we finish an FPS, most recently Half-Life 2: Episode One (again), the desire is to immediately dig further into events. With Haze' emphasis on story, perhaps that'll be the case here. But replaying the game immediately isn't always the most appealing option when the credits are rolling. Fortunately Haze will let you continue the fight, in some sense. Talking about multiplayer, Yescombe confirms the "24-player" figure for online, and drops more hints. "I can tell you this - we don't just have deathmatch and all the traditional modes. We do have those, but as well as that, the multiplayer missions are narrative-led, objective-based missions. So they will affect your understanding of things that are happening in the single-player. The two are related to each other."

'Haze' Screenshot 4

FRD believes drop-in co-op will be a big draw - throughout the 15-hour campaign.

As is development on multiple platforms (I know, I know - what a practised segue). That "leading on PS3" business is mainly a business thing, according to Doak, although while Free Radical's main belief is that a PS3 focus is good for energising those consumers, that's not to say they don't like the hardware. On the contrary, "the machine's a very capable machine" according to Doak, "and I think we're - in terms of development - pretty well placed to take advantage of it, because we've got the history on PlayStation 2, so we're not frightened by the things causing people a bit of alarm." Judging by the Haze demo, they're not worried about deviating heavily from fun-loving TimeSplitters, either. Indeed, we expect Haze's grittier approach to march up your most-wanted lists as Free Radical better articulates the game in the months ahead.

Haze is due out this year on PlayStation 3. Other versions are in development.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (69) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • #1 5 years ago

    nekotcha!

  • onyxbox #2 5 years ago

    @Tom

    What did you mean by: "Judging by the Haze demo, they're not worried about deviating heavily from fun-loving TimeSplitters, either."

  • #3 5 years ago

    Completely different style innit.

  • JediMasterMalik #4 5 years ago

    I hope they can pull off the idea well, it sounds interesting.

  • LeD #5 5 years ago

    Sounds like quite an interesting take on the FPS genre. I'm intrigued.

  • lambtron #6 5 years ago

    The more I read about this the less interested I become. Hope I'm proven wrong.

  • captainrentboy #7 5 years ago

    I saw this on a preview on Gamer.Tv last night, it looked alright graphically but the framerate seems to be diabolical at the moment, and gameplay wise it didn't seem that original. Just reminded me of Farcry basically.
    I'm more intigued by that upcoming Lucasarts shooter, I think it's on this month's Edge cover, Fracture is it?..Anyway that looked like it was going for something really different in the shooter genre.

  • JediMasterMalik #8 5 years ago

    Why do some people look at every jungle shooter and say it's like far cry?

    setting =/= gameplay

  • Killerbee #9 5 years ago

    The more I read about this the less interested I become.

    Eh? The Nectar idea sounds very interesting - as long as it's done right and doesn't get too confusing / difficult to use in the heat of a battle, I can see it being the one thing that sets Haze apart from the million other FPS games out there. And in such a saturated genre, they need to have something special.

    I'm looking forward to this more the more I hear about it.

  • souljacker2000 #10 5 years ago

    I want to take this to bed n rub my manhood all over it

  • SomaticSense #11 5 years ago

    Does that pic of the eye remind anyone else of Far Cry?

    edit: In fact after reading the article, a hell of a lot of it reminded me of Far Cry.....
    Edited by 1 at 05/06/07 @ 14:54

  • Triggerhappytel #12 5 years ago

    I thought the protagonist's name was Jake Carpenter?

  • infoxicated #13 5 years ago

    The stuff on GamerTV last night was pretty cool (aside from the frame rate drops). I really liked the way that when you're charged with Nectar you're just a killing machine oblivious to any consequence, but when it wears off you can see the bloodshed.

    I also thought it was cool that the world looked a more clinical place on Nectar, and bleak and dark without it. It was eerie. I like that.

    // still hopes and prays it wont say "FIRST KILL INFOXICATED" right in the middle of the goddamn screen during arcade mode, thus fucking up my view of the world.

