Talk about securing the wrong exclusive - the one game among a sea nobody cares about.

Where's them Assassins and Mass Effects?

hey, it's Master Chief!!

and you can see his face!!!!!!!!!

A badly needed exclusive, but from what I've seen, it's not a killer app that Sony needs (Sony fan bois, please. try to disagree with me here.)

It'll help, but it is just another American FPS with a druggy theme to it.

It would have been murdered running alongside Call of Duty 4. I've yet to be interested in Haze, and though some people seem to be, will it really be better than CoD4? As much as a message the former claims to promote, the latter was an entirely amazing game, save for three moments in particular on Veteran that were completely frustrating.

I suppose we'll see in December, then. No sense writing it off before it hits the gates.

@Huginn: Dude, it's developed by Free Radical Design.. in Nottingham.... In England.... 5mins up the road from where I am now.

This on Crappy box art. Looks retro to me(80s style). Like "The Terminator" movie with Arnold holding his gun up with the lasers coming from the back, and why is he so pissed? haha

Haze is to PS3 as the original Killzone is to PS2... all hype, no substance. Thankfully Killzone 2 looks WORLDS better, but it will all come down to the gameplay.

Remember, Exclusive doesn't always mean better... just look at most of the 'exclusive' Wii titles. *snicker*

Throw up a demo so I can decide how much I hate it, like all the other PS3 FPS games.

I think the sales of Haze in December will likely come in with disappointing results. They're missing Black Friday and a legion of holiday shoppers (especially if they release 2 weeks prior to Christmas). Many of the people that would buy this game for themselves will be strapped for cash because of the shopping they've already done.

Hopefully it can have some serious longevity in sales to make up for that.

Does anybody know if HAZE supports co-op campaign play (off-line and/or online)?

@NecronomiconUK: Ok, it is English made, but done in an american FPS style game little different then painkiller meets half life.

I will admit that is cool that you do have a worldwide publisher down the street from you :)

I see this game as the next big letdown.
This Holiday Season belongs to MS and Nintendo.

@Mycool: Yeah, 4 player online co-op

I've noticed that the only tv advertising I've seen for Assassins Creed and COD4 has been "framed" as a Playstation game. You know, how at the beginning of a commercial you see the pLaystation logo (or at the end of commercial for 360 games). There were no mention of them being a 360 game in the commercials at all. Wonder if sony paid for this to be...

I'm on the fence with this game since there's already too much coming out in Nov. & Dec., but I can't deny that I've enjoyed TimeSplitters 1 & 2 (also developed by Free Radical); so I'll most likely pick this game up (unless the reviews are horrible), just not anytime soon.

@Huginn: There's quite a number of big developers around these parts. Used to work for one of 'em as well

If COD 4 had offline co-op there wouldn't have been a choice between these 2 games. Assuming Haze has, and along with split-screen online play, I'll probably be buying it at christmas

Wooo! Now each console this generation has an exclusive title which has a face-concealing-helmet protagonist. Wii - Samus, X360 - Master Chief, PS3 - Haze dude.

They say this is a PS3 exclusive but is it just for this year? I was digging around PS3center.net and found this little tidbit info in a story about Haze:

"Haze will not be released on the Xbox 360 this year which is great news for Sony fans dying for a solid exclusive game."

"this year" does that mean that it will be out some other year? Sony can't bear to lose another third party exclusive. FYI, isn't UT III coming aboard the 360 flag ship too :) yea for me!!!

Hey Geoff your embargoed thoughts on the game are pretty obvious if you think Sony are kicking themselves...

Must be great! And thats awesome to know, I had my doubts.

More love for Uncharted!

Yeah but who cares about Haze really? this title has totally failed to grab me.

@NecronomiconUK:
Thanks for the info. I assume that means it will have offline co-op too. If this is the case, I will buy it if it's a decent game. If COD4 had co-op campaign, I would buy, but no co-op means no sale for me (except in Ratchet's case, but that's because my wife is a sucker for a cute Lombox).

