Haze

Name: Haze
Genre: First-Person-Shooter
Platform: PlayStation 3

When Free Radical first announced Haze I was fairly excited; although the developer has had few missteps in the past, the concepts behind the game sounded interesting and innovative. The developers, who ended up seeming completely insane, seemed to be putting their hearts and souls into the game, which was eventually confirmed to be a PlayStation 3 exclusive. Constant delays marred the game’s popularity and, over time, rumbles of trouble and problems with the game arose. When the demo finally arrived people were surprised at some of the problems, but wrote them off as possible demo issues. The final game has finally arrived after several years of development, and Free Radical stands to be judged for all of their promises.

The visuals are underwhelming at best, and awful at worst. Certain aspects, mainly foliage, stand out as being somewhat impressive, but any hint of quality is struck down by the other 99% of the game. Some trees may look good, but the game has graphical pops and texture glitches around every bend, leading to some of the most inconsistent and disappointing visuals this generation. Early screenshots of the title showed beautiful graphics, stunning textures and amazing looking environments, and the finished product has none of those. It appears that the developers overestimated their ability or the systems power, and instead of trying to better optimize the game they decided to blur everything as if it were smeared with Vaseline. Some textures will flicker with light when hit and others look like they are from Nintendo 64 games.

Read Full Review Coop Wed, 28 May 2008 03:30PM 3 Comments