@ CaptainPrefrences )

ah another "told you so" post - sry but you'll have to share your cookie with fazz

Well, it did get a score of 4.5.  I think it's safe to say that they don't like the game.

That's BS.  A few people were hyping the game simply because it was made by Free Radical, but by and large ps3 fans and journalists alike dubbed the game "meh" long ago.  Ever since it first debuted in playable form, it looked and played like crap.

For example, read through this thread from weeks before the demo even hit.  For the most part, people were unimpressed with the game, even the more ps3-centric guys like PDF and Dallinor.   On NeoGAF, they had issues with people coming into EVERY thread concerning Haze and saying nothing but "meh" and "looks boring".

These sky high levels of hype are nothing but BS made up by the usual anti-ps3 guys in a juvenile attempt to make Sony fans look bad, and the sweeping generalization that ps3 fans are idiots pisses me off.

I said "most of what I remember" and I do think that represents most of what was said. *I* get to determine the scope of what I'm claiming.

The fact that one or even *gasp* three people may have said Haze would be a huge system seller exclusive doesn't mean shit, therefore it doesn't matter that I can't prove that none did.  To ask me to prove it is to do what you are accusing me of: requesting documentation of past statements. 

I seriously didn't read any posts to the effect of "Haze is teh dominator" or whatever.  People probably said it would contribute along with GTAIV and MGS4 to an uptick in attractiveness of the console, which is REASONABLE to say and assume for ANY exclusive.

Face it, you made an overstated bullshit claim about fanboy predictions just so you could claim that the low review had some major anti-Sony significance.  When Ubisoft made the f***ing thing.

No matter; PS3 sales doubled year over year.  So Haze may not contribute to the ever-increasing momentum, meh.  It still remains to be heard whether the online multiplayer is fun anyway; IGN seems to not have even reported on that.

LOL!

$0.  This isn't MS and Blue Dragon / Lost Odyssey we're talking about here. 

Good analysis.

I agree with the bolded part. When it comes to myself, I've stood by the stance that this game would probably only be worthy of a rental, but was still rather 'meh'. Probably the most extreme people would be proclaiming 'AAA' status, but it's not everybody.

Fun fact, when I used to get EGM (a long time ago), they had a small preview of the game back when the Mantel soldiers looked more like modern soldiers (the first trailer of the game) and they said it was a rather 'meh' game. Funny that the perception has never changed since then.

*edit* Ah-hah! EGM 205 featuring Call of Duty 3, page 59

"Haze - PS3/360 * Ubisoft * March 2007 * Impressio- Terrible

Futuristic first-person shooters set in jungles may sound like a fab idea, but it was hard to get wild for Haze's wilderness, mainly because of the game's mediocre squad-based play (your extra soldiers seemed more like extra baggage). The developers teased something supposedly cool called "combat stimulants," but they refused to show 'em. What a gyp!"

It looks like they were really banking on the performance enhancing nectar, which I guess is looked at as cool, but too bad everything else isn't that great about the game.  

epsilon72 said:

Wow

Me thinks the expectation was that Free Radical would deliver another solid shooter in the vein of TimeSplitters, and perhaps it was not met.

Check this out: http://www.quartertothree.com/inhouse/news/441/

While it may sound a little trivial, one thing that puts me off is the live action trailers as well as the main character's name being similar to Far Cry's hero (Shane Carpenter vs Jack Carver), which is a game I disliked with a passion. Not to mention both games sport lush green settings (not saying a different color palet from the norm is bad, but they're just similar). This could be because Ubisoft published both titles.

Well....because this game isn't "revolutionary" or "groundbreaking" it is considered "generic" right? Well, I guess the next COD will be generic, because it'll add nothing new to the formula, as Treyarch is going BACK to WWII, the next Gears will be meh, because all it's doing is putting more Locusts on screen and has better graphics, but other than that, Gears 1 did it already so GeOW2 will generic. Resistance was generic too because you saw a "run of the mill" shooter with typical weapons and added nothing new to the FPS genre.....

You see where I'm going? The reasons this game is getting bashed are the same reasons that other games are getting/going to get praised. And I mean, this 4.5 came from mostly stuff that had NOTHING to do with gameplay (sound...wtf?!?! 4 for graphics? 4.5 for presentation? But an 8 for Lair?) and then when they talk about the gameplay, they talk about "gimmicks" but the only "gimmick" is nectar, and you use it for less than half the game so....wtf. They want this game to fail, but for what I'm getting out of it, it's solid. I acknowledge that it's not groundbreaking in any way, but it's still solid. It's still FUN, and that's what should matter, not sound. If every game had to be revolutionary to be good (which the bias against Haze starts with) then the only games that should have gotten any good scores this generation are Wii Play/Sports, Bioshock, and arguably Resistance (for it's immense multiplayer). These reviews are nitpicking and only trying to find the flaws and not the good in the game.

Here's what I say, if you had a shelf full of FPS games and you didn't know how good each game was, if you randomly picked up Haze, you'd enjoy yourself.

It's score is low because the review is either bitching about it not being "innovative" or because he's comparing it to other FPSs. THAT'S NOT HOW YOU REVIEW GAMES!!!! You should review based on it's own merit. If it's solid, it's solid. Don't knock it simply because it didn't change the shooter genre, because Halo 3 didn't, Frontlines didn't, COD2/3 didn't, so on and so forth.

I will accept this game as being bad (even though I'm enjoying it so far) for being generic if The Conduit #1 doesn't get hyped and #2 is received as "meh" because it's just another sci-fi shooter that isn't changing how we play the game, right?