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Free Radical

downloads

Preview HAZE In A Not-Too-Gimpy Demo

Remember Haze? It was the cross-platform game that went PS3-exclusive last year (when it was originally supposed to be released). Now it's slated for a US launch on May 20th and it's got a demo to boot—with 4-person, drop-in drop out multiplayer (all on top of a more standard single-player experience).

Whether or not Haze looks like just another FPS or something better, the still undated demo will give us all a chance to decide for ourselves before the game comes out. It reminds us a lot of what Criterion gave us with Burnout Paradise—a small, robust chunk of the entire gameplay experience. Good stuff.

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haze

Haze Gets Yet Another Release Date

Hear the one about the boy who cried Haze? Cried about a release date too many times, so when the game actually did appear, nobody believed him, and the game bombed at retail. Wise words. Those unable to heed the teachings of Aesop, however, may as well know that Ubisoft have announced a May 23 release date for Free Radical's very yellow shooter. That's for Europe. No date as of yet for North America, but if precedent's anything to go by, it shouldn't be too far off May 23.
Europe getting Hazed May 23 [GameSpot]

deals

GameStop Offering Haze For Free (You Know This Can't Be True)

Here's an odd promotion: GameStop is offering pre-orderers the chance to buy Haze, play it for a week and return it for a full buy-back refund (in-store credit, of course). Whereas most would simply rent a game that they intended to return, GameStop would prefer you to buy a game and forget to return it.

But if a retailer offered us a no-haggle, one-week return on all their titles, such would be commendable to the point of throwing parades in their honor. GameStop, we're subtly glaring in your direction. As for when we kicked you under the table—that was for past transgressions and not passing the butter.

Haze Being Offered For Free In The US/Canada [DarkZero via GamingToday]


release dates

Haze Gets A Hazy Release Date

Free Radical's Haze for the PlayStation 3 has been delayed and delayed again, but they promise us that they've finally gotten the whole releasing the game thing under control. How confident are they? Confident enough to release this new video, complete with May 2008 stamped at the end of it. That's pretty damn sure right there, while still leaving them a period of 30 days to shuffle it around in case they haven't gotten all the delaying out of their system and need a quick fix.

delays

Haze Delayed Again

Free Radical's drug-friendly FPS Haze has been delayed yet again. Now it's been pushed back for a vague release within the 2008 fiscal year, meaning sometime between April 2008 and March 2009, for any and all platforms. Yes, that's quite a wide range, but the news came out in a financial report, not a press release packaged neatly for gamers to devour. I blame my own, nasal, not-so-kind impressions for destroying the team's progress. Apparently even Crecente's more positive take couldn't balance out the jarring to Free Radical's studio.

Haze PS3 Delayed Again
[shacknews]


tivo alert

Gamer TV Haze Special Airs This Weekend

Video game television program Gamer TV will be airing a very special episode this weekend, all about the delayed and then delayed again PlayStation 3 exclusive shooter, Haze. The special is hosted by members of the Free Radical design team Dave Doak, Derek Littlewood, and screenwriter Rob Yescombe. The show will include exclusive footage of four player co-op in action, and promises to reveal an all-new twist in Haze's already twisted plotline. Gamer TV's Haze special will be airing this Saturday at 10:00 am on Bravo 2 in the UK, with encore showings on Bravo the first Sunday at 11:30 am and again on Monday at 4:30 pm. We yanks are going to have to wait until next Saturday to catch the show on Starz Edge at 11:00 am and again on the 12th at 8:30 pm. Be sure to set your Tivo so you can watch it over and over again until the game is released sometime early next year. More »

haze

A War Game That's A Game About War? Derek Littlewood on Haze

Gamasutra's Pierre Gaultier has an interesting interview up with Derek Littlewood of Free Radical on the subject of the upcoming PS3 title Haze. Narrative design and this whole question of making games compelling on a level a little deeper than 'Oooh, shiny!' is a hot topic, and various studios have claimed to have made great strides in realizing games that have some sort of higher purpose. Most of them have fallen short. Way, way short. Free Radical has set out to tackle the challenge, and from what I've read about Haze over the past couple of months, they seem to be hitting a lot of the important points in a pretty deep way - which is more than can be said for a lot of these 'Look, look, we have a deeper purpose!' games out there. What's Littlewood's take on Haze's place among games-with-a-purpose and games in general? More »

show them the money

Haze Developer Pioneers Radical New Pay System Called "Overtime"

I discovered at an early age that I never wanted to work in game development, despite my love for the medium and my illusions of creativity. It was when I learned that programmers, artists and designers had to work weekends that I realized this was not the field for me. We're all presumably familiar with the development cycle "crunch" that sees developers sleeping under their desks, seeing their kids only while they sleep and growing fat on a diet of savory snacks and sweet sodas. And they do it for a set salary. Insanity! More »

clips

Haze Injected PS3 Controller


You got to hand it to Free Radical, not only do they like sticking it to the Man, even when they're making a game for said Man, but they don't mind sticking it to Sony after sorta confirming the return of controller vibration months early in a dev diary. I guess those controllers were soaked in Haze too.


impressions

Sloppy Seconds - Haze

"So, I just want you to know that I'm here with the angle of what makes Haze different than just another first person shooter." Free Radical Lead David Doak nods politely.

