Haze [PS3]

Sometimes, making a name for yourself with a particular genre or subject can come back to bite you. It's more than likely that not every single title you make will live up to this particular reputation, and the ones that are far off the mark will appear as a large albatross on an otherwise sterling record. Haze is such a burden placed on the otherwise acclaimed development team at Free Radical, whose many employees have worked on GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, not to mention establishing their acclaimed TimeSplitters franchise. While their previous work was quite excellent, Haze is anything but, coming across as a middling, generic first-person shooter with bland visuals, a weak plot and laughable characters.

Haze is the story of Shane Carpenter, a young Mantel soldier that's dispatched, along with the rest of his squad, to the Boa Region of South America. The largest PMC in the world, Mantel has an army of enhanced warriors boosted with their specialized "supplement" known as Nectar. With a large force at its disposal, Mantel has been asked to go in and pacify the region from the dangerous Promise Hand, a militant group of rebels headed up by the villainous Skin Coat (so named because he enjoys skinning his victims and wearing them). However, Carpenter finds that his mission to "liberate the hearts and minds" of the indigenous people is not what it appears to be, and after one objective takes an unexpected turn, he finds himself defecting to the rebel cause and fighting against his former squadmates.

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At first glance, this appears to be an interesting premise for a title, giving players a sense of both sides of the conflict. Unfortunately, its plot is such a hackneyed and feeble amalgamation of concepts that the true impact or commentary that could've been presented in the title is immediately lost. For one thing, the Mantel soldiers are presented as your stereotypical jarhead grunts that have no morality or sense of responsibility, killing people because they have always had a genuine bloodlust for death and destruction. This alpha male broad stroke is painted with comments such as "It's like taking candy from a crippled baby," and "Is there an award for most badass gangsta? Because that's me!" Forget the liberation of people from terror; that concept is immediately thrown out of the window, as is any other sense of humanity.

However, Carpenter isn't presented with these emotions ever, regardless of the action he faces or the amount of Nectar in his system. This makes him stand out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of his unit and immediately weakens the player's connection as to why they want to even play through these sections. What's more, the character of Carpenter doesn't endear himself to the player, especially because he either whines through sections of missions or seems perpetually lost, making him come across to the player as exceedingly weak and not someone you want to take through the entire game regardless of what happens to him. It doesn't really help in the middle of battle, when you're dodging bullets or rockets from your former company, to hear Shane complain about not being sure what to do next.

What further widens this disconnect between Shane, the Mantel troops and the player is the deliberate attempt to tie soldier immorality to the blatant use (and abuse) of Nectar, making the war seem much more like a videogame than real life. Supposedly, this explains the behavior of the troops, because they are living in a drug-induced fantasy world that is perpetually extended by their battle armor. In fact, the only time that you do see soldiers crash from their Nectar high is laughable. Not laughable because of what the soldiers do, but laughable in the manner in which it's carried out, which is extremely forced and horribly acted.

That's unfortunate, because the mechanic of Nectar within the game is actually rather striking. It heightens Shane's senses, making enemies stand out from the environment because of their glowing silhouette. This makes it much easier to snipe enemies or pick them out -- even in dense cover. Nectar also manages to reduce the amount of damage that you take, as well as warn you of incoming danger thanks to a rippling pulse of energy from grenades or other threats. Finally, Nectar makes you much stronger, and any melee attacks are radically stronger than ever before. What's more, every kill that you make on the Nectar high provides you with an additional boost of power to maintain your buzz. That gives you somewhat of an incentive to continue blasting any enemy soldiers that cross your path, as long as you don't accidentally overdose on the initial injection of the drug into your system. This will cause you to lose control of Shane for a while as he shoots at friend and foe alike.