  • Machiavel #14 5 years ago

    They should rename this: "When bumblebees attack!"

  • azwipe #15 5 years ago

    nothing more suited to jungle warfare than a BRIGHT YELLOW helmet

  • hulahoops #16 5 years ago

    I think they're more worried about their lead character blending in to the combat fatigue saturated landscape than the jungle, to be honest. :)

  • TripSkyway #17 5 years ago

    Sounds ace.

  • slickster #18 5 years ago

    I can't wait to play this game it look's mint.( cool and refreshing )

  • SteveB #19 5 years ago

    Is it just me or does anyone else think Free radical are massively overated ? I thought the Timesplitter games (single player) were terrible.

  • SBfistfun #20 5 years ago

    Time to sound the Bs klaxon:

    "So we can expect Haze to look closely at the issues of morals, of how soldiers behave in warfare "

    nope it's a game, point the crosshair, press fire

    "promoting the AI heavily, but Doak tells us that things have changed somewhat. "We're not taking it as obsessively far as we were going to. A lot of effort has gone back into concentrating on the Nectar system and things," he admits."

    Oh dear.....Not even trying to over hype the AI....

  • Schiraman #21 5 years ago

    Sounds like they have some interesting ideas at least, especially the idea of your helmet and Nectar affecting the way you see the world.

    Not so sure about the activatable Nectar powers though, 'focus' and 'foresight' and whatnot, they sound a bit fiddly and annoying to me.

  • Empedocles #22 5 years ago

    Sounds like the lead designer has been reading Forever War by Joe Haldemen ( I think), the military have suits and drugs which allow them to commit atrocities without really knowing in that.

  • T.G. #23 5 years ago

    So, this is definitely coming out on the 360 then. Hurrah! :D

  • MGG #24 5 years ago

    Sounds more like the US army in Iraq, tbh.

  • Xerx3s #25 5 years ago

    So, this is definitely coming out on the 360 then. Hurrah! :D

    That was never in doubt, was it? People just question the sudden 5to12 180 that will have to make them wait.

  • disussedgenius #26 5 years ago

    "nope it's a game, point the crosshair, press fire"

    A crosshair?!? In a FRD game?!?

    Talk about dumbing down...

  • xandoodle #27 5 years ago

    Monkey assist, plz?

  • w00t #28 5 years ago

    Sounds very good - especially the 4 playerness and the sanity filter thingie on the helmets. I wonder if that extends to 4 player co-op...

  • SomaticSense #29 5 years ago

    @Schiraman

    "Sounds like they have some interesting ideas at least, especially the idea of your helmet and Nectar affecting the way you see the world.

    Not so sure about the activatable Nectar powers though, 'focus' and 'foresight' and whatnot, they sound a bit fiddly and annoying to me.    "

    I agree. They seem to be massively bigging the game up as massively original. But while the helmet changing how you see the world undeniably being a unique and great idea, the stuff involving the Nectar powers (or is that points?), especially the enhanced vision which turns the enemies bright orange, and also screenies involving the jungle setting, all scream 'Far Cry Instincts rip-off'.

    Overall the game looks good, but nothing anywhere near groundbreaking. The screenies all look like derivative shooter pap, and all the PR talk sounds like the usual PR bullshit spouted before games turn out to be average releases. I hope it's absolute quality and that my doubts will be proven wrong, but I've got a strong gut feeling about this one....
    Edited by 1 at 05/06/07 @ 16:14

  • Xerx3s #30 5 years ago

    is gingerbread man in it

    What do you think the main ingredient in the nectar is? >:)

  • morriss #31 5 years ago

    Hazelol!!

    \o/

  • Rirekon #32 5 years ago

    Interesting, very interesting

  • agparrot #33 5 years ago

    We do a lot of the kind of denial-and-confrontation thing where you see characters and you have a relationship with them and that relationship changes because they do unpredictable things, or they do things that make you feel uncomfortable about being associated with them

    - and this is the tricksy bit, isn't it... because when I'm playing a game, I like to egg on any AI-controlled pardners to ever increasing levels of violence and atrocity.... whilst immersion is all well and good, game-agparrot is not the same as realworld-agparrot...

