Weapons and Multiplayer
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The weapons available in Haze are top notch and are a lot of fun to shoot. The developers of the game made sure that players will want to use the pistol as a weapon of choice rather than a last resort. Grenades are also used quite frequently and, combined with the Nectar collected from your fallen enemies, can cause a group of Mantel troopers to overdose on the drug at simultaneously. This is indeed a sight to see.
Sadly, with all of the interesting choices of weapons in the game, only a few of them exist throughout the majority of the campaign. For instance, assault rifles, high-powered machine guns, and shotguns are all over the place, whereas other desirable choices such as the flamethrower and sniper rifle are only available in the few missions that call for the extra firepower. In fact, the sniper rifle is actually touted verbally early on in the game, but it's not available until well past the halfway point in the campaign. Then when you do have the sniper rifle, you'll most like rid yourself of it as soon as you run out of ammo due to the lack of your ability to carry more than two weapons at a time. In fact, you may not be able to find additional ammunition for the rifle anyway since your chances of finding another along the objective path are slim to none.
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The multiplayer in Haze is as straightforward as the gameplay itself. When the PlayStation Network does not hinder one's ability to join a game without serious lag time or unavailable servers, players can enjoy the standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. While solo and team deathmatch are fairly run-of-the-mill, the team assault mode adds the most creativity to the online experience. During team assault matches, two teams totaling a maximum of 16 players are given both areas to defend and objectives to accomplish. This game mode actually compliments the single player experience with its own story elements not seen in the original campaign.
Regardless of the chosen multiplayer mode, bots can be added and customized to even out the teams with too few players. This is also a great way to enjoy the game's split screen mode that can be used to for instant action or to practice for upcoming online games. Even so, with only six maps available out of the box, the multiplayer experience may run dry all too quickly for some gamers.
While multiplayer proves to be much more fun than single player, Haze's co-op mode that can be experienced with up to four players is where the game really shines. There are those who choose to brave the campaign alone, and this still has its benefits, but there's nothing like bringing along a few friends to turn an otherwise mediocre campaign into an extremely enjoyable romp. Cooperative play allows players to complete the single player campaign in its entirety with friends via the PlayStation Network or at home using the game's split-screen option. Cooperative play has become quite popular in recent history and is easily the most enjoyable way to experience Haze.
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Choppedliver - Thursday, May 29, 2008 - link
Ive been reading this site from the start too. Its like my morning cup of coffee and my evening beer.Give them a damn break. Hardware, games, etc, this is anand TECH. Tech is a lot of things. It's a progression of the site. As long as they do a good job of the review, I don't give a crap what they review. Its not taking away from other stuff, like he said, and I honestly would rather believe a game review from this site than some of the "dedicated" game sites.
I like many tech geeks, like pc hardware, cameras, games and a number of TECH things. If I can get my reviews here rather than go to another site, well that's just fine with me.
Just like with anything else, if you don't like it, click on something you do like. You people act like by giving you additional content they have caused you some irreparable harm. Read what you want, dont read the rest. How F***ing hard is that?
AcydRaine - Friday, May 30, 2008 - link
Totally with you on that. If you do not want to read the articles, then don't. Not very hard. I do it every day on every website I frequent, and that is quite a few. Not just TECH sites either.Good to read actual users that enjoy playing games giving an unbiased opinion on their experiences with a game that doesn't come from how much money they were payed to give the review, or how much advertisment for the game they took on. Great article Eddie.
EddieTurner - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Allow me to address some of the concerns here. For the most part, the hardware that AT has fcused on for so long can be only utilized to its fullest extent with today's games, which is why Anand would like to see more game related articles. And since AT has spread its wings into numerous areas of tech-related subjects, including console gaming, it is only fitting that all aspects of gaming, regardless of platform, have a presence on the site.We know that many of you are die hard PC gamers, and we aim to bring you up to speed on some of the most talked about PC titles on the market. But we also have a console gaming forum that stays just as active as the PC gaming forum, and that says a lot about our community. And with console game sales far outnumbering their PC counterparts, that says alot about gaming in general. Today's hard core gamers play on consoles just as they do PC's. As for myself, I own a halfway decent rig, an Xbox 360, and a PS3. I'm not alone in this respect. And since great games are not limited so a single platform, our articles about them shouldn't be either. I'm here to talk games. The bar's open!
