Weekly Ad [GameStop]

After all, Import Tuner Magazine loved it!

So how did destiny fare? The game is out, the scores are out, and the word is out on the ambitious first-person shooter. Does Haze deliver a nice, warm buzz, or does it leave you shaking and sweating in the corner, craving your next fix? Here's several small doses of Haze, now in convenient capsule form.

G4 X-Play
Here’s the problem — despite all of the creativity used to build the two sides in this game, Haze still plays like an incredibly average first-person shooter with some very sloppy design issues. Play as a member of the Hand and you feel incredibly naked, not to mention having to deal with very confusing level design that leaves you wandering around lost more than driving any sort of action. Play as a member of Mantel and, unless you’re juiced up, you’re pretty much just as useless.

GameTap
Sure, it has a consistent framerate and no loadtimes (thanks to its four gigabyte install), but its looks vary from "pretty good for an HD-gen shooter" to "wow, look at those textures change from low- to high-res back to low-, and check out those cracks!" The weapon pool is really scant, with just a pistol, assault rifle, sniper rifle, flamethrower, and rocket launcher. Sure, there are Mantel and Promise Hand versions of each weapon, but it realistically translates into the Mantel type looking futuristic while the Promise Hand version looks budget and uses a Spanish name.

CNET
A seven-hour campaign and uneventful multiplayer modes just don't cut it in light of the far better modern shooters available on the market. The patchy quality of the entire package is surprising, considering the developer's fine pedigree. Yet Haze is a roller-coaster ride made up of tall peaks and unfathomable valleys, and it won't leave you so much breathless as disappointed with its squandered potential.

IGN
There is a litany of problems with the game, from the odd warping of allied soldiers that blink into view suddenly at arbitrary checkpoints to poor texture work. Many of the environmental textures are generic and weak, and you'll frequently see seams or tearing constantly pop up within the game, which distracts from the action onscreen. The worst example of this has to be the visuals for the flamethrower, the Dragon de la Gente, which vomits a horrid cone of supposed flame that looks visually on par with what you'd find from the 386 PC days 15 years ago.

Kotaku
There's really no reason to recommend Haze over similar titles in the PS3 library. The game feels less polished than it should, seemingly "good enough" for release after suffering multiple delays. The story is forgettable, the weapons nearly indistinguishable and the seemingly strong concepts so poorly implemented that you'll have a hard time convincing three of your friends to drop whatever else they're playing for a co-op slog through the thing.

I thought I was going crazy over the past year concerning Haze, not seeing what the big deal was all about. I'm still a bit crazy, just not regarding this particular title.

For better or worse, Haze carries the distinction of being a PlayStation 3 exclusive and has the development pedigree of being created by the team responsible for seminal console shooters like GoldenEye 007 and the Timesplitters series. Unfortunately for Free Radical—and gamers—Haze won't be as fondly remembered as those two first person classics.

Loved
Mechanically Sound: Haze is a competent shooter, with somewhat interesting gameplay mechanics and tight—not to mention fully customizable—controls. It's meat and potatoes stuff, but the gunplay works rather well. Multiplayer is similarly competent but dry, with a serviceable, but run of the mill weapons selection.
Four Player Co-op: The pop-in, pop-out co-op campaign mode worked like a charm, turning the single player mode into a full sprint. You'll fly through the campaign mode if you're with a moderately skilled crew. Sadly, cut scenes cannot be skipped and at least one runs a good ten to fifteen minutes.

