PAX 2007: Hands-On with Haze

At this year’s PAX, I was able to get some play time in with Ubisoft’s upcoming FPS, Haze. For this demonstration, me and some fellow journalists got a chance to try out the four-player co-op mode and see just how it differs from your standard shoot ‘em up fare.

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. It’s this drawback though that gives the opposing side, the rebels, their edge. A rebel can do a number of different things to cause the soldiers to overdose on Nectar. They can simply shoot the pack on their backs, or they can pick up Nectar from fallen soldiers to wield grenades or knives coated in the stuff. All these methods produce the same effect: the soldiers go crazy and start shooting each other. You’ll start out the single-player game as a soldier, but midway through you’ll be presented with a choice for which side you’ll choose; each of which come with their own strengths and weaknesses. For the co-op mode, you’ll also be able to pilot several vehicles; each of which have spots for four people, so everyone can ride together.

If that all sounds complicated then, well, it kind of is. It took awhile to get used to, but near the end of the demo I started to get the hang of it. Once you reach that point though, you start to see the game’s strong points really shine. If all the special abilities remain intact for the multiplayer, then I could see this becoming a great online game. There are few things more satisfying than lobbing a Nectar-gas grenade at a group of soldiers and watching them just start killing each other off.