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[industrian]

Nice title change. I expect a flood of Haze haters. That is, 90% of NeoGAF members.

 

[Rainy Dog]

That is never a good sign.

Agreed, and they can surely be only one reason for it. But...I'm amazed they're even allowed to do this. Surely Free Radical/Ubisoft had to pay or offer an incentive for sites to agree holding-off publishing anything? Dear me, the gaming press is a mess these days as it is.

 

[Brashnir]

That's a horrific crime against Resistance, which is a great game.

Not to mention COD4

 

[TheHeretic]

Its entertaining to see a game go down in flames every once and a while. Keeps us appreciating the actual efforts of better developers.

 

[pn18]

Nice title change. I expect a flood of Haze haters. That is, 90% of NeoGAF members.

Shouldn't anyone hate a 4.5 game?

 

[nofi]

Shouldn't anyone hate a 4.5 game?

We're about here:

 

[Doc Evils]

a review from the A.V. Club

Set in the not-too-far-off year of 2023, the first-person shooter Haze features an introspective soldier with the wholesome, church-going name of Shane Carpenter. While his squadmates, the Mantel Troopers, chug a performance-enhancing drug called Nectar and exchange bits of leatherneck wisdom like "If two guys are dying on the battlefield, but you can only save one, save the guy with the bigger gun," Shane shows off his bleeding heart by empathetically listening to the final words of a dying pilot.

About an hour or so into the game—minor spoiler ahead—Shane defects from his squad of sociopaths and takes up with the opposing Rebels, who come straight from central casting: They wear aviator sunglasses and bandanas, and speak with thick Spanish accents. Stripped of your armor and weaned off Nectar, your only advantage on the battlefield as a Rebel is to—brace yourself—play dead. Shoot your way through various clichéd indoor/outdoor environs, commandeer a vehicle or two, and do some of the requisite fussing over which weapons to keep and which to toss, and around 10 hours later, you'll watch the credits roll.

Beyond the game: Haze features a fairly sophisticated subtext, at least by videogame standards. It's a meditation on war, politics, propaganda, and even steroid culture. Pondering the various meanings of the game's title is, at times, more interesting than the game itself.

Worth playing for: Playing as a Rebel provides one of the game's more gratifying moments. Create a Nectar grenade, then lob it into a nest of Mantel Troopers. Any Troopers caught in the ensuing cloud of gas will turn on their own kind. Pull up a chair and let the rogue soldiers do the dirty work for you.

Frustration sets in when: The game resorts to the old FPS crutch known as Press This Button To Open The Door To Advance Further Into The Level. That design strategy has been out of fashion since the bygone days of DOOM.

Final judgment: More narratively cohesive than the Halo trilogy, but less inventive and compelling than Resistance: Fall Of Man, Haze does finally give us a self-aware portrait of videogame soldiers, and a foil for all the head-butting, "boo-yah" behavior that's been the norm for far too long in the medium. Too bad it's paired with one of the more pedestrian FPS games to come along in recent years.

A.V. Club Rating: C+

http://www.avclub.com/content/games/haze

 

[industrian]

Dear me, the gaming press is a mess these days as it is.

It's been in a mess for a long time.

 

[AgentOtaku]

Shouldn't anyone hate a 4.5 game?

people should....but to be fair, this is one damn review from IGN. Lets see what happens when the rest of the reviews hit

:lol :lol :lol

 

[Dever]

What the fuck happened with this game, seriously. Graphically it looked just as good if not better a year ago at Ubidays. It sounded so promising when it was first announced, too. I remember a shot of the player pointing a gun at a civilian who was obviously fearing for his life. Wonder if that's still there.

 

[sajj316]

Stolen from the other Haze thread but it's so good. :lol

That is the funniest thing .... ever!

Gentleman ... I am a very sad man this morning. I do take IGN's review seriously unlike other review sites. I did very much like the demo so its still a purchase decision for me. I'm going to wait for a few more reviews.

I guess after playing Killzone 2 and being wow'd, everything else is crap....

 

[GHG]

people should....but to be fair, this is one damn review from IGN. Lets see what happens when the rest of the reviews hit

:lol :lol :lol

:lol

Now get to work on what you're good at; timesplitters. Please don't fuck that series up for the love of god.

 

[Dever]

people should....but to be fair, this is one damn review from IGN. Lets see what happens when the rest of the reviews hit

With the embargoes and all, it's looking pretty hazy at the moment.

Spoiler

sorry

 

[randomwab]

Ohh god :lol

 

[belvedere]

*Classic picture frame title request please*

"Haze, it's cooler to hate than Bush"

 

[Busty]

:lol

Kudos.

 

[PistolGrip]

pre order cancelled.... Nectar granade incoming.