GoodRevrnd - Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - link
I understand wanting to expand the sites appeal, but game reviews are an absurdly flooded market. I really think for it to be worthwhile you need to carve out a niche. AT is a pretty technical site, so I think looking at games heavily from the hardware side like Jarred said is definitely a good idea (this is probably harder to do for console titles, I'll give you that). In detail, what new whiz-bangedness does this game really bring to the table in terms of graphics, physics, AI, etc. AT has always done this for the major engine releases like Source, UT, Crytek etc. but it might be interesting to see what technical evolutions individual games bring to the market. This is obviously pretty dry, but it's one take you could do to differentiate yourselves.One thing I'd kind of like from a game reviewer is more technical analysis of gameplay. We get these wishy washy sweeping big picture articles from sites like Gamespy/IGN/Gamespot that don't really leave you much more informed than you were from the previous 6 months of hype and previews before the game came out. I'm reminded of older Adrenaline Vault articles. They really got into the nitty gritty mechanics of a game and evaluated game design elements. The down side was they just weren't able to keep up with the larger sites in delivering content. Basically it boils down to Summary = Bad.
tangsta - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
I appreciate the fact that Anandtech is doing game reviews. Right next to video cards and lcds, games are interesting to me. To me, this site gave the most informative, practical, and accurate review of GTA4. I don't ever feel a "biased vibe" from Anandtech, like I do from most gaming-review sites. Those sites always seem to be searching for a dramatic spin on things.I don't know if I'm going to try Haze yet, but so far, I feel that this review is the most informative.
geogaddi - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
reticule, reticle. redact, or ridicule!
but it's a great premise for a hard-core, twitch-action, first-person shooter - using a high-performance weapon from dolce & gabanna to slay evildoers.
accessorize THIS, biyatch...
the goat - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
You didn't answer the most important question. Does the game support USB keyboard and mouse for control?Genx87 - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
I think after this generation will come to an end. It seems most of them were with the PS3 and the devs watch as their exclusives get beat in sales by COD4 on the 360 that has been out for 4 months.Good riddance imo.
sweetsauce - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
unless you plan on hyping up the ps3. The fanboys don't like negative reviews. How dare you put down their beloved system, and make it worse by pointing out that a mediocre game is exclusive!On a serious note, I enjoyed the review myself. Seems like you can't trust other gaming sites anymore. If you can manage to stay unbiased, and im hoping your pc roots will allow that, then game reviews would be a welcome addition to a great website.
Tavoc - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
I've been reading Anandtech since the late 90s when Anand was still a high school student in Raleigh NC (as was I). I came to the site first because my dad pointed out a article about Anand in the local newspaper, but I stayed for the high quality computer hardware reviews and analysis. At the time there were few sites on the net that had the same quantity and quality of hardware reviews as Anandtech.In the past year or so, it appears that the site is really losing focus on what brought people here in the first place, careful and rigorous analysis of a multitude of computer hardware products. I really don't see a point in adding a couple of random console game reviews (rock band and Haze) when Anandtech is losing its edge in deep hardware reviews to places like HardOCP and in quantity to places like Toms Hardware. I also don't see the point in offering digital camera reviews when the frequency and quality doesn't exceed existing leaders in the subject (dpreview.com).
I think its great that the editorial staff seems to be given free reign to write articles about whatever they feel like (Digital cameras, console game reviews, random USB Hubs etc.), but they are really spreading themselves too thin given the relative lack of computer hardware articles. Just look at the number of tabs at the top of the page, and then look at the frequency with which each is updated. The "Linux" (last updated in 2005), "IT Computing", "Displays", and "Mac" categories should probably be discontinued if there isn't sufficient staff to keep updated on a more than monthly basis.
Its not even the lack of hardware articles that bothers me so much more than the fact that the ones that do get released do not follow a consistent methodology over time, do not have enough depth (average FPS numbers from timedemos?) and no longer lead the way in quality.
I guess the bottom line is that I think Anandtech should focus on what used to be their core-competency; in depth, industry leading computer hardware reviews. Additional subjects and areas of focus should only be added when and if there is sufficient bandwidth to maintain quantity and quality in the core computer hardware areas.