Hated
Idiot AI: Even on harder difficulties, computer controlled opponents don't put up much of a fight. AI enemies will abandon cover in lieu of running straight at you, guns blazing. Your teammates are useless for anything but drawing an auto turret's attention, as they'll routinely walk into your line of fire, then turn on you when you accidentally shoot them. Only then do they have any accuracy, resulting in frustrating deaths.
Great Concepts Are Squandered: Haze has some interesting gameplay twists, many that you'll like never use outside of the tutorials. As a Mantel trooper, you're in no danger of running low on Nectar, nor is there a threat of overdosing, outside of one obligatory over-Nectaring that seems to come out of nowhere. As the Promise Hand, burying grenades underground—you have the superhuman ability to dig through metal and concrete with your bare hands!—is largely pointless, as you'll be better served sticking to your rifle or super powerful pistol. In fact, you'll probably be doing yourself a disservice, likely dying in the process, trying to take advantage of some of Haze's marketed features.
Bland Overload: You'll be doing plenty of giant lever pulling in Haze while traversing its dull, often ugly environments. There's noticeable texture tearing and you'll see low quality textures and models popping in and out, even in cut scenes and with a mandatory 4 GB install. There's not much variety in the guns, as each side has its own semi-automatic rifle and shotgun, with a boring rocket launcher and flamethrower that spews hideous fire effects rounding out the more interesting weapon diversions. Virtually every aspect of the visuals is underwhelming.
Grating Dialogue: After you hear one of your Mantel buddies spout out a brain-dead line like "This is the most fun I've ever had with my pants on!" or "This sure beats pumpin' gas!" again and again or Promise Hand rebels repeating "Remember your promise to Merino!" for the hundredth time, you'll wish they were all dead. There's an an odd mix of mangled rap lyrics, heavy handed philosophy and dramatic cut scenes that come off as unintentionally comedic. "Yeah, boyeeee!"? Really?
Dull Main Character: As Shane Carpenter, you're an easily manipulated rube, a clueless sergeant with a wimpy voiceover who is unconvincing in his convictions. It's difficult to emotionally invest in him as your vessel, because he's not entirely empty, just saying enough to give him a shred of unlikable personality.

Free Radical has an interesting game buried deep within Haze, it's just layered beneath archaic gameplay and half-executed concepts that it's hard to get excited about any of the eight hours spent in the single-player campaign. Those eight or so hours feel unnecessarily padded, as you'll spend a painfully long time watching unskippable cut scenes and, later, escorting a slow missile deployment system and clearing a mine field that feels like busywork. Players may find more value in Haze's multiplayer modes, if they've got a thirst for generic Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch after running through the five Team Assault levels.

There's really no reason to recommend Haze over similar titles in the PS3 library. The game feels less polished than it should, seemingly "good enough" for release after suffering multiple delays. The story is forgettable, the weapons nearly indistinguishable and the seemingly strong concepts so poorly implemented that you'll have a hard time convincing three of your friends to drop whatever else they're playing for a co-op slog through the thing.

Haze was developed by Free Radical, published by Ubisoft. Retails for $59.99. Available on PlayStation 3. Played single player campaign to completion on normal difficulty, played campaign co-op mode for five chapters. Tested all multiplayer modes and harder difficulties.

We prioritise a nice smooth framerate over a different res. Personally, I don’t really buy the whole thing. People did the same with Call of Duty, they did the same with Halo, and they say with those games ‘It’s not running at true HD!’ And it’s like, I don’t care. If the game looks good and it runs smoothly, those are the important things to me.

When Derek Littlewood is right, Derek Littlewood is right. There are more important things, like whether or not a game is any good or whether your pre-order should be canceled.
Final Resolution Confirmed [Ripten via videogaming247]

Okay, I'm already late for Sony! Have a good weekend, y'all! Oh, what are you playing, anyway?

HAZE lifts on PSN demo tomorrow [PlayStation.blog]

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.

MEDIA ALERT: HAZE(TM) - *4 Player Co-op / Campaign Demo Incoming Exclusively for the PLAYSTATION®Network*

April 15, 2008 - Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers, today announced the imminent release of a fully playable demo for Haze, the new first-person shooter set in a harsh future where war is never quite what it seems. Coming exclusively to the PLAYSTATION®Network in early May, this playable demo will give gamers a taste of not only the single-player campaign in Haze, but will also allow up to four-player, drop-in drop-out co-op play online. Developed by shooter experts Free Radical, creators of the critically acclaimed TimeSplitters® series, Haze is scheduled for release exclusively on the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system on May 20th 2008 in the US. Haze is rated "M" for Mature by the ESRB.