    Game-agparrot likes to stalk the streets of San Andreas with a chainsaw, and he shouts at McCarver and that other useless black-ops muppet in BLACK to shoot more enemy terrorist goons, and bemoans the lack of blood caused by sanitised-game-interface. When game-agparrot's friends are taken hostage in some contrived game storyline, he is indifferent about whether they are killed or tortured, so long as nobody takes his gun/sword/magic powers away.

    Whilst I find the idea of trying to address this involvement within a game interesting, if I want the reality of war and human misery, I'll watch the news, ta.

  • MakyoDetector #34 5 years ago

    Anti-war FPS? I'm impressed.

  • afghan_jones #35 5 years ago

    "Game-agparrot likes to stalk the streets of San Andreas with a chainsaw, and he shouts at McCarver and that other useless black-ops muppet in BLACK to shoot more enemy terrorist goons, and bemoans the lack of blood caused by sanitised-game-interface. When game-agparrot's friends are taken hostage in some contrived game storyline, he is indifferent about whether they are killed or tortured, so long as nobody takes his gun/sword/magic powers away. "

    Exactly.

    It would be lovely to become deeply involved in a wargame and actually care about team mates and NPCs and feel bad when you shoot someone.

    But in reality, my first reaction when greeted with an NPC/team mate is to see if I can attack or kill them. I played the demo of splinter cell double agent yesterday. I was infiltrating a village in the congo, there were cowering civilians and terrorists all over the place. I was meant to be protecting the civilians and dropping the terrorists. Within 2 minutes I had sneaked up on a peasant woman who was crying in the corner. Then I kneed her square in the crotch and laughed mercilessly. The fact remains, gamers are cunts, and they play games so they can be violent and feel all big and clever without fear of incarceration as a result.

  • Lukus #36 5 years ago

    As long as the fundamental running/shooting/lobbing/bumming/AI gameplay mechanics are fun, this should be really good.

  • Hugundo #37 5 years ago

    "Shane Carpenter"

    Pah

  • Kiigan #38 5 years ago

    I love some of art direction with Haze. It doesn't look like it is UK-developed. I mean that as a compliment :-)

  • WillTheSecond #39 5 years ago

    Looking better all the time, and this is coming from someone who was excited when they saw the original trailer back at E3 06.

    24-player online? As long as this is for Xbox 360 too that's great (not buying a PS3 at that price, not even for this game)!

    Sure, it's not groundbreaking in terms of gameplay, but this isn't a Wii game, so who cares? Narratively it should provide a whole new take, however, which I think is important for games as a whole.

  • Introspectre #40 5 years ago

    i thought the e3 trailer was very strong. looking at a more recent trailer, it appears that they've decided to use live action for the intro?

    i hope that isn't the case. i hate that shit.

  • SomaticSense #41 5 years ago

    "I love some of art direction with Haze. It doesn't look like it is UK-developed. I mean that as a compliment :-) "

    How the hell is that a compliment? Are you actually proud that it is yet another British game that shows absolutely no British personality at all?

    Japanese games have a distinct Japanese flavour. American games have a distinct American flavour. British games have a distinct American flavour. Notice where the pattern gets all fucked up?

    It even seems that you're suggesting that this is one of the only British games where you can't tell it is actually British.
    I'd like to find these games you are playing, because to be perfectly honest, in the last 15 years or so only Colin McRae Rally games have had any hint at a British development studio having made it, and even that series has now been Americanised.

    Although I am trying to avoid the suggestion that you are maybe implying that it actually looks good, and that British games are usually crap. But then I know for a fact you'd be talking absolute shit if that were the case, and so that can't be true.
    Edited by 2 at 05/06/07 @ 21:03

  • Introspectre #42 5 years ago

    i hear you. remember when burnout had charm? remember when it lost its charm?