This will be a good test, I wonder if the PS3's "exclusive" Haze coming out in the middle of the holiday season can beat next year's delayed 360 Haze.
I'm guessing no, but it may be close.

This game is really looking good for me because of the co-op. I play as many games as I can with my 2 brothers, and this might be one of them.

The fact that it's being developed by Free Radical has me very interested. From what I've seen it's nothing super fantastic and ground-breaking, but it looks like it has the potential to at least be fun, if nothing else, and that's what gaming is all about, having fun.

@Huginn: Why, you, it's going to be a killer app, 'cause, err, yellow visor... and drugs, and... rebels... and it's a PS3 exclusive like not on the 360 so, hum, it's bound to be like the best Dec. '07 FPS ever, so shut up you - you - you... NAYSAYIN' NANSY PANSY!!!

So, ya convinced yet? :D

@jrey508: Ubisoft are pretending the PC and 360 versions of the game never existed. Which I assume means that part of the exclusivity deal means they aren't allowed to talk about anything but the PS3 version at the moment.

The only buzz about Haze seems to be entirely media generated (i.e. placed magazine covers and the like). Could someone that has a little bit more info on it let me know what seperates it from the pack?

@PeonCulture: It has four player co-op. I need to check to see if it is online as well as offline, but it looks promising. I honestly don't see where all the Haze hate is coming from. So far, nothing I've seen of the game suggests that it will be a let down.

That said, I bought Call of Duty 4 recently, entirely on a whim. I'm not too big on FPS, Resistance being the first FPS I really sat down and enjoyed, but CoD4 is amazing on PS3. If Haze can even be nearly as good, then that's another game I can enjoy. Here's looking forward to it.

If Haze wasn't being developed by Free Radical, I would have no interest in the title. Timesplitters 2 is my favorite console shooter ever, though, so I hope this game really rocks.

Wow, so many haters. Whatever, Haze is actually going to be a good game. What seperates it? Hmm, nectar maybe?

Am I the only one who has no idea what this game is about? I'm serious. I keep up on games and such, and I couldn't tell you any details about this game if my life depended on it.

Way to go Sony and UbiSoft, you guys better get a media blitz going on this one soon if they even want to sell "A" copy let alone enough to justify exclusivity...

@PeonCulture: Delaying it a few weeks was probably the smart thing to do on their part. Call of Duty 4 this week, Assassin's Creed and Mario Galaxy next week plus Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Mass Effect, Rock Band and Kane and Lynch on the following week.

Yeah, early December looks much safer.

Talk about trolling central.

I could have sworn this was only a timed exclusive. I guess things have changed since?

I'm looking forward to this game actually. From the trailers I've seen the Mantel / Rebel balance seems to have some depth to it, and I love the concept of Nectar, especially the rebooting scenes.

I hope the weapon stealing mechanic works better than Timeshift though, the demo of that was a bit of a train wreck on PS3.

@handymanny: Actually, it is completley reminiscent of Judge Dredd for some reason. [www.cs.helsinki.fi]

@NecronomiconUK: And this is the ONLY compelling feature of the game.

@deviation59:

Is it really? I'm not so sure. There's a reason why publishers avoid mid December like the plague. If there was any safety in that month then one of the big November titles would've been delayed until December to better their chances of sales.

I personally am still expecting a delay, unless Sony's (likely still timed) exclusivity deal has a timeframe stipulation in it. Add in that gameplay videos have been rare with Haze. That doesn't really make a December release look like a solid lock.

@superbabyproject: Let me reassure you: the TimeShift demo was also a bit of a train wreck on the 360...

Actually, Haze is somewhat in the same situation as TimeShift a few weeks ago: they both have an interesting concept (nectar/time-manipulation) with great potential.

TimeShift didn't really deliver on its promise.
We'll see about Haze. But I just watched a "Gameplay interview" DLed from the PSN, and there definitely is some potential there.

I especially like the way that Nectar not only gives extra juice to the Mantel soldiers, but also shrouds their perception of the world (by "deleting" corpses from their view, for example).

I just hope this isn't one of those games where you technically have many options to deal with any given situation, but where the best one usually ends up being: kill anything that moves without thinking.