While it may have been good for frugal gamers, and possibly smart marketing for Haze, I can't imagine why any publisher would ever want to contribute to GameStop's library of pre-owned titles.

Ubisoft: Incredible 'Haze' Canadian GameStop-EB Program Nixed [MTV Multiplayer]

...exclusive on the PS3 for now.

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]

Who knows when Haze will actually be making its way to stores (last we heard was sometime between April 2008 and March 2009). This latest clip shows off some of the game's split-screen co-op play, something that seems to be a growing trend among shooters. Which is a good thing, I think.

While video games often present a clean and polished atmosphere, Far Cry 2 presents a world that "isn't this clean, sterile, digital representation of Africa." Guns jam and wounds that are left untreated become fatal. As for leveling up your character, that plotline begins to sound a bit like Haze.

Early on, your character will become infect with malaria. Through the game, your weakened character will become stronger after encounters with medicine to treat said malaria. So far, so good.

But if your character loses access to said medicine, he begins to mutate into a viscous vomiting mutant—a plotline of chemical dependence not so thematically different from what we've seen of Haze. Hopefully this transformation is offered as a gameplay choice or risk/reward instead of simply a necessary linear path. But all in all, Far Cry 2 is sounding fairly enticing.

Fresh gameplay details uncovered for the Africa-set sequel [gamesradar]

Gamer TV's HAZE Special Airs On Bravo This Weekend

30th November, 2007

A special edition of GAMER TV dedicated to forthcoming PlayStation 3 exclusive HAZE airs on UK satellite and cable channel BRAVO this weekend.

The half-hour show features exclusive demos of 4 player co-op, new levels and weapons including the flamethrower and a look at the technology driving the game. It also reveals a brand new twist in the HAZE storyline.

GAMER TV's HAZE special is hosted by key Free Radical design team members Dave "Big Cheese" Doak, Derek "Big Brain" Littlewood and screenwriter Rob "Big Mouth" Yescombe.

Producer Jason Kilshaw commented, "This is everything you need to know about Haze then some! "

The programme airs in the UK at the following times.

Saturday 1st December 10.00 am BRAVO 2
Sunday 2nd December 11.30 am BRAVO
Monday 3rd December 4.30 pm BRAVO

Viewers in the US will be able to see it the following week on leading premium movie channel STARZ.

The US transmission times are:

Saturday 8th December 11.00 am (ET) STARZ EDGE
Wednesday 12th December 8.30 pm (ET) STARZ EDGE

Similarly, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, an Xbox 360 "exclusive" will ship after the first quarter of 2008, delayed by an unspecified amount.

Haze release delayed to Q4 [GamesIndustry.biz]

I've always felt that creative media are at their most compelling when they actually speak to the person experiencing them about their own life, and cause them to ask questions, or look at things from a different perspective, than they'd considered before. Haze certainly isn't the first game to try and do that, but it's still definitely the exception rather than the rule. I don't think we're going to cause every gamer who plays the game to look at war and violence in games in a completely different light, but I think the game will at least create a debate about those questions amongst some of the people who play it (to an extent, seeing people's reactions to some of our comments on the game, it's clear that debate is already happening), and that's an achievement enough in itself, I think.

Will Haze also fall short, or will they delivered on their promises? Only time will tell, but Littlewood's thoughts are interesting and not flying off into totally esoteric territory (frequently something to be admired).

Spinning The Moral Compass: Designing Free Radical's Haze [Gamasutra]

Korn has written and recorded an original song "inspired" by Ubisoft's upcoming shooter Haze. The song, Ubi says, will hit online music download sites in November when the game hits.

"Gaming for me is a religion and Haze is the shit!" said Jonathan Davis, Korn lead singer. "I had to come up with a track that can hit up that kind of rush I get from the game and I think we really rocked it!!"

