Haze

Haze is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Free Radical Design and published by Ubisoft exclusively for the PlayStation 3. It has a serious tone, incorporating themes such as oppression and drug abuse. This is unlike Free Radical's TimeSplitters series which provided a more comical and laid-back gaming experience. Haze was one of the most highly anticipated and hyped PlayStation 3 games of the first half of 2008. It was released worldwide in May 2008. A demo for Haze was released on the PlayStation Network on May 6, 2008.

The game revolves around Mantel Global Industries, a multinational corporation with bio-medical expertise. This has led to the development of Nova-Keto-Thyrazine - also called Nectar, a "nutritional supplement" that enables soldiers to fight harder and smarter, but also induces a hallucinogenic effect, where soldiers are no longer cognizant of the real battlefield around them, instead viewing an idyllic, painless environment.

The game takes place over a three day period as Mantel battles a group of rebels known as "The Promise Hand" which is led by Gabriel "Skin Coat" Merino, with the player assuming the role of Shane Carpenter, a 25 year old Mantel soldier. After Carpenter witnesses the effect Nectar is having on his fellow soldiers, and after a twist in the storyline Shane then turns rogue and teams up with The Promise Hand to take on Mantel.

Gameplay

In the game, soldiers make use of Nectar, a performance-enhancing pharmaceutical drug that grants the user enhanced speed, accuracy and strength. Mantel uses this drug to control the minds of its soldiers. When administered, Nectar can control--among other things-- what a soldier sees, similar to the effects of a hallucinogenic drug. It makes enemies stand out as bright orange silhouettes against the darker grey background. Nectar also drowns out the surrounding images of death and destruction (for instance, bodies will vanish ). Nectar also reduces recoil, and allows the player to zoom in further while scoped. An overdose of Nectar is dangerous, with loss of mental control and death being possible side-effects. A Mantel Soldier experiencing an overdose is shown by a change in their armor, changing in color from yellow to red.

As revealed in an E³ 2007 trailer, Rebel soldiers may go in to a "Play Dead" state just before they are killed, allowing them to regenerate health and disappear from the Mantel soldiers' sight, since they can't see dead people while on Nectar. In addition, they have been given the capability to exploit Mantel's dependence on Nectar by attacking the Nectar injector, extracting Nectar to use on throwing knives from dead Mantel troopers and using the injector to create Nectar grenades. These Nectar-enhanced weapons will cause a Mantel trooper to overdose on Nectar, as will attacking the Nectar injector. Later in the game players also encounter special forces and overdosed soldiers that can not be affected by Nectar-based weaponry. They can also steal a Mantel trooper's gun, dodge, and bury grenades in the ground as mines.

Multiplayer

Haze features a two-player split screen co-op mode as well as a four-player online co-op mode. At Ubidays, it was revealed that all four squad members were player enabled and could be played co-operatively by joining the game. Multiplayer can be played with one to three extra players through combinations of online, split-screen, or LAN. Multiplayer games will also include narrative-based missions to complete, and the game will accommodate up to 16-player online battles. In addition, the online multiplayer is split among two groups called Mantel and Rebels. Each side has its advantages. Nectar abilities allow Mantel troopers to easily distinguish friend from foe. The Rebels wield throwing knives coated in nectar that cause the Mantel troopers to overdose. In this overdose, Mantels cannot distinguish friend from foe, and may team kill. But, the Mantel side has increased nectar abilities which allow them strong melee attacks. To counter this, the Rebels can play dead. Each side also has their own special gun as well. Mantel has the rocket launcher whereas the Rebels have the Gatling gun and Flamethrower. Despite this, both sides can pick up guns from either side. Video footage is available on here.

Plot

The game begins with Shane Carpenter, a rookie Mantel soldier, arriving in the Boa region of South America, where Mantel troops have been dispatched to liberate the country from a rebel group known as "the Promise Hand" which is accused of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity by Mantel's mass media. Shane meets his squadmates; Squad leader Morgan Duvall, and Corporals Teare, Peshy, and Watchstrap. Corporal Teare is quickly berated and dismissed by Duvall for not taking his requisite dose of Mantel's performance enhancing drug Nectar.

Over a series of missions fighting for Mantel, Shane's Nectar administrator fails to drug him on several occasions, causing him to witness a number of disturbing events; he hears screams (implied to be Duvall torturing someone) which Duvall dismisses as "just an animal", he has a conversation with a dying pilot whom Duvall appears oblivious to, and he sees the dead bodies of civilian factory workers that Duvall's squad massacred in an earlier mission because "an empty hand is just a grip away from holding a weapon".

