Shooting Through The ‘Haze’
Ubisoft is on a roll. We just can’t get enough of the games that they are creating, but this time we are going to give you a sneak peek into the first-shooter game, Haze. It shares some characteristics of other first-shooter games, but is unique in its own way.
The single player demo put us in the role of Shane Carpenter, a trooper who works for a private military corporation Mantel. The action begins with a frantic and intense gun battle against the rebels through a thick Jungle environment, with bullets whizzing in all directions and explosions going off all around you. Armed with an assault rifle and some doses of Nectar, you make your way, with speed, through the jungle taking at any enemies in your path.
A lot of the strategy in the game revolves around a performance-enhancing substance called “Nectar.” If you play as a Mantel Corp. soldier, you can inject yourself with this stuff to give you several special abilities: you gain extra speed, your enemies are highlighted in red, your aim is tweaked more towards your target, and you get a “foresight” ability, which warns you if you’re about to get hit from behind, say. The catch to this though is if you use too much Nectar in a short time, you’ll lose control and start attacking your teammates.
Rebels emerge from within the undergrowth shooting frantically in your direction and the action is pretty frenetic, thanks to the tough AI who have an uncanny knack of being able to drop a grenade right at your feet, but as long as you’ve got some doses of Nectar at hand then you’re sure to come out on top. One shot of the drug and the enemy lights up with an orange glow making them easier to spot amongst the dense vegetation.
In addition your vision slightly blurs and the sound of a heavy heart beat adds to the tension and gives you a clue that the drug you’ve just taken may not be entirely good for your health. Nectar is in plentiful supply and can be pillaged from the dead bodies of rebels that you’ve killed; the AI in Haze is so good, we think it would be a struggle to complete the game without utilising the powers it offers.
Like we said before it is unique in its own way offering you a high paced game(on crack!)that is confusing when starting out, but once you play for awhile you’ll catch on and get addicted to.