This is the beginning of a new partnership Ubi plans to institute with musicians for upcoming games. The song, entitled Haze, will be promoted as a "full-fledged single."

I don't know about this, seems like it could be a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it depends on whether the song sucks or not. So I'll withhold judgment for now.

Well, Haze developer Free Radical Design is looking to change the payment structure for its employees, paying them extra money for the extra hours they put in. Genius. Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis tells Develop that "it's the way that the whole games industry needs to go" and that the indie developer is just adapting early. I know that I certainly appreciated my holiday overtime pay when I was foil-wrapping boiling hot candied hams as a kid! This is just like that!

Free Radical paying its staff overtime [Develop]

There is much disagreement about whether Haze is just another shooter with a neat story line or a truly unique experience with asymmetric fighting, that disagreement holds true for those at Kotaku Towers as well. Personally, I think that the game is unique on many levels, least of which is that it uses game play mechanics to reinforce the message in the storyline, which I think is pretty amazing. Mark, he falls in the other camp. Check out this video to help develop your own crazy opinions.

Ubisoft says that Free Radical's first-person shooter Haze is now being planned for the Playstation 3 only, according to Gamespot.

This comes after Haze went from a multiplatform game to the PS3 being the "lead platform." Today Ubisoft told Gamespot that "currently no other versions in development, and although it was still leaving the door open in the future for "new partnerships," currently the game is indeed only planned for the PS3."

The official statement on the PC and 360 versions of the game is that they are no longer confirmed. The Free Radical, Haze and Ubi websites now only list the PS3 version of the game.

Contacted this morning about the news by Kotaku, Free Radical said they couldn't comment.

Haze for PC and Xbox 360 Put on Hold [GameSpot]

The good stuff is right here, though. For anyone who might've missed it, Sony has uploaded a high-def version of the Metal Gear Solid 4 Games Convention trailer, "Beauty and the Beast." Clips for Heavenly Sword, Timeshift and Haze are also ready to invade your sectors. Wallpapers for WarHawk and flOw round out the gaming content.

So, kick back in your super cool pad, curl up to your special someone and make it a PlayStation Network night. Watching progress bars fill is the definition of a romantic Friday night.

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?)

As Crecente wrote in his earlier feature, Haze is all about the asymmetric gameplay. One side is the Mantel, super juiced soldiers who have an incredible amount of battlefield awareness and general killing skill. The rebels, on the other hand, are more about versatility and adaptability than brute force.

At all times as a rebel, it's your job to figure out how to use Mantel's precious nectar against them, be it by:

1. Shooting the drug administration canister on their backs to make the soldiers overdose and go berserk.
2. Killing the soldiers and taking their drug packs, quickly modifying the technology into a grenade to make the soldiers overdose and go berserk.
3. Stabbing soldiers with a haze-covered knife to make the soldiers overdose and go berserk.

You being to wonder why the rebels can only induce control the flow of drugs one way, despite using just about every weapon at their disposal. Why isn't drug withdrawal an issue in multiplayer? Why can't the rebels grab a haze pack before killing a Mantel soldier, rendering his opposition's aim shaky, strength lower and susceptibility to damage higher?

Maybe a Mantel soldier, finding his stash pickpocketed, could have a set time to find a spare haze pack before they found themselves temporarily incapacitated, you know, for a helpless living corpse humping. Because that's what we mean by evolving the FPS genre.

I think Haze is, unfortunately, that sort of one-trick pony FPS that fails to explore its Big New Idea to a level that makes it rise from the pack. But then again, as our own Michael McWhertor was quick to point out:

"It's better than a no-trick pony."

...on the one hand that's a disadvantage, because developers will under-deliver compared to what Live provides. But at the same time, because it's not as strongly defined, you have the freedom to do it in the way that you want to - in a way that may be more suitable to your game.

I think Microsoft has done an excellent job forcing a standard of quality on their platform. But with that standard out for the industry to live up to, it does open up an interesting opportunity for PS3 developers to innovate while, I'd hope, serving as an "on your honor" quality check across platforms. Give a penny, take a new UI.