    :(

  • Kiigan #43 5 years ago

    "How the hell is that a compliment? Are you actually proud that it is yet another British game that shows absolutely no British personality at all?"

    It's a compliment because most British developed titles have piss-poor art direction, and look rather amateurish as a result. I'd include the Timesplitters series in that actually - the last one looked fucking terrible.

    And while I certainly agree that it'd be wonderful if there was one whiff of non-American non-Japanese culture present in videogames developed around the world, that's another issue for another day. At the very least, Haze has its own identity and a unique look and that is to be welcomed. British developers need to strive for competent, professional-looking original games that can compete in the global market, first and foremost.

    I think you're being rather unkind to Haze - it's an original title developed in Britain and it looks really very good. It is clearly designed for a global audience, but it doesn't appear to be appallingly Americanised as far as I can see.
    Edited by 1 at 05/06/07 @ 22:27

  • kangarootoo #44 5 years ago

    @afghan_jones

    "The fact remains, gamers are cunts"

    Huge generalisation.

    Not everyone plays games the same way you know. Just because you act in ways contrary to how you would in real life doesn't mean everyone would. In that respect, maybe you simply aren't the target audience for a game that tries to disturb you by hacing your associates commit atrocities? Doesn't mean the audience doesn't exist.

    Now I'm not saying I always play games exactly the way I conduct my myself in real life. Killing loners and stealing their kit is commonplace in Stalker, for example. But often as not I am able feel compassion for npcs in certain situations, or a sense of injustice when the underdog is bullied or otherwise harmed (the bullied kid at the start of Fable is an example I often use).

    The example you used of your behaviour when playing Splinter Cell does not represent every gamers out there, and I'm sure you must know that.

  • SomaticSense #45 5 years ago

    Not played many British developed games have you? There are more British developed game out there than Codies' stuff and GTA......

  • TheUnionFrag #46 5 years ago

    Wow. This game just rocketed to the top of my rader. The teaser was a bit bland - but these screens and the concept sound intriguing.

    Good luck FRD - you're one of the best British studios out there.

  • Kiigan #47 5 years ago

    SomaticSense - can you name a single (recent, popular, original) British-owned British-developed game with strong art direction? If you can, it is the exception rather than the rule. Although I agree with you on the cultural issue - it would be wonderful to chip away at that all-pervasive American cultural hegemony in videogames - at the same time I find that often you can still spot an original British developed title by virtue of the fact that they're frequently so shoddy. They may speak with an American accent, but the rest is that special brand of endearingly wonky rough-around-the-edges Rover-Amstrad-C5 British quality.

    Britain once had a games industry that was uniquely its own, and it was a world leader. That is not the case today and Britain may lack truly "inspirational" developers, but FRD appear to be doing some very interesting things with Haze, and they've popped right back onto a lot of gamers' radar. I haven't seen anything that suggests it has been appallingly Americanised - indeed its treatment of the subject of warfare seems radically different from the way a US developer might handle it. Haze has an interesting premise, fantastic art direction and a lot going for it. I'm just looking forward to playing it.

  • DrunKao #48 5 years ago

    What FPSs are you buying this year disc? I'm not too interested in Haze to be honest. I'm really looking forward to The Darkness and Halo 3 and Bioshock. Those are my 3 FPSs. I just saw some ingame footage of The Darkness that has me so excited. Go to gametrailers.com and see for yourself.

  • eurocloak #49 5 years ago

    Another day another Haze article?


    My lawd....

  • NegativeZero #50 5 years ago

    I'm quite happy that they're deviating from Timesplitters. I absolutely hated the way those games played.

  • Scimarad #51 5 years ago

    "But in reality, my first reaction when greeted with an NPC/team mate is to see if I can attack or kill them. I played the demo of splinter cell double agent yesterday. I was infiltrating a village in the congo, there were cowering civilians and terrorists all over the place. I was meant to be protecting the civilians and dropping the terrorists. Within 2 minutes I had sneaked up on a peasant woman who was crying in the corner. Then I kneed her square in the crotch and laughed mercilessly. The fact remains, gamers are cunts, and they play games so they can be violent and feel all big and clever without fear of incarceration as a result."