 

[methane47]

*Classic picture frame title request please*

"Haze, it's cooler to hate than Bush"

yeah.. Or maybe


"Haze, it's on PS3 :lol"

something like that

 

[FrankT]

Looks like the personal mediocre reviews from the demo were more than warranted. I was wondering what the US media would do with this. I guess we can wait on the rest although a 4.5 from IGN really says it all.

 

[GeoramA]

Meh. Still gonna buy it for the trophies... :/

 

[TheHeretic]

If you watch the preview videos it looks quite promising. Turning the enemies against eachother is a great concept, as is scavenging from corpeses. Obviously it all went wrong somewhere along the line.

 

[pn18]

Meh. Still gonna buy it for the trophies... :/

So your wasting $60 and 5+ hours of your life just for some virtual trophies?

Dude, that's sad.

 

[besada]

Sad to see it do so poorly. Other than the bad writing, I thought it was a reasonably good shooter.

 

[Brashnir]

So your wasting $60 and 5+ hours of your life just for some virtual trophies?

Dude, that's sad.

Virtual trophies that he can't even look at yet, no less.

 

[plagiarize]

i'm STILL pissed at Sony giving this more of an advertising push last Christmas than UT3.

yeah they started pushing UT3 eventually, but that was an awesome game that just got lost in the mix. meanwhile Sony were advertising some game that always looked dubious, and kept slipping.

 

[sajj316]

If you watch the preview videos it looks quite promising. Turning the enemies against eachother is a great concept, as is scavenging from corpeses. Obviously it all went wrong somewhere along the line.

I agree, I wish I could comment more on the game but I haven't played it. We're going off what the reviewer has played and coming to conclusions based on his expectations of the game.

I would even welcome a delay (again) of this game in order to bump up the resolution HD naitive as well as polishing a bit more on the gameplay side. Obviously, its a bit late for that. The game should have been beta'd ....

 

[GeoramA]

So your wasting $60 and 5+ hours of your life just for some virtual trophies?

Dude, that's sad.

:lol

I was joking. Trophies aren't even out yet.

 

[N30RYU]

surely you all have alredy seen the video with the Haze graphics issues... in the final release.

If not... here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20OnIZZ3aVc

With this video, i don't need any more reviews whatever famitsu said... I'm not gonna buy it to shorten the wait for MGS4.

 

[industrian]

i'm STILL pissed at Sony giving this more of an advertising push last Christmas than UT3.

yeah they started pushing UT3 eventually, but that was an awesome game that just got lost in the mix. meanwhile Sony were advertising some game that always looked dubious, and kept slipping.

Sony had nothing to do with UT3. If you want to have a little bitching session regarding UT3, then aim it towards Midway.

 

[Dot50Cal]

So much worse than I anticipated. Maybe they should have stuck to that 09 delay lol.
Also, the game runs at native 576p for heavens sake. That's bordering on SD.

Anyway, I have a feeling the average score for the title will be higher than 4.5. But I must say, if the game really is only 5 hours long, that's incredibly disappointing.

Err No. Thats 1024x576, which is nowhere near SD resolution.

Day

Spoiler

n

one.

:lol Well done.

Actually, 576p ís SD since it's the SD resolution of PAL.

If the 576p was 4:3, yes. But its not so that comparison is invalid.

 

[Xater]

surely you all have alredy seen the video with the Haze graphics issues...

If not... here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20OnIZZ3aVc

With this video, i don't need any more reviews whatever famitsu said... I'm not gonna buy it to shorten the wait for MGS4.

Right at the beginning he shows of the awful LOD that I mentioned in the demo thread and Haze lovers said it was fine. Yeah....

 

[PhatSaqs]

Wow. And to think Sony is trumpeting this game as one that will help spur PS3 sales :lol

 

[MWS Natural]

So I was looking through the IGN Wii reviews...and discovered that Haze now shares its place in gaming immortality with this gem:

= 4.5

:lol

"People only hate Haze becuz itz PS3 exclusive!!!!111"

"Cry Moar xbots!!!"

:lol Lovin it...sure wish I could find that thread where people actually thought no one gave a shit about haze because it was exclusive to the PS3.

 

[nib95]

How does IGN give this a 7.5 in graphics....

---

---

And this a 4?

---

The mind boggles. IGN PS3 channel is losing touch... The game may very well be crap, but some things I just can't make sense of. Like the visuals and sound score.

 

[PistolGrip]

I think the review was a bit much though. I dont think its a 4.5 especiallly from IGN. The reviewer really went to town with it.

He complained about Nectar only being used for a few levels and as such being worthless as a gameplay mechanic. He talks about the balance being pointless because the AI isnt amazing with sniping and not super powered. All these things are better represented in multiplayer where balance is needed not single player.