Haze Developer: PSN Offers More Freedom Than Xbox Live [spong]

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.

The game is divided into two types of play. When you start the game you are a Mantel soldier, which means you have elite training, the best weapons and a limitless supply of Nectar. While the drug does filter everything you see, it also provides you with some pretty significant gameplay advantages.

When you juice up on the drug, administered through a pack built into the back of your armor, you're given four very specific boosts abilities.

Nectar Perception: All of the rebels in the vicinity are highlighted in a strong orange glow.
Nectar Foresight: A sort of six sense that causes a ripple effect around grenades that have been thrown near you. It also warns you of pending melee attacks.
Nectar Focus: This sniping aid allows you to focus in on a target and, after a second, draw you automatically into a headshot.
Melee Blast: A very powerful melee attack.
Power-up: In general you can take and deal out more damage and you move and turn faster.

"If you use Nectar you are in your most effective fighting state," said. Littlewood. "You are the most powerful fighter you can be."

To make full use of these abilities you need to keep your Nectar levels at about 90 percent and every time you shoot someone you get a small Nectar boost. But with this power comes a major draw-back, too much Nectar and you go into overdose. So the trick to playing Mantel is to find that perfect balance.

"When you overdose, everyone around you starts to look the same," Littlewood said. "Your ability to not shoot is reduced. Your auto aim snaps to players."

What this means in game, especially in multiplayer games, is that literally everyone looks like a rebel when you OD and your controls will try to auto aim to anyone near your reticle. If you do end up aiming directly at someone your gun will start to fire automatically.

"You suddenly finding yourself working to not aim at people," he said.

People in a Nectar Haze also will sometimes automatically pull a grenade and start to cook it, letting the pin drop out but not throwing it. Eventually it blows up in your hand, taking you and anyone near you out.

The developers said they are playing around with the idea of adding a mini-game that would allow you to toss the grenade away if you succeed. They also are playing around with the idea of letting your teammates melee you into dropping the grenade.

While Rebels don't have the training,weapons or Nectar, they still have plenty of unique abilities.

Weapons Steal: You can melee and swipe away a Mantel players gun and then use it on them.
Play Dead: When you down to about 25 percent health you can push a button to drop to the ground and play dead. Because of the Nectar you will literally disappear from the view of all Mantel soldiers. A mini-game allows you to pop back up and dish out some damage. Succeed and you hop to your feet, fail and you stand slowly.
Scavenge: This ability allows you to convert the ammo of any dropped weapon you find to work with the weapon you are currently holding.
Nectar Grenade: You can pry loose the Nectar pack from a fallen Mantel soldier and attach it to a grenade. When you use that grenade it creates a cloud of Nectar that lasts 10 to 15 seconds. Any Mantel soldiers who pass through it or are caught in it will go into overdose mode immediately.
Nectar Knife: Creating Nectar grenades automatically covers the knife in Nectar. If you cut a Mantel soldier with it they overdose.

Rebels can also shoot a Mantel soldier in the Nectar pack, causing them to overdose.

And the differences between the Mantel soldiers and the rebels isn't just about their look and abilities, they did a lot of other little things to highlight their unique tactics.

During motion capture, for instance, the Mantel soldiers were all played by a former SAS soldier, while the Rebels were played by an actor with no military training.

The game's AI has also had significant work, Littlewood said.

"We spent enormous amounts of time on the AI," he said. "We basically rewrote the AI. We used the Timesplitters AI in the past, but this time we threw all of that out."

"The new AI is very much about it being adaptive and reacting to different situations. We spent a lot, an awful lot of time building two different, distinct personalities into the AI: The Rebels are more careful. The Haze are much more forward.

"You only really appreciate the interesting things when you see what it does."

Something I had a chance to do when I was at E3.

Playing through a chunk of the game I was impressed with both how easily it was to perform some of the special actions, like a weapons steal. But more importantly, I found myself surprised, a number of times, at the way an enemy reacted to my attacks.

