HAZE (PSN Demo)

[capcom_suicide]

Well I have now completed the demo. (Online coop)

It's the forest level and is very much like HALO3.

Initial short impressions....

Controls: OK. Do the job.
Visuals: Inconsistant- Quite pretty in places and ugly in otheres. Reminds me of the GC style they had. I loved the way they do the view over the cliff, but the jungle is very stale and plasticy. Poor. Nice particles and smoke. No effect from ships on smoke. (Like GRAW2)
Gameplay: Go from A to B. Shoot. Repeat. Use Haze to see orange blobs instead of cammo'd AI. Average to poor.
Online: Friends invites are seamless and well implemented.

First Impressions: I'll probably buy this, as I can enjoy an FPS even if it's only avarage, but nothing about this demo tells me that it will set the world on fire. There was absolutly no coop aspect at all! Just extra firepower.

Felt very much like a poor mans Halo to me.

Still, maybe the other levels will be much better and use Haze to a better effect. I hope coop doesn't just mean driving a truck, and does allow some good team tactics. (Like the Halo 3 boss battles)

Demo gets a 5/10 for my money.

[jamesy]

Looking forward to havin a go on this myself later. What's the overall pace of the game like? I see you mentioned halo so is it a relatively slower paced game then? Also how many weapons can you carry?

[vercity]

I think the same will buy as seems playable but concidering all the hype on it well im still not warmed over 2weeks to release if im correct?

[teddymeow]

Sounds like this is the demo that they were showing last year. Why would they put that demo out and not one based on the newer, apparently better balanced game that will be shipping?

Still, it's on download at the moment and I cannot wait to play it again. I'll defo be picking up launch day. Free Radical have yet to make a bad game (in my eyes) and I can't see the finished version of this being a disappointment.

I'm looking forward to the whole story and atmosphere that FRD have promised for Haze and the more (apparently) grown up view of PMCs rather than Army of Twos "dood, we killz for ca$h, innit!!"

[capcom_suicide]

It was fairly fast paced, as is Halo on Coop TBF.

2 weapons at once. Start with the standard Assault rifle and pistol. You can try rebel (red) weapons too.

And shock horror, there is a mounted gun to try too...

Like I said, I love FPS games, so I'll give it a purchase, but I really hope the full game "Gameplay" is better than the demo. Visually it's good enough, not gonna win any awards, but not so bad as to distract, with some pretty parts.

I had a feeling of Dark Sector when I played. (A game I have completed) Sort of felt "OK" but nothing special.

Lets hope the full game delivers.

[ezee ryder]

Just had a quick blast through the demo and I thought it was quite good. Was the same section that was playable at Play.com Live but that was pretty much unplayable because it was on a super small LCD screen. Controls are pretty much what is standard these days for a console FPS (R1 to shoot, L1 for grenades etc) which is a good thing. Gameplay from the demo seems like pretty "average" with the added nectar usage which enchances your accuracy and range as well as healing you a little. I don't think that is all there is to the nectar aspect in the game though, from what has been shown in gameplay videos nectar adds a different dimension to the gameplay. It is just not shown/revealed in this demo which is a shame. I did have a couple of team-mates go all crazy on me after a nectar overdose, so I killed them I did find it rather strange that there is no 'sight aim' (think that is what you call it) and that if you wanna take targets out from a distance you can only zoom in with your scope. As capcom_suicide mentioned before the graphics are good, nothing special but they do the job well. Some areas in the jungle did look nice though, also some pretty nice smoke to boot! I will be definately picking this up when released cos I have faith free radical will deliver a good final product and I am a sucker for a decent FPS game

[ShadowDancer]

No cross hair? how does that work then..

[EvilBoris]

same as Goldeneye and timesplitters I presume; with a huge dollop of autoaim

[Uli]

this doesn't even sound like an average FPS. is there no co-op at all in the final game? what about AI, physics and environmental destruction? is there a cover system in place?

[EvilBoris]

I can't see why there would be co-op in the demo and not in the retail release.

[hudson]

Who said no co-op in final game? They're mad I tell thee! I think there is. I'm personally not feeling this.

[mmcg]

There's 4 player split-screen or online co-op in the game. Your friends can jump in and out instantly. We've known this since the game was announced.

As to the demo, I didn't really know what to think. The graphics were decent, not horrible but not really good either. The shooting was good, and bad shooting kills an FPS for me so no problems there. I couldn't really see the enemy that well in the demo, don't know if that's deliberate to make you use nectar, but there wasn't that many enemies until the last section, and it just felt like a trek through the jungle while killing a couple bad guys. Will probably pick this up on release as I liked the core shooting, and that's the main thing I look for in an FPS.

[Family Fry]

I thought the co-op mode was a separate campagin that ran through the single player story?
Fattening out plot holes and such, different scenes based around the same level taken from different point of view?

[mmcg]

The competitive multiplayer will be doing that. It'll be objective based and linked to the story mode in some way.

[Morph]

After all the anticipation and having now finished the demo. I would have said this demo is a complete waste of electricity and bandwidth but it has saved from finding out by paying for it and theres me thinking they stopped making N64 games - damn is this game blurry or what, textures are simply disgusting did any one say shaders? cos I can't see any the only decent visual effect is basic HDRI and all complete with boring generic fps gameplay. I can't believe Sony paid exclusivity for this garbage. Multiplayer features may be the only features that help Haze to sell. Sorry but this is honest as I can be - very disappointed I guess now we know why the game was severely delayed I would hate to think how bad it was before the delay..