Eventually, Shane and his squad are sent to capture Gabriel "Skincoat" Merino, the leader of the Promise Hand who supposedly eats his enemies and wears a longcoat made of their skins. Shane captures Merino only to find that he's an old man who's only wearing "100% cotton". Duvall arrives and begins torturing Merino, cutting off his finger. When Duvall starts trying to cut off both of Merino's hands, Shane pulls a gun on him and the rest of his squad, leading to a shootout which causes the helicopter they're all on to crash. Mantel, realizing that Shane is not taking the proper levels of Nectar (making him a "Code Haze"), sends in their Black Ops (professional soldiers, in contrast to Mantel's regular drug-fueled troopers) to kill him.

Shane is rescued by Merino and the Promise Hand, and realizes that everything he's been told about them has been false propaganda by Mantel. Shane is forced to kill Peshy and Watchstrap (who were also rescued from the crash by the Promise Hand) when they start shooting up the village. Duvall, also alive, escapes after telling Shane he's "just an animal" just like the rebels. Having witnessed the atrocities committed by Mantel's soldiers, Shane joins the Promise Hand in hopes of doing the right thing.

Answering a distress call from a Mantel cargo ship, Shane meets up with Teare. Teare reveals that when they first met, he sabotaged Shane's Nectar administrator to let him see "a taste of reality". Teare reveals the cargo ship is filled with the bodies of Mantel troopers that Mantel was secretly disposing of; prolonged Nectar use is eventually fatal, and Mantel has been concealing this fact by hiding all the bodies of Mantel troopers who have died from the drug. Teare also reveals that Mantel's stated humanitarian reasons for intervening in Boa are false propaganda, and their real goal is the destruction of Nectar plants being grown by the local population, in order for Mantel to maintain its monopoly on Nectar production. Teare is then killed by Mantel's Black Ops soldiers.

Leading the Promise Hand forces, Shane succeeds in destroying Mantel's regional supply of Nectar, causing the Mantel troopers to break down mentally and physically (he also witnesses Mantel troopers committing suicide when their Nectar withdrawal causes them to realize the atrocities they've committed). Merino orders an assault on Mantel's Landcarrier HQ to finish the war, but Shane is reluctant because Mantel's troopers are now largely defenseless and no longer a threat without their Nectar. During the assault on the Landcarrier, Shane confronts Duvall, who has taken over the Landcarrier due to being the only one disciplined enough to remain sane after suffering Nectar withdrawal. After a shootout in the control room in which the two argue over right and wrong and the nature of war, Shane kills Duvall and escapes the exploding Landcarrier. The story ends with Merino revealing that he plans to use Nectar to give his people "confidence", but promises to combine it with free will, stating that Mantel were "just animals". Shane finds this highly disturbing.

Development

Haze was first announced at E³ 2006. It makes use of a proprietary graphics engine that was developed specifically for the game. Though purchasing an engine would reduce the development time, the team chose to create their own in order to have more freedom in the features and game design. The engine provides various graphical effects. Lighting is mainly baked but the Haze Engine also has support for Real Time Lighting and has a high-dynamic range. Particle and fire effects help give the illusion of volume along with motion blur and real time depth fields, the engine supports color Specular maps, Normal Mapping and Parallax Mapping technologies. The game runs at 30 fps; the team claimed that 60 fps was not needed for the pacing of the game. The AI system, "ConspireTM", is designed to allow enemies to dynamically react to other characters and the environment.

The game was originally set to be released simultaneously on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in Summer 2007. However, the release date was pushed back to Winter, and it was announced at Sony's E³ 2007 press conference that Haze would be exclusive to the PlayStation 3. The game was then delayed further and eventually given a May 2008 release. However, Free Radical have stated that the delays have allowed them to include several new features into the game.

On October 22, 2007 Ubisoft announced that rock band Korn had written and recorded an original song inspired by Haze. The song, which is also entitled "Haze", is due for release to coincide with the game's launch in May. "Haze" will be released and promoted as a full-fledged single and music video, not just as an exclusive download with the video game. On February 26, 2008 a new trailer called "Nectar trailer" was released and featured the song.

On April 15, 2008 Ubisoft announced a playable demo would be available on the PlayStation Store in early May. The demo included the 4-player co-operative mode that appears in the final game.