Of course they did the whole duck and cover thing and they even seemed to back each other up. But in one area of a map, which looked a bit like a rundown apartment complex, another AI controlled rebel seemed to get tired of my poor aim and ran past me to take a Mantel soldier down with his knife.

I was also meleed more than once when tinkering with something in the controls as a bad guy stood around a corner hiding from me.

In general I found the controls themselves very tight and the map construction was both spread out and vertical in some places, the sort of combination I love in my first-person shooters.

Littlewood said the games online play will support up to 24 players online, something that's being tested an awful lot right now over at the Free Radical studios. The studio might even push out an open public beta, though that hasn't been decided yet.

"We are going to use every single last second we have to try and balance the game," Littlewood said. "You can never have enough time when you balancing a game."

In the coming months, the team plans to also shift the focus on the game from the deep and very interesting storyline, to the games nuanced and asymmetric gameplay. Hoping in the shift that gamers understand that Haze isn't about one or the other, but both.

"We are under no delusions that the market is split between people who like the plot and people who pick up on gameplay," Yescombe said.

Talking with Free Radical Design's Rob Yescombe and Derek Littlewood today, I asked them if they had seen the reaction Shigeru Miyamoto had to Haze. Both the video of his viewing the game and the reaction others felt he had to the game's use of drugs.

Both said they had. Yescombe said he thinks that perhaps Miyamoto misunderstood the deeper meaning in the game and in particular how it uses the drug Nectar to make a point, a very anti-drug point.

"The game is pretty disturbing and to be fair that's our intention," he said. "Drugs in the game was something that we wanted to be very careful about.The over-arching message is that Nectar is an enormous mistake."

"We didn't come up with the idea of including the drug first, we had the story and the distinction in gameplay ideas first and Nectar became a tool to get those points across."

While on the topic of Nintendo, I asked the two what the thought of the Wii in general and if they'd ever make a game for it.

"Let's just say there is a Wii in the office," Yescombe said laughing.

Littlewood said on a personal level he is intrigued with the new form of control the Wii offer to both gamers and developers.

"Personally, as a gamer, I think it has definite potential (as a first-person shooter controller)," he said. "It can be done, you can get really great FPS controls with the Wii. I think it has huge potential there."

Shigeru Miyamoto was all over E3 this year. As I mentioned in a post last week, one of the major benefits of this year's show was that developers seemed to have a bit more time to get chatty with the competition, seeing each other's stuff, even playing each other's stuff. It was certainly a kinder, gentler E3.

This tiny gallery shows Miyamoto's visit to the Ubisoft suite where he checked out Haze, Assassin's Creed (Yes, that's Jade there doing the demo. I bet she remembered his name) and other games. Oh, and that's him shaking hands with Ubi pres Yves Guillemot. Hit the jump for Epileptic Game's fantastic vid of "The Shiggy", Miyamoto's gamer's face while watching Haze... I think the game might have freaked him out a bit.

I just sat through a very impressive demo of Haze gameplay. While the game itself looks amazing, what most blew me away was the revelation that what we had seen and heard about up till today was really only a small portion of the game.

To catch you up, in Haze you play as a sort of super trooper, a soldier working for a corporation. As a soldier you're supplied with nectar through an automated administrator attached to your back. The nectar gives you some distinct advantages in combat: it can slow time down, give you a bit of auto-aim, help you heal faster, and let you pinpoint enemies easier.

Early on this seems great, but the developers told me today that that benefit comes with quite a price.

About 30 percent through the game you start to realize that the Nectar that gives you these powers also warps your perception. When you shoot people they don't bleed. When those people die their bodies disappear. Sound familiar? It should, the devs said the game is as much a indictment of video game violence as it is real world violence.

There is a scene, when your nectar flow is cut off that you suddenly see the world for what it really easy. Where once there was a sunny environment free of death and carnage, you now face a rainy world with dead bodies. Soon after your character switches sides and becomes a rebel.

