Haze 'had a lot of development issues' says Hilton
- Posted August 12th, 2009 at 16:49 EDT by Mike Harradence
- 48 Comments
Karl Hilton of developer Free Radical has admitted that the PlayStation 3’s tricky architecture caused more than a few headaches for the firm during the development of FPS Haze.
Hilton told website Develop that the game “had a lot of development issues which meant it wasn’t the game it should have been,” before admitting the team had to get over a few technical hurdles in order to get the game up and running on Sony’s console.
“A lot of them were technical issues,” he continued. The PS3 is a powerful machine but a difficult one to get the best out of. We spent more time trying get the game running properly and less time to design the game properly.”
That’s all in the past, though, with Free Radical having since gotten into financial difficulties, entering administration, and subsequently being assimilated into the Cryek fold, becoming Crytek UK.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the best out of the PS3 at all,” Hilton went on, “and I definitely think one of the best things about Crytek and the CryEngine is that we’re now in the best position to get the most out of the hardware.”
Comments
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VintageElise |
VintageElise- 4:50pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 1
HAZE = Good game. Before all the hating starts. If you look past the faults anyway.
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Girugamesh |
Shidousha- 4:57pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 3
Almost everyone who hates on Haze has never played it - fact.
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terminator12259 |
tacitassassin25- 5:03pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 4
if they had so much trouble they should have asked for help, Sony would have helped them
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sykojoe
- 5:06pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 5
haze had a great story and fantastic gameplay. one of the best games i purchased. graphics were that of the pc version of farcry 1 but that never stopped me from enjoying it. thats what made it so ridiculed. even the multiplayer was great too. had some great multiplayer maps and games too. and split screen multiplayer online... how many games can say they had that?
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DarkNemesis
- 5:11pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 6
But then we have Killzone 2.No way anything on the Cryengine will be on KZ2's level.
Oh and Haze was a garbage game period beyond it's technical issues.
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ddPLaNeT |
ddPLaNeT- 5:16pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 8
I don't what's the deal on the Haze hate. The game isn't that bad. Actually i had fun with it for a rental.
It's a straight up shooter and the guns and controls are typical Free Radical stuff wich is good for those who like the Timesplitters serie.
Maaannn, people talk as if the game was unplayable, ran at 5 fps and had 8-bit graphics and sound.
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Teluc |
Teluc- 5:25pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 10
1 @
My god what a load of cr** to say. The game is good if you look past all the faults? How are you supposed to do that, when the faults are a part of the game.
Its almost like saying "that guy would be mad fast, if he just had legs" or "That girl woul look nice if she wasnt overweight, bald and had glasses as thick as hockey pucks".
Haze isnt a good game. Its not bad, but compare it to other shooters (Killzone, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Resistance) and its crystal clear, that Haze is no where near beeing a good game.Even the guy from Free Radical says that the game was poorly designed: "We spent [...] less time to design the game properly"
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chilledbreeze7
- 5:31pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 11
For me Haze has to be one of the worst games ever brought out for the PS3. There was so much hype and build up to the release of the game and it turned out to be a right pile of *******!
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PLAYSTATION_Cipher
- 5:45pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 13
I'm not gonna lie, I would really like to see a Haze 2, I mean look at Killzone 1 and Killzone 2, BIG DIFFERENCE. Even though Killzone 1 IMO was good.
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diablotyr |
artchangel_tyral- 6:08pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 17
well...I still got Haze and I still enjoy it since its a good game and got the splitscreen online and it even work on coop online for the story mode =D btw...why hate Haze? what did it ever do to you...maybe all people who lives for the grafix or are just some fanboys to Microsoft....stop whine & start grind
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jubeininja69 |
jubeininja69- 6:11pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 18
excuses. that game was bad from the start.
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Rikus |
Rikus68- 6:40pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 20
HAZE was OK and I thought it had a fairly decent multiplayer. However I had some problems with the single player. The concept was decent but poorly implemented. For example, when you played as the Resistance they used the same character models over again which meant I really didn't care if they died. Particularly as I knew they would respawn a bit further down the road. The same went for vehicles. If one was destroyed, you trundled on foot a little further on where one would spawn for you. There were no consequences for having your squad all die or your vehicles blown up. That is NOT a fault of the PS3 architecture but of game design and implementation pure and simple.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't hate HAZE, in fact I bought it at launch and finished the game. As I said earlier I enjoyed the online aspect of it. But if Free Radical were having the amount of problems developing it, they should have asked for help from SONY or another developer. There just aren't any excuses for it's poor design.