See, I have this theory. It's not really a theory, really, and it's not my original idea. But every year we see people excited about some new FPS. We hear its features—the way it's doing things differently. And we're generally sold (anyone remember the Prey media blitz?)

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feature

Haze: A Study in Asymetric Combat

By: Brian Crecente

Rob Yescombe is worried. Not that Haze won't be critically received, but that the innovative shooter might be overlooked in the pre-holiday glut that threatens to deliver half a hundred must-have titles in three months.

The challenge Haze faces right now is one purely of Yescombe's doing: Everyone is focusing on the game's fascinating story, penned by Yescombe, which seems to turn an eye on both the nature of gaming and the nature of modern warfare. But in all of the talk about the deeper meaning of Haze's plot, gamers seem to be losing sight of the fact that that's not the only thing that makes this particular shooter different.

"The fun aspects of the gameplay kinda of got buried under the fun aspects of the story," he told me. "Most games tend to pin their chances on one thing. But we have many more things. And it can be too much to consume."

There is, for instance, the story, the fact that the game will support four-player co-op and the game's use of the drug Nectar. But what Yescombe and project lead Derek Littlewood want to focus on for now is how the team has created both in single and multiplayer modes a very asymmetric experience.

"Having an actual, functional asymmetrical gameplay system, that's pretty fucking exciting," Yescombe said.

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rumor

Rumble Sixaxis In Developer's Hands?

We've gotten in several tips involving this developer diary posted a few days ago on IGN, showing the folks at Free Radical polishing up the Haze demo that was shown at the Ubisoft gamers day back in late May. At the beginning of this lengthy, relatively entertaining video we see Haze being demoed to the press using a standard Sixaxis, while at around the ten minute mark we are shown two separate developers testing the game and the controller they are using is mysteriously blurred out. Could it be that Free Radical already has their hands on the rumble ready PS3 controller? More »

mad gun monkeys

More Timesplitters On The Way

I've always found the Timesplitters series to be the among most entertaining and technically proficient console FPS games ever created, plus I get to be a monkey in multiplayer which is a selling point no matter what genre your game is. Now a European PlayStation community member has discovered that the latest edition of OPM: UK (not to be confused with OPM US, which is dead) reveals that Free Radical is hard at work on a new entry in the series for the PS3, which means there is a good chance it'll be coming to the Xbox 360 as well, but OPM wouldn't tell you that. More »

what did you just call me?!

The Foul Language in Haze


Free Radical is trying to keep their upcoming game Haze as potty-moutherrific as possible so that when you lose in the game, you can really feel like a d*ckhead. Haze is supposed to be a challenging and mature shooter, so keeping the language as real as possible is big deal to them. According to David Doak, co-founder of Free Radical: More »

free radical

Haze Impressions

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mo money mo problems

Haze: Like Halo 3, But For Adults

Haze scriptwriter Rob Yescombe is about to become very unpopular with just about anyone who has an Xbox Live account. He recently poked the fanboy nest when he told Edge magazine that he thought of Halo as "brilliant, but you're a teenager" and suggested that the Free Radical shooter he's working on is more "mature" stuff. More »

microsoft

Star Wars Battlefront 3 Coming To 360

According to UK games outlet CVG, the next iteration of the Battlefield inspired, team based shooter with a Star Wars coat of paint will be hitting the Xbox 360, courtesy of TimeSplitters dev house Free Radical. Citing the recently announced partnership with LucasArts and unnamed sources, CVG has no more details other than "it's coming" and that former Battlefronters Pandemic Studios will not be on board for the next sequel. More »

wii

Free Radical: Wii Can't Handle Our Game

If you're riding steerage on the cruise to next-gen gaming, part of the "One Console Future" crowd, and your primary console is going to be the Nintendo Wii, you won't be joining the rest of us at Free Radical's ritzy Haze party. The Timesplitters and Second Sight dev says they're just going to require a little more horsepower under the hood for their next-gen FPS. More »