    ----

    Speak for yourself, mate! No offence but I don't really know why anyone would do what you suggest even if it isn't real. What could possibly be the appeal of beating the crap out of innocent people? I can see the appeal of taking your frustration out on someone antagonistic but the need to be the thug yourself is a bit incomprehensible to me and thankfully so.

    I think that says more about your mental and emotional state than it does about gamers in general.

    On another note; If the helmets filter out things they don't want the soldiers to see wouldn't they be forever tripping over dead bodies they can't see and being assaulted by grieving civilians they're unaware of?
    Edited by 3 at 06/06/07 @ 08:27

  • dirigiblebill #52 5 years ago

    @afghan_jones

    "The fact remains, gamers are cunts"

    Huge generalisation.

    Not everyone plays games the same way you know. Just because you act in ways contrary to how you would in real life doesn't mean everyone would. In that respect, maybe you simply aren't the target audience for a game that tries to disturb you by hacing your associates commit atrocities? Doesn't mean the audience doesn't exist.

    In general I agree with you, but in afghan/ag-parrot's defence, the examples they gave were of the run-and-gun variety and arguably most gamers do take a rather desensitised approach to such games, simply because they aren't encouraged to think otherwise (herein lies the challenge, FRD). Fable is another kettle of fish, as it is built around a very visible framework of moral choices with lasting gameplay ramifications.

  • IAmBatman #53 5 years ago

    > can you name a single (recent, popular, original) British-owned
    > British-developed game with strong art direction?

    Anything by Introversion.

  • kangarootoo #54 5 years ago

    @dirigiblebill

    I'm not suggesting its a black and white issue. I just took exception to the suggestion that (in any kind of game) all gamers "are cunts" and will beat up on innocent NPCs.

    This is perhaps a larger issue and comes down to the ability of the game in question (whichever genre it is cast in) to represent NPCs in a way that generates sympathy in a player.

    Example. I have to escort an NPC in a game. They are a bit faceless, and due to poor pathfinding they bug the crap out of me by getting lost often. Result: if I could kill them and move on I probably would. Alternatively a game can present me with an NPC that doesn't annoy me, and I find I actually want to protect them (this can happen in an FPS, an RPG, etc).

    Now each player will make their own decisions, based in part in the ability of the game to generate empathy, and in part on their own opinions, motives and maturity. The idea that ALL gamers just want to hit in-game innocents and then laugh is plain nonsese. Now I reckon afghan/ag-parrot didn't really mean that, they were just making a point in a slightly heavy handed way. Its maybe just stating personal preference as global fact that I don't like (a general allergy of mine I think).

  • kangarootoo #55 5 years ago

    I'm not sure anything by Introversion would qualify as 'popular' in the grand scheme of things. Not saying that is a good thing at all, but I don't think their distinctive artstyle actually helps them sell product to the mass market.

  • agparrot #56 5 years ago

    In general I agree with you, but in afghan/ag-parrot's defence, the examples they gave were of the run-and-gun variety and arguably most gamers do take a rather desensitised approach to such games, simply because they aren't encouraged to think otherwise (herein lies the challenge, FRD). Fable is another kettle of fish, as it is built around a very visible framework of moral choices with lasting gameplay ramifications.

    Yes, don't get me wrong - I've played games that have made me shed a tear or two if they strike a resonant chord somewhere in my heart, or just come out of left-field with some tragic revelation... but dirigblebill has just clarified my point, I think... that the challenge with the perspective FRD are taking on Haze is to tackle this sort of entrenched desensitisation.

    I recently replayed Deus Ex, an example of a game design that didn't force you to take the 'good' or the 'bad' approach, nor did it really judge you on your actions... but it did have ramifications for how the game interacted with you further down the line... I went through it, on this occasion, without killing anyone (who wasn't genuinely evil), and I don't really class myself as a c***... but it is interesting to have the choice 'twixt good and bad paths.