Although you no longer have the benefit of nectar, you do have a bunch of new attacks. My favorite is the ability to use nectar against your former buddies in arms.

You can do this several ways. You can embed nectar into a grenade, coat your knife with it or destroy a soldier's nectar administrator. Now matter what you do, the effect is the same: the soldier loses it. In the case of the grenade, all of the soldiers in the yellow cloud of nectar lose it. They turn on each other, shooting all over the place, throwing grenades, committing suicide. During this sort of nectar OD the normally yellow masked soldiers glow red.

You can also play dead. This works because as a soldier you are used to dead bodies disappearing. What happens in the game is that when you are close to death you can press the L2 button and go into a feigned death, disappearing from the soldier's view. A few seconds later you pop back to life and you can take them out. There's a little mechanic in coming back from your feigned death that effects how quickly you get up from the ground. Essentially it's a timed button press.

The only other thing I saw that was different was that rebels can melee a soldier and steal his weapon. This is done by first tapping the left trigger and then quickly the square button. Once you have their weapon you can dispatch them pretty quickly.

The neatest thing is that all of these interesting play elements will hold true for multiplayer as well. When you feign death in multiplayer you will disappear from view. When you hit someone with a nectar grenade it will disorient them and force them to fire all over the place, yes the real player will start firing all over the place. If they have grenades they'll start tossing them. The devs told me that the best way to deal with this if you're on their team is to melee them, knocking them to the ground, and out of their nectar-induced trip but not killing them.

The game interesting, very details, but not over the top like Killzone 2 or Gears of War. More along the lines of something like Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter, but with a distinctly run-down world feel. The AI seemed pretty sharp. I saw at one point. A friendly NPC run up to a soldier and take him out with a throat slice. And the background chatter. Holy crap, it was fantastic. Some of it very funny, some of it very angry all of it obnoxious.

Haze looks like it's going to separate itself from the pack not only with an interesting plot but with a play mechanic that backs up some of the social commentary that the game seems to be trying to make. I can't wait to see the finished product.

Remember that Ubisoft release sched yesterday? The one that showed Haze coming out on the Xbox 360 and PC just one week after the PS3?

Ubisoft is now saying that maybe that isn't exactly right in a post in the company's official forums.

Officially HAZE is a PS3 lead development, PC and 360 versions are not confirmed at this time. There was an error in a release schedule which went out which is causing a lot of confusion right now.

Before jumping to any conclusions, keep in mind Ubisoft is just saying they haven't "confirmed" that the game is coming to the PC and 360 and that the PS3 version is the "lead" version. I suspect what this really means is that the lead time between the different versions might be a bit longer and that they didn't mean to send out the PC and 360 release dates quite yet.

November 23rd for the PS3 version, and November 30th for the 360/PC version! [Ubi forums]

It looks like that release list of upcoming titles from Ubisoft is legit. Yes, even the one that says Haze is coming to the PC and Xbox 360.

That's the thing about the word exclusive, it's all relative. Sure Haze is a PS3 exclusive when it hits on November 23, but come November 30 it's a mutliplatform title available for purchase on the PC and Xbox 360 as well.

The list also includes the 360 Dark Messiah offering, Elements, as well as Assassin's Creed and Clancy's latest: Splinter Cell Conviction. I was disheartened to see nary a word on End War. Hopefully, they'll be showing it off in a playable form at E3.

Hit the jump for the list. Brian Crecente

September
Dark Messiah: Elements - Sept. 7 (Xbox 360)
Settlers VI - Sept. 7 (PC)
Brothers In Arms: Double Time - Sept. 21 (Wii)

October
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja - Oct. 19 (Xbox 360)

November
Assassin's Creed: Nov. 9th (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway: Nov. 16 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2: Nov. 16 (Wii, DS)
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction: Nov. 16 (PC, Xbox 360)
Haze: Nov. 23 (PS3)
Haze: Nov. 30 (PC, Xbox 360)