Drugs are good and bad
It's not all good news however, Nectar does have its downsides as was demonstrated when we took one dose too many and witnessed screen blurring, so it was difficult to tell the difference between friend or foe. Other bad side effects included targetting problems and your gun sporadically going off without pulling the trigger.
The big twist in Haze (which we're sure has already been ruined online, but if you don't want to know then don't read on) is that the main character, Shane defects to the side of the rebels after he discovers that the government were lying about the benefits of taking Nectar. This is where your skills change as you no longer have Nectar to help you win the battles. So instead, you use Nectar against the Mantel in a rather inventive way. You can now shoot the enemy and steal the nectar from their bodies, which you can then form into a Nectar grenade, which can be tossed at the Mantel causing them to overdose and behave erratically. The effects that Nectar has on the enemy is the same as it had on you, such as firing wildly at anyone around them or even shooting themselves - one guy who we threw a Nectar grenade at even took out one of his own grenades pulled the pin and just watched it explode in his hands. Furthermore, if you get shot by a Mantel and are half-dead as it were, then you can pretend to be dead, wait for the enemy to wander past and then shoot him. These two style of gameplays and the different skills associated with the two warring factions, will be brought even further to the forefront and used tactically in the online multiplayer mode, which will feature Mantel Vs Rebel troops in modes such as Team Deathmatch.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageWe've got no doubts that the storyline in Haze and the unique gameplay elements will see the game attracting a decent fan base, but it's really going to be the multiplayer element of Haze that will make or break the game. If the developer's can get the right balance the two sides and make two sets of skills that compliment each other then we're really in for a treat. The only bad thing we have to say about Haze thus far, is that we're disappointed to hear that it will only launch with 6 multiplayer maps.
Haze may look like a mixture of Far Cry, GRAW and Timesplitters - even some elements of the gameplay will be similar to those titles - but its great storyline and number of unique features, which haven't been seen before in an FPS, has really made it stand out amongst the numerous first person shooters in Leipzig .