Also the graphics are much better than touted. Unless the full game has some horrendous levels the graphics on the demo are better than 90% of the games out for next gen systems yet it gets a 4?

 

[Xater]

Haze doesn't look like those screens.

 

[mr_bishiuk]

How does IGN give this a 7.5 in graphics....

---

---

The mind boggles. IGN PS3 channel is losing touch... The game may very well be crap, but some things I just can't make sense of. Like the visuals and sound score.

If you read the review they said the graphics are full of glitches

 

[Dot50Cal]

This is what happens to all Halo-Killer shooters. You know which game is next

Great job, Junior. You are a fine addition to the forums.

 

[TheHeretic]

Err No. Thats 1024x576, which is nowhere near SD resolution.

For comparisons sake the number of pixels is (approximately):

SD (640x480) - 300,000 pixels

Haze - 600,000 pixels

HD (720) - 900,000 pixels

HD (1080) - 2,000,000 pixels

 

[nib95]

Haze doesn't look like those screens.

It looks like a slightly blurrier version of those screens. Which is still nothing like a 4. Even shitty movie license, toy license and children's games get higher than that.

 

[chris0701]

How does IGN give this a 7.5 in graphics....
The mind boggles. IGN PS3 channel is losing touch... The game may very well be crap, but some things I just can't make sense of. Like the visuals and sound score.

Oh.no

No cross comparision between games.

Btw,You used bullshots of Haze to prove your question is reliable.

 

[methane47]

How does IGN give this a 7.5 in graphics....

The mind boggles. IGN PS3 channel is losing touch... The game may very well be crap, but some things I just can't make sense of. Like the visuals and sound score.

Subjective and stupid expectations put on the game.....

Someone mentioned Halo when this game was being developed.. and BAM.. instant hatred and super high expectations.

also Developer expectations... People expected much more technically from FR... so i'm guessing to see the real product is kind of sadening... but all in all its a pretty subjective thing

 

[besada]

How does IGN give this a 7.5 in graphics....


The mind boggles. IGN PS3 channel is losing touch... The game may very well be crap, but some things I just can't make sense of. Like the visuals and sound score.

At least one of those pictures is a bullshot. It has the HUD on backwards. Frankly, they all look like bullshots.

 

[Xater]

It looks like a slightly blurrier version of those screens. Which is still nothing like a 4. Even shitty movie license, toy license and children's games get higher than that.

No it looks alot blurrier + some aliasing + awful LOD + bad art.

 

[Brashnir]

Err No. Thats 1024x576, which is nowhere near SD resolution.


:lol Well done.


If the 576p was 4:3, yes. But its not so that comparison is invalid.

In absolute pixel count, it's closer to NTSC SD than it is to 720p.

Total pixels: (difference in parentheses)

640x480 = 307,200 ( -282,624) NTSC Standard Definition

720x576 = 414,720 ( -175,104) Pal Standard Definition

1024x576 = 589,824 Haze's Resolution

1280x720 = 921,600 ( +331,776) 720p HD

Granted if you halve the SD resolutions for being interlaced (the game runs at 60fps right? If not, this is irrelevant), it swings the other way, and if you look at it in terms of percentages, the numbers look different, but in absolute resolution, it's closer to SD than 720p.

edit - nevermind, I have been beaten.

 

[urk]

Frankly, they all look like bullshots.

They are. Unfortunately, Haze does not looks anywhere near that good.

 

[PistolGrip]

At least one of those pictures is a bullshot. It has the HUD on backwards. Frankly, they all look like bullshots.

The game does look good though on the demo at least. It doesnt have great animation like Uncharted and KZ2 but its definitely better than most of the crap that gets >8 for graphics at IGN

 

[Doc Evils]

Subjective and stupid expectations put on the game.....

Someone mentioned Halo when this game was being developed.. and BAM.. instant hatred and super high expectations.

Who mentioned Halo?

 

[nib95]

Someone post that demo direct capture shot. It still looks great, and is definitely not close to a 4. I have a hard time believing it's glitchy enough to warrant that kind of score for visuals when other games have been worse and given a pass.

 

[FrankT]

In absolute pixel count, it's closer to NTSC SD than it is to 720p.

Total pixels: (difference in parentheses)

640x480 = 307,200 ( -282,624) NTSC Standard Definition

720x576 = 414,720 ( -175,104) Pal Standard Definition

1024x576 = 589,824 Haze's Resolution

1280x720 = 921,600 ( +331,776) 720p HD

Granted if you halve the SD resolutions for being interlaced (the game runs at 60fps right? If not, this is irrelevant), it swings the other way, and if you look at it in terms of percentages, the numbers look different, but in absolute resolution, it's closer to SD than 720p.

edit - nevermind, I have been beaten.

30fps IIRC