    I'm genuinely looking forward to how they handle it in Haze... I think some of the time I play as evil-game-agparrot is to do with the way that NPC characters are portrayed. Some of them are just begging to be beaten!

    I know what kangarootoo is saying about not all gamers being sadistic psychopaths, and I think this is genuinely true in real life - as afghan_jones pointed out - but in games, moral choices don't tend to harm real people... otherwise nobody would, in all conscience, be able to even fire up Grand Theft Auto.

  • dirigiblebill #57 5 years ago

    This is perhaps a larger issue and comes down to the ability of the game in question (whichever genre it is cast in) to represent NPCs in a way that generates sympathy in a player.

    Absolutely, and I share your allergy to generalisations :)

    the challenge with the perspective FRD are taking on Haze is to tackle this sort of entrenched desensitisation.

    Yes, and unfortunately the derivative, hard-nosed sci-fi look and feel of the game so far speaks volumes against them.

  • agparrot #58 5 years ago

    Now each player will make their own decisions, based in part in the ability of the game to generate empathy, and in part on their own opinions, motives and maturity. The idea that ALL gamers just want to hit in-game innocents and then laugh is plain nonsese. Now I reckon afghan/ag-parrot didn't really mean that, they were just making a point in a slightly heavy handed way.

    Ya, Even David Doak makes reference to the difficulty of addressing these issues of empathy, involvement and desensitisation - it sounds to me like they are one of the building blocks of the storyline within the game... but that doesn't necessarily relate them to how people will play the game.

    This notion of empathy has to work on two levels, really - it has to emanate strongly enough from the context of the game to carry through to making me want to care about how I play it.

    "There'll be tactical issues to consider in this situation... do you kill your squad mate?" says Yescombe, and in doing so highlights, maybe, the paradox of tactics vs. morality in the combat situations they are trying to portray. That is all well and good, and in real life it might be a tough choice to make. However, in a game, if somebody on your team has just gone Schiz, I think the choice is much easier to make - sad as it might be, a swift bullet to the red helmet is the way to go.

    Now - reading between the lines, it sounds to me as if the game is designed so that when you are 'on the juice' in red-helmet mode, all your targets are presented as gun-toting enemies, so as far as you are concerned, shooting them is not a moral choice, because they are gun toting enemies who disappear into the ether once they are dead. Once the nectar runs out, however, perhaps then you discover some of them were pregnant mothers, nuns, children and pet hamsters.

    So you have been unwittingly made into a c*** by your perception of your targets. You might have thought that tasty headshot to a sniper just saved your squaddies butt, but in fact you've just drilled a .50 calibre hole through the head of a simpering villager.

    How this will work out in 4-player co-op I'm not sure. As players surely you could ensure that you always knew who were your team-mates in a co-op game by maintaining a relative position - I don't know, always standing in a straight line of four. You'd have to do some proper tinkering with the game mechanics for the player to think they were being attacked by human team mates.

    So an interesting challenge for them.

  • afghan_jones #59 5 years ago

    My point really is that is going to be incredibly hard to cause the desired empathy and emotional response in this sort of game.

    A few examples of the genre.

    1. Im playing a squad based game, maybe gears of war, my team mate runs into a hail of bullets and falls to the floor. Do I throw my pad to the ground, screaming 'Nooooo, Dom!' Of course not, I curse his worthless hide for being so rubbish and rev the chainsaw in his face when he gets up.

    2. I have to escort a weak NPC, possible a female, possibly injured, to a safe location. Am I watching their back, trying to reassure them that I will protect them with my very life? No. I am shouting at them to get out of my way so I can get through that effing door so I can push that flipping switch and rescue you, you dozy tart!

    3. I have to wait for a slwomoving NPC, possibly a security guard, to open a bunch of doors for me with a key that he refuses to give to me. I am a large man with several guns. He is old and walks slowly. I do not feel very grateful for his help and wish to protect him. I find him very frustrating and try to shoot or club him eveyr time he repeats one of his three set sound bites.

