Haze

[miffy495]

Demo's out. Anyone else give it a shot yet? Didn't really seem like anything that special to me, but Free Radical won me over time and again with the Timesplitters games, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Still, this one seems very standard from what I can see. Not bad, just standard. Thoughts?

[Cigol]

My thoughts exactly! It was like getting slapped in the face with it's ordinariness. Considering the hype building up to its release you have to question the existence of such an average, by-the-numbers demo. Crazy.

The controls don't have that elasticity that Goldeneye 64 (etc) had either, which is disappointing, it feels more like a good PC port of a poor PC fps which isn't the kind of feeling you want to convey.

[DanJW]

From following the development of Haze, I get the feeling that it plays a long game - the gameplay changes along with the story. A snapshot of one place probably won't do it justice.

[twmac]

Or... It's hyped up to the eyeballs and actually very plain.

Does it at least look sweet? Is the Co-op fun? If the Co-op is good then it won't really matter how run of the mill it is a good bit of Co-op = Win.

[JoeX111]

It reminds me a lot of Resistance in its meh -ness. There's nothing outwardly wrong with it, it's quite pretty, but it's also not very inspiring, either.

[DanJW]

Or... It's hyped up to the eyeballs and actually very plain.

That is a real possibility. Since they've gone PS3 exclusive though, it won't matter to me all that much. It would be a bit of a shame, since their trailers were nicely done.

[Cigol]

It got a 4.5 on IGN which is obviously very bad by their standards. I can't be bothered reading their justification as the game doesn't interest me.

[Giebelhouse]

I've played finished code and can confirm that it's frighteningly generic all the way through. And I was giving it the benefit of the doubt. Hell, I was giving it the benefit of ten doubts, with big rose-tinted specs on.

I think by pandering to the gurgling mainstream with space marines and characterless 'realistic' environments, Free Rad have lost sight of what made TimeSplitters so good in the first place - i.e. interesting, stylized characters and imaginative level design.

Plus there's a level in an iron smelt. AN IRON SMELT. It made me yawn so hard my jaw slid down the back of my throat.

[DanJW]

From the Gamasutra interview, it seems to me that they just pussied out. The stereotypical story of an interesting game being neutered by the fears of investors.

[JoeX111]

Eurogamer thrashed it.

[Thrik]

Yeah, looks like the shit is hitting the fan, review-wise. Seems to be getting universally slated, and MetaCritic tells a fairly telling story:

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/haze?q=haze

Like or hate scores, not even a single green and an assortment of reds isn't good.