[Ubidays 2007] Cutting Through The Fog
HAZE has something seriously interesting brewing, and we try to sift through the official message to get the scoop.
Published: May 23, 2007
You are a super soldier. You can see attacks coming from behind you, you can move faster, jump higher, soak up more damage, see better than anyone else on the battlefield, you can hit a target from hundreds of feet away as if you were at point blank range. And you are tied to no country, you have no loyalty save for the absolute superpower that is the Mantel Global Industries. Aided by their Nectar, a serum that gives seemingly superhuman abilities to every single member of their private army, you are the militaristic wing of what is, in a word, a commercial juggernaut.
But something doesn't add up. How is it possible that one company could grow to be so large, to simultaneously manufacture everything from the toothpaste in your medicine cabinet to the tube it came in to the toothbrush you used to brush your teeth and yet have the world's largest and most powerful private military force. Is there even a "good" and "bad" side to conflicts when the highest bidder effectively determines who is a guerilla or terrorist movement and who is a pack of freedom fighters? Is there even such a thing as freedom?
None of these questions are actually raised as we watch (but can't play, that's a no-no) HAZE taking place, but there's just something about the pristine world that sticks in our craw, something about how neat and clean and shiny a friggin' war zone is that is inherently wrong and yet the idea that you are a solider with almost limitless abilities when put up against normal "mortals" all provided you dose yourself up with Nectar to gain the abilities of Focus (makes headshots easier), Foresight (allows you to see threats behind you like grenades or melee attacks before they happen), Perception (washes everything but enemies out so camouflage is of no use) and Melee Blast (fancy punching a dude and watching him land a few dozen feet away?) is all... well, it's intoxicating, which is probably the idea.
Ah, but like any drug, you can overdose on Nectar. A handy little readout on your helmet HUD tells you how much is pumping through your system (as well as how many more doses you have), and if you OD, you lose control, with friend and foe alike becoming one and the same: instantly becoming a target that you must fire upon if they're stupid enough to walk into your eye line. This is fairly public knowledge, too (at least to the forces you encounter), so a well-aimed hit might rupture your Nectar reserves and force an overdose. Also like any drug, a dependency will eventually develop, and though you may be a good soldier, you aren't invincible -- not without your hit of Nectar -- so you're going to have to take a hit now and then. Of course, if you happen to off a ton of enemies in a row, you'll keep the juice pumping through your system that much longer before you have to re-dose.
Throughout our guided tour of the game, some of which was played solo (the first jungle mission), and gave the basics of combat and the different uses of the Nectar-assisted powers, some of which was actually done by way of a four-player co-op buggy ride through a valley. Since the driver sat in the middle of the vehicle, both the open pods to the left and right of him were open in addition to the mounted turrets and as we scanned across the four screens in front of us, we watched as Foresight's pre-cognitive abilities painted incoming missile strikes before they landed. The final level looked like it had been bleached, almost to the point of grayscale, and here it was where the woo hoo cowboy antics of the first level gave way to the startling reality that the people you shoot were human. They screamed and convulsed and you made it happen.
Free Radical has, until now, been a company firmly aware of how to make a technically solid, blisteringly fast, multiplayer-friendly shooter (the founding members left Rare and helped work on both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark on the N64). TimeSplitters was a perfect example of that, and with each sequel things got more slick. But this is the first time they've really attempted a story-driven no-loading (seriously, the game takes place over three days and at no point will you see a loading bar, no will the perspective ever change from your first-person view) first-person shooter. Second Sight proved they could mix technology (at the time it was the same kind of ragdoll playground as Psi-Ops, though it had a much better storyline) with a decent narrative.
But the development team is intentionally playing coy with the details. We've been teased with promises that the entire game's reality would shift, that the ideas of emotions and serious ethical issues would arise from the storyline. Exactly what is HAZE is something we may be no closer to knowing even after having finally seen the game running (on PCs with DualShock 2s hooked up via USB, it should be noted). This is, of course, purely intentional, but if Free Radical and Ubisoft are trying to get our interest piqued, then congrats, boys and girls; we're listening.
But something doesn't add up. How is it possible that one company could grow to be so large, to simultaneously manufacture everything from the toothpaste in your medicine cabinet to the tube it came in to the toothbrush you used to brush your teeth and yet have the world's largest and most powerful private military force. Is there even a "good" and "bad" side to conflicts when the highest bidder effectively determines who is a guerilla or terrorist movement and who is a pack of freedom fighters? Is there even such a thing as freedom?
None of these questions are actually raised as we watch (but can't play, that's a no-no) HAZE taking place, but there's just something about the pristine world that sticks in our craw, something about how neat and clean and shiny a friggin' war zone is that is inherently wrong and yet the idea that you are a solider with almost limitless abilities when put up against normal "mortals" all provided you dose yourself up with Nectar to gain the abilities of Focus (makes headshots easier), Foresight (allows you to see threats behind you like grenades or melee attacks before they happen), Perception (washes everything but enemies out so camouflage is of no use) and Melee Blast (fancy punching a dude and watching him land a few dozen feet away?) is all... well, it's intoxicating, which is probably the idea.
Ah, but like any drug, you can overdose on Nectar. A handy little readout on your helmet HUD tells you how much is pumping through your system (as well as how many more doses you have), and if you OD, you lose control, with friend and foe alike becoming one and the same: instantly becoming a target that you must fire upon if they're stupid enough to walk into your eye line. This is fairly public knowledge, too (at least to the forces you encounter), so a well-aimed hit might rupture your Nectar reserves and force an overdose. Also like any drug, a dependency will eventually develop, and though you may be a good soldier, you aren't invincible -- not without your hit of Nectar -- so you're going to have to take a hit now and then. Of course, if you happen to off a ton of enemies in a row, you'll keep the juice pumping through your system that much longer before you have to re-dose.
Throughout our guided tour of the game, some of which was played solo (the first jungle mission), and gave the basics of combat and the different uses of the Nectar-assisted powers, some of which was actually done by way of a four-player co-op buggy ride through a valley. Since the driver sat in the middle of the vehicle, both the open pods to the left and right of him were open in addition to the mounted turrets and as we scanned across the four screens in front of us, we watched as Foresight's pre-cognitive abilities painted incoming missile strikes before they landed. The final level looked like it had been bleached, almost to the point of grayscale, and here it was where the woo hoo cowboy antics of the first level gave way to the startling reality that the people you shoot were human. They screamed and convulsed and you made it happen.
Free Radical has, until now, been a company firmly aware of how to make a technically solid, blisteringly fast, multiplayer-friendly shooter (the founding members left Rare and helped work on both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark on the N64). TimeSplitters was a perfect example of that, and with each sequel things got more slick. But this is the first time they've really attempted a story-driven no-loading (seriously, the game takes place over three days and at no point will you see a loading bar, no will the perspective ever change from your first-person view) first-person shooter. Second Sight proved they could mix technology (at the time it was the same kind of ragdoll playground as Psi-Ops, though it had a much better storyline) with a decent narrative.
But the development team is intentionally playing coy with the details. We've been teased with promises that the entire game's reality would shift, that the ideas of emotions and serious ethical issues would arise from the storyline. Exactly what is HAZE is something we may be no closer to knowing even after having finally seen the game running (on PCs with DualShock 2s hooked up via USB, it should be noted). This is, of course, purely intentional, but if Free Radical and Ubisoft are trying to get our interest piqued, then congrats, boys and girls; we're listening.