Deus Ex enthusiast shares impressions on Haze demo

I know you think Deus Ex and Haze have nothing to do with each other but I'm the one writing and i think they do have certain relationship with each other, albeit not in the surface.


Back when Haze was shown with that remarkable half live action, half CG Ubidays 07 trailer I got pretty hyped about it. PMCs ala Metal Gear boosting soldiers with body enhancing drugs reminded me more of Deus Ex rather than Kojima's work, which for me is really good because even if the cyberpunk isn't definitely there, the conspiracies and gameplay do feel reminiscent. I always admired how Ion Storm managed with Deus Ex to grant the player with a dozen of amazing abilities but at the same time ensure the gameplay's challenging enough to force the player to put those gifts at work.

I come to Haze a lot less excited than i was before, partly because Gametrailers' demoer TKs a lot in their multiplayer footage, making the game look depressingly iffy, partly because other first person shooters like Call of Duty 4, Crysis and Bioshock have spoiled me too much or maybe because Haze isn't living up to my own hype or as it seems these days, no one else's.

Haze isn't that much like Deus Ex as I would have hoped for, all your neat abilities being bundled up in holding the L2 button and all. That all mighty feeling i've jazzed about is also somehow stripped down, making Nectar something just a bit more than heat vision mixed with the essential strength, speed, and regeneration powerups. Not feeling like an uber soldier is definitely underwhelming when other games like Crysis manage to recreate that so well.

From the array of abilities Nectar provides, I fancy Nectar Perception as the primordial one. It's borderline impossible to spot the camouflaged enemies in Haze so Nectar Perception ensures you're permanently high on Nectar as you would quickly find yourself dead otherwise. Nectar as a whole works very well as a virtuous circle: if you manage to keep your kill count high you'll never experience Nectar shortage, thus aiding you in steadying that kill spree. It also helps avoiding the perils of miscalculation when dosing up manually as you can't overdose out of fragging.

Finding Waldo would be a whole lot easier with Nectar Perception.

The demo consists of a Mantel Corp. operation in where Haze's main protagonist, Shane Carpenter and his squad attempt to secure a Nectar shipment lost in the jungle, protected by Promise Hand scoundrels. If you've been following the game as long as I have you'll appreciate small details like half dead NPCs asking you if you can see them -cheesy dying last words included- or Nectar dispenser malfunctions that lead to Shane witnessing events that he isn't supposed to see or hear. They're little hints, glances of the truth that is yet to be revealed for Shane, although most Haze to-be-addicts are already aware of important plot development and key twists by now.

As for how the demo plays, it's pretty straightforward with predominant open areas with rebels coming from all places. It's not utterly original or extraordinary but it is fun, especially when things go wrong. For instance, in one of my barrages I accidentally hit a running friendly's Nectar dispenser, provoking an overdose in which he lost control of his body and started shooting my other squad mates. They attempted to avoid his fire while not firing back to avert any team casualties; hence ignoring the enemy fire that eventually will get a team member killed. I believe Haze would do very good by often including tight corridors where Nectar overdoses become really dangerous for nearby friendlies. It would make it more dynamic and hard but more than anything, it would force those lovely overdoses. Overdoses are probably the quintessential aspect about Mantel because players don't notice when another player is more accurate or heals faster but they do perceive when the bee yellow suits turn red, completely changing the priorities of those players. Simply put, they would all run away, shoot at the overdosed player or get killed, making the game a whole lot more dynamic. Most of my other playthroughs ended smoothly, with both human (online co-op works great with barely any lag) and AI players. A final remark on gameplay is that jumping is nearly useless. The last part of the demo made me feel claustrophobic because Shane couldn't hop over obviously jumpable slopes. It's one of those key "elements" from Killzone that still gives me night terrors and I wished no other game would make me endure ever again.

On the visuals side, most of the jungle looks fairly good, HDR delivering an outstanding performance in making everything shiny and hot. Character models and animations are a tad sub par, most than everything in non scripted animations like regular running and some characters that remind me of the "plastic" security guards from the Chronicles of Riddick game. In general, I wasn't awed at all by anything but the weapons, to the point of actually considering the veracity of the internet rumor of this being a past due demo with past due graphics. Something that really stands out is the Mantel helmet as an interface, which involves some nice image distortion effects when overdosing.

Shane's demo weaponry is limited to Mantel and Promise Hand's assault rifles, a Mantel revolver and a Promise Hand shotgun. In short, both rifles differ in clip size, rate of fire and damage but are pretty much alike, the revolver extinguishes about anything with one shot and those wide environments don't lend themselves to shotguns. I found myself using the Mantel rifle the most because the combination of Mantel soldier's accurate sight and Mantel's rifle heavy damage led to killing a lot faster.

In a nutshell, Haze's is a fun and intriguing experience, albeit more than a couple levels below Deus Ex's complexity standards. Being a demo, though, most advanced gameplay features are probably toned down to just show a glimpse of what's to come. However, the gameplay does feel simple and a bit old at times, probably caused by the demo's poor presentation, level choice, short length and major lack of wow factor. Note to self: write a book called "How to make a demo that sells" and just ripoff Bioshock.

I just don't get why they don't throw "giant weird jeep driving while firing and having lots of fun" in the demo.

I can't help but think that putting aside my well earned faith in Free Radical; this should have been a '07 release. Since I'm not gonna, I think Haze's gonna be great nevertheless because bias for Free Radical is well put bias.