    It is really hard to get gamers to feel involved with NPCs, especially in this genre. If you get 100 people to watch schindlers list, 99% will have a similar emotional reaction. (the other 1% are heartless or possibly nazis) The responses are broadly similar as the audio visual stimulation is the same for each viewer. If you get 100 people to play an FPS with an emotional angle, you will get 100 different responses as each gamer will have done different things and their responses will depend on how they, as the central character have chosen to approach things.

    A lot of it is down to parameters. The start of a game generally will see players testing the boundaries of the game what can I shoot/not shoot, what happens if I shoot that NPC, can I break that door down etc, I think an emotional involvement in an FPS will be extremely hard to do.

    (Also, sorry if anyone felt very offended by rash generalisations but on the whole, gamers will always be bastards.)

  • agparrot #60 5 years ago

    lol

    or Haze-lenuts

  • agparrot #61 5 years ago

    oh, and I think we all agree, afghan, on the problems facing the scope outlined by the Haze developers

    and... it's nice of you to downgrade your generalisation from c***s to bastards!

  • afghan_jones #62 5 years ago

    "oh, and I think we all agree, afghan, on the problems facing the scope outlined by the Haze developers

    and... it's nice of you to downgrade your generalisation from c***s to bastards!"

    I wasnt including you in that. you are still a hardcore 'See You Next Tuesday'

    (In the nicest possible way, obviously.)

  • agparrot #63 5 years ago

    lol ;) ta.

    edit: forgot to say thanks
    Edited by 1 at 06/06/07 @ 12:51

  • ExplodingClown #64 5 years ago

    Kiigan - I must say, I do miss the 'British' feel that many games used to have, but they were around when the costs could be offset by success merely in the domestic market, before development budgets got so obscene that only devs with giant corporate backers could make decent product. German and French games used to have their own special feeling, especially French games - companies like Delphine and Silmarils just used to put out product with a certain twist about it.

    But you'll get richer selling burgers than haute cuisine....

    For the non-US feel, I've been most impressed by STALKER. Maybe because Ukrainians making a game set in the Ukraine brought it closer to home for them so they put more of their heart into it, but it didn't feel like Doom 26 1/2 for me. Pathologic is similarly good & different, but the English translation rivals the worst mangled products of cutting and pasting into Babelfish.

  • kangarootoo #65 5 years ago

    @agparrot

    The comment you started with "Ya, Even David Doak"... great post says I.

    The idea that you could be fooled into commiting atrocities (then having to decide how you felt about it when the truth is later revealed) is something that a game might be able to use to great effect (though I do suspect that once the player "saw how the trick was done" it would be hard to use it again).

    That reminds me of something I have already seen in a game, but I don't want to write a spoiler (and even if I gave a warning, naming the game would be enough to give the game away for some players). Nevermind.


    @afghan_jones

    I absolutely see what you are saying, and I used the similar example of poor NPC pathfinding as I didn't want to appear all one sided about this.

    However, I do think that in many ways poor NPC implementation has undermined the whole idea of a player feeling empathy for other characters in a game. When an NPC does something that bugs the crap out of you, not only are annoying in their own right, but they have also ruined the game's attempts to suspend your disbelief. You stop feeling empathy in part because their behaviour is no longer realistic.

    So, the point I am getting to is that just because lots of games implement NPCs badly, doesn't mean that the concept of player empathy is flawed in itself.

    @ExplodingClown

    I'm playing STALKER right now. And it struck me today that graphically its a bit old school (not that old, but you know what I mean). However, the atmosphere is creates is spot on. This is due to several things though I think. The Russian dialogue and accents help, but also the voice acting for the most part conveys a real sense of "just getting by, focussing on staying alive" kind of mentality. This is then matched by the whole "there is no sunny weather here, move along" visual style. A fantastic game with a few annoyances (which is often how I like 'em).
    Edited by 1 at 06/06/07 @ 16:04

  • agparrot #66 5 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    The idea that you could be fooled into commiting atrocities (then having to decide how you felt about it when the truth is later revealed) is something that a game might be able to use to great effect (though I do suspect that once the player "saw how the trick was done" it would be hard to use it again).

