Haze - E3 Preview by Jason "Rodzilla" Rodzik   Posted on May 11, 2006   Twenty-five years in the future. Governments have outsourced military operations to private multinational corporations. As Jake Carpenter, a newly enlisted soldier in the Mantel army, you are seeking fulfillment and thrills by fighting for a good cause. Thanks to their high-tech arsenal of vehicles, deadly weaponry, and performance enhancing bio-medical support, the Mantel Corporation's ruthlessly efficient soldiers are the most feared by terrorists, dictators, and the corporation's political enemies. Your conflict begins in a war-torn country in South America, where you have been sent to fight a vicious rebel faction, The Promise Hand. At first glance, all is well, but things quickly begin to look a little strange… Rodzik’s Impressions The first thing I noticed when the in-game demo of Haze began was the outdoor environment, specifically the foliage. The locale that the player was placed in was full of rich, green trees, plants, bushes, and other plant life, and everything looked amazingly realistic. It was obvious that bloom lighting effects, HDR, and complex shaders were working hard to make everything look superb under the simulated sunlight, and Free Radical succeeded completely. The demo showed a four man team, of which the player was a member, taking out an entire unit of enemy soldiers. The other three players not controlled by the player himself were controlled very effectively by the artificial intelligence in the game. Weapons seemed to be pretty standard, and were effective as always. Unfortunately not much else was revealed about the game, so hopefully everything else about it will be as good as the graphics. Vince’s Impressions Haze had beautiful graphics in spades. The demo FPS level was set in an African jungle, and the rendering on the plants and trees was absolutely mesmerizing. Though much of Haze’s plot was not revealed, it was discernable that the game revolved around a military-for-hire whose purpose was to “export” democracy to other parts of the world in the not-so-distant future. All the basic weapons were there: assault rifles, hand grenades, rocket launchers, shotguns, etc.