We'll see............. Not a killer app for sure, but maybe an enjoyable romp.

From what I've read, Haze uses 4 player drop-in, drop-out co-op, where you'll always have 3 teammates all the time (player or AI).
Wonder how this game will end up by Dec...

@handymanny:
@daschupa:
maybe i am the only one, but i like the boxart. it is supposed to be symbolic of the game's story. the protagonist is a soldier in a corporate army. they jack them up on drugs to be elite fighting machines. but then at one point in the game, he sides with the rebels to take down Mantel (the corporation he worked for).

the crack in the helmet, exposing his face, is symbolic of his eyes being opened to what is really going on. look behind him, and you see what the Mantel army is doing. he is now aware of the atrocities. this independent thinking contrasts the number that you can faintly see on the forehead portion of the mask (looks like a 3). think, "i am not a number, i am a free man!" so i think this boxart scores some points on actually having some depth and symbolism to it.

(usually i myself would say i am looking into this too much, but with all the stuff i have read about the game i think this follows suite with what the developers are going for)

I thought this game looked interesting, was disappointed that it doesn't look like I could pick it up for the 360. Hope it turns out good anyhow, the previews sounded (and looked) pretty great.

@PeonCulture:
Yeah, December rarely produces a big seller. Usually people are LONG broke by then.

I'm not going to slam Haze because I have no idea how good it'll turn out. I'd be VERY surprised if it was a bad game, though. Too much talent at FR for it to be bad. But I also expect it to be basically ... Timesplitters. In that, I'm referring to sales and interest. So whatever Sony paid for the (probably timed) exclusivity, it's unlikely that it'll pay off in the end.

Plus, as I've stated consistently before, PS3 owners are just not buying games for it like they should.

@ajefferism:

The Simpsons Game was like that, too, in PS3's favor. They're just marketing it how they need to market it to maximize their profits. Part of that involves squeezing out everything possible from your smaller install base. Another part, though, likely involves promotional marketing money from Sony (or Microsoft, in the cases where they're shown rather than the PS3 in a commercial).

I wouldn't say that Sony is paying anyone off so much as they're buying advertisement space to piggy back on a multiplatform title's commercial. It costs them a little, but ideally the payoff will justify it.

@IntelSilver:

Check back in the posts prior to Haze's 'exclusivity' announcement. There are definitely people excited about this game, but there are plenty still who have never cared for it.

There's always someone who assumes that it being on the PS3 is why people don't like it... Did you see anything like that regarding Rachet & Clank? I highly doubt it. Maybe Uncharted, though mostly from that jetski clip.

@StocDred:

Done. Also here's an Uncharted demo too. Anything else you need?

I t hink Haze will be good game, just not ZOMG awesome uber exclusive.

The one thing HAZE has going that hopefully turns out well, is its story. It sounds good but who knows how well it will be implemented.

@Heliophage: SONY is paying to advertise 3rd party games now, MS was doing it for many titles to show off its logo, but now SONY is doing it as well and they have admitted it.... there was relevant links on NeoGAF but there is a bunch of 3rd party games that SONY is going to pony up marketting money towards. Haze is one of the titles on the list of those getting some SONY money for commercials.

@Heliophage: Yes, i did actually see hate for Ratchet and Clank. Tell me, what reason is there really to hate on this game.

@$atanyoka: Hate on Haze.

@Kyle81: You're saying Sony "admitted" paying to advertise 3rd party games like it's something shameful...

A company buying advertisement space for the products its profits depend on: what's so strange about that? 3rd party or not, a PS3 game sold is mo' money for Sony.


I doubt their strategy is to "hide" the fact that games like COD4 are also on the 360 (how many 360 owners will buy a PS3 thinking that's the only way they'll play Assassin's Creed?).

(The thing Sony doesn't want to admit is paying for exclusivities. Now that's an entirely different question.)

I'm skipping COD4 for more single player depth; I'll pick up Haze when it comes out. Holiday purchases...R&C, Assassins Creed, Uncharted, and Haze. I don't have money or time for anything else.