Free Radical may have produced a console FPS that you can’t compare to the usual suspects.


Watching Haze’s development from the outside has been a strange experience. After an initial rush of information the November release date came and went, and the month-by-month delays that followed didn’t inspire confidence – although whether that was more to do with Ubisoft’s financial statements or hesitancy on the part of Free Radical isn’t clear. But things are funny sometimes: behind what looked like a stuttering and slightly troubled end to development, Free Radical has taken the time to refine Haze beyond expectations.

Looking at screens of the Mantel troopers might seem to belie that. After all, here are black-garbed military men with guns, surely one of gaming’s most overused archetypes. They’re not even fantastic looking, and alongside some of the textures are undeniably below the level expected on the PS3. Indeed, several elements of the gameworld are visually unexceptional. It’s a technical rather than an aesthetic failing, however, because the world of Haze has a distinct visual quality that is far removed from other titles in the genre. This can be as simple as the ubiquity of the Mantel logo to the more usual pleasures of watching your team spread out and take up cover effectively. It’s a game that has managed to craft a world rather than a tech demo, and if that means that the mud occasionally gets blocky close-up you learn to live with it.

What’s more important is that Haze feels good in the hands, to the extent you might even forget you’re using a PS3 rather than a 360 controller. Your first steps as Shane Carpenter are exhilarating once the use and purpose of Nectar has been explained: you stride through undergrowth with fellow Mantel troopers, popping off the bright targets that appear before you, merrily thwacking their floppy corpses into nearby trees and pulling up your visor to get a better view of an airstrike. Your fellow soldiers come across as deeply unpleasant, but their characterization is more subtly sinister than any of the obvious nonsense occurring in the likes of Army Of Two, and depend on you paying attention to throwaway remarks during gameplay as well as the implications of what they’re saying in the cutscenes.