    Yes... the whole feeling of the information forthcoming about Haze has me feeling very Metal Gear Solid really - these broader 'moral' issues outside of the run-and-gun format, which have to be carefully balanced against the game(play) itself. I guess it is the 'reality-bending' storyline in MGS2 as an initial flavour, but the aftertaste of walking past the corpses of dead people you have killed in MGS3 also lingers.

    When an NPC does something that bugs the crap out of you, not only are annoying in their own right, but they have also ruined the game's attempts to suspend your disbelief. You stop feeling empathy in part because their behaviour is no longer realistic.

    ... and I'm just not sure how to square this against what Dr. Doak says about the AI and "not taking it as obsessively far as we were going to". - does this mean we are back into the sort of territory of sniping one of two enemies standing in a guard tower, and the second one obediently waiting to take a bullet because he can't see you?

    Is the 'truth' of the Haze combat only made plain to the player, and not the rest of the NPC squad, too? If so we risk that shattering of suspension-of-disbelief, because we would like to just tell our squadmates the truth... empathise with them, have them empathise with us.

    I guess all these things will become clear - it sounds ambitious, and I think that it should be applauded as an idea... despite my earlier quips about baseball-bat rampages, I think there is definitely room for thought provoking adult content in games.

  • zuljin #67 5 years ago

    @kangarootoo
    "When an NPC does something that bugs the crap out of you, not only are annoying in their own right, but they have also ruined the game's attempts to suspend your disbelief."

    Read an article once about how most people find horror films so unbelievable, and they were saying it was due to the fact you rarely agree with the actions of the main character. As soon as you stop believing/understanding why a character is doing something, thats when you "stop caring".

  • kangarootoo #68 5 years ago

    I guess its things like the "I'm so scared I can't run away" behaviour so often seen in horrors, or people tripping over tree roots and then taking ten minutes to stand up.

    Eventually you just thing "look, you aren't even trying, you're gonna get killed because you're an idiot".

    I saw 28 Weeks Later recently, as an example of how these things can be done. No one titted about in that, when danger came calling everyone ran like f*ck. And when people did get killed it was usually because there was simply nothing they could do to escape, so you felt empathy at the situation they found themselves in.

  • afghan_jones #69 5 years ago

    The worst bits in horror films are the bits where the teen victims walk into the abandoned fairground/spooky house/obviously murderous basement, saying 'hello' very loudly and generally writing 'stab me' in big letters on their heads.

  • agparrot #70 5 years ago

    @afghan
    The worst bits in horror films are the bits where the teen victims walk into the abandoned fairground/spooky house/obviously murderous basement, saying 'hello' very loudly and generally writing 'stab me' in big letters on their heads.

    lol. yeah.
    "You lot stay here, I'll go off into the dark and the mist on my own, without a torch or even a stick, and I'll meet up with you later"


    @kanagrootoo
    I saw 28 Weeks Later recently, as an example of how these things can be done. No one titted about in that, when danger came calling everyone ran like f*ck. And when people did get killed it was usually because there was simply nothing they could do to escape, so you felt empathy at the situation they found themselves in.

    *Puts 28 weeks later on 'to watch' list*

    When done badly, the whole thing is just something you can shout at when you are watching it in a horror film, or indeed you can turn it off or leave the cinema, but when it comes to games, you are also expected to be involved in it and interact with it. Sometimes, as evil-game-agparrot, it is just this frustration at the 'kill me' idiots that earns them a bat in the face/ bullet to the head/ knife to the jugular.

  • izak #71 5 years ago

    Woohoo! 4 player split screen co-op puts this right at the top of my 360 list!

    Lets hope Halo 3 follows suit and doesn't limit split-screen co-op to 2 player only. Or worse, limit all co-op to online only (here's looking at you Crackdown and Splintercell).