I downloaded the EU demo of Haze yesterday, having nothing better to do with my afternoon after a doctor's appointment that served only to inform me that my swollen and white-blotch-covered tonsil has nothing wrong with it (color me confused on that one). I can say with out a doubt that Haze is better than mystery throat problems.

The demo covers the first level, in a jungle setting, and the foliage is not realistic by any means. Nothing is. The game, at least through the eyes of a Mantel trooper (Free Radical has been bashing us in the face with the plot twist since the game was announced) has a cartoon feel. This could also just be the visual style of the game. Compare it to Second Sight or Timesplitters, if you compare it to anything; I just don't think it's supposed to look real. It does, however, look good, and doesn't get bogged down with excessive normal-mapping or shine.


Not a totally different style from this.

While a joke, the title is appropriate. Haze is very Halo. It's a run-and-gun style shooter where you play a fancy-helmeted super soldier with squad mates that you wish would shut up. While Halo owes its annoying marines to Red v. Blue, Haze has it for story purposes. The performance-enhancing Nectar makes them act like d-bags, and while notable as a oft-given-away plot point, that doesn't make them less annoying. Haze is made to the Halo formula, but definitely won't be given the Halo double standard in reviews (here's all our complaints, but we're giving it a 10 anyway, because it's teh haloez).

The Nectar gimmick is surprisingly deep. You press and hold a button to administer a dose. Let go too soon, and you don't get a full meter, hold too long and you OD and start putting bullets into random objects, or pull out grenades, and the auto-aim decides it wants to give your teammates a hug. It's more than I expected from it; I thought it wouldn't be as dynamic as it is. You are also limited in the number of doses you can give yourself in a limited amount of time. You have six shots, which will gradually replenish like sand tanks in Sands of Time, albeit more slowly. Your Mantel overlords will also give you a free dose of Nectar if you make a difficult shot or punch someone's face in. Depending on the situation, you might want to conserve your Nectar rations for when something big goes down. In an odd bit of fourth wall penetration, you are subject to the same nectar addiction as your in-game persona. You want to go bust the enemies up to get that free shot.

The weapons sound and feel good and enemies fall in a satisfying manner. When you shoot them, you feel like you're really doing damage as opposed to waving a noise maker around.

The demo was more difficult than I expected. I died a few times on Normal difficulty because I tried to play it without any strategy at all. I recall Halo 3 letting me dance through about a dozen brutes to gravity hammer them all to death, absorbing fire all the while, but to try something like that in Haze means death. It's not a deeply strategic demo, but you don't want to stand about picking flowers.

Over all, I'm not sure what to think of it. While I just wrote a bunch of positive things about the game, none of them are very strong feelings. The game itself isn't bad, but with the plot twist spoiled and the obviousness of your victory (is there a game where you don't ultimately win?) I'm not itching to break into this one. Launching a couple weeks before Metal Gear Solid 4 doesn't help it either. Why buy Haze when I can put a couple more weeks into GTA4 and go straight to MGS4? I remained and still am, optimistic about the final product based on the quality of their previous games, but I don't know if Haze has the necessary draw to get me away from GTA. I know MGS4 is getting all my attention.

Update: There are substantially more visual effects in the US demo than there were in the EU demo. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I'm noticing things I didn't before.