Rumour has it that it's going to XBOX so maybe they'll get a version of the game that has these faults corrected.
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neoxthexone |
neoxthexone123- 6:53pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 22
@4
True, Sony know how to take care of the Devs
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DemonOfRazgriz07 |
DemonOfRazgriz07- 6:55pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 23
if they we're having "trouble" getting it down right, they could of easily just delayed the game (or not given it a release date so early in the first place). but no, they released as the steaming pile of s*** that it is. way to fail Free Radical..
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jockhotty
- 6:56pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 24
Haze is an awesome IP, the potential is huge. Despite some of the shortcomings from all the advanced media hype, I agree, the game was fun and I played it all the way through without putting off for weeks at a time. Haze made it clear how much respect should and shouldnt be allocated to some of the "MORE WELL KNOWN REVIEWERS" Would love to see more development from some of the cool features, Hopefully the past sales results dont have a negative effect from HAZE possibly redeeming itself. And now that everyone knows how to hyperthread their brains out, lets see what can really be done.
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Xdeth |
Xdeth- 6:57pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 25
I once was one of those people who defended this game before it came out. Free Radical should have canceled the project or taken more time on it. I have to say this game was not worth the $60 bucks I paid for it. I wanted to like haze. I really did. But the game had a lot of issue that made it nothing more then a mediocre shooter at best. I guess I just got swept up in the hype train.
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stovich |
TasteLikeBurning- 7:07pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 28
The people who hate HAZE are the ones who favored it in the "vs Crysis" debate. HAZE is not a bad game. Just because you got led by the nose and were made frigging fools of yourselves is no reason to be hating. Own up to your noobishness and learn from your mistakes, because there are certainly higher profile games that were considered masterpieces, yet are buggy and sometimes unplayable messes. I'm looking at you, Fallout 3.
@19 - LOL, I can't believe you said that: "taken their time"? Where in the he11 were you at during its infamous delay announcements?
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Rafaelcbf12 |
Rafaelcbf- 7:13pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 29
Almost everyone who reads what Girugamesh writes doesn't care for his opinion. - fact.
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GunTeng
- 8:23pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 30
As much as I liked TimeSplitters & some ideas around HAZE, the simple fact is they should have put it on the back burner if they had development issues, instead of rushing out an incomplete game ( in terms of design & flaws).
Maybe they will get it right next time?
As far as Im concerned, Im completely open to looking at anything Free Radical develop....although that doesnt mean I'll buy it. It all depends on the genre, style & feel...yet I can safely say, a new Timesplitters is definitely on my buy list.
Lets hope they learned much & use that in future titles...otherwise HAZE will have been a terrible mistake on their part.
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Kostchtchie
- 9:44pm BST - August 12th, 2009
- 32
haze was a solid game i dont care what any haters say, the only issue i had and others i know was the acting was over the top, it was no epic game, just a regular shooter, but it was still a laugh and the co-op was fun also, not bad for first game and learning then ps3 tech
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xeniczone
- 1:20am BST - August 13th, 2009
- 35
The only reason it got so much hatred was because everyone expected it to be the "Halo Killer" just like every other FPS game on the Playstation, but calling it the Halo Killer was way to much hype for a small development company.
I haven't actually played the game but I have played the demo and I liked it. I don't see the big problem it was a good story line. -
Choko
- 2:01am BST - August 13th, 2009
- 36
Haze was fun, and I enjoy playing the demo on my sd screen. But when I went to my hd screen. God, it looked liked a ps2 game scaled (the first ps2 games, no like god of war 2 that looks great scaled). I mean, its not that bad, but seriously, I don't like playing something its not pleasant to the eyes. =) That's why I didnt bought it.
Haze with the Crytek engine could be a seriously great project if done well. Its time to see what happens now =P
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Falanx13 |
Falanx13- 2:03am BST - August 13th, 2009
- 37
Haze wasn't a bad game if you look past it's faults??
Yeah, just like 'Lair' was an awesome game, if you look past the inability to play the stupid thing because of the horrible controls...
Seriously, it wasn't even the technical faults that really sunk Haze. First off, it was another generic FPS that brought nothing new to the genre. Secondly, anything that is hyped and touted as a "Halo-killer" before it's even released is being set up for failure.
Anyone who tries to justify Haze as a great game would probably spray perfume on a turd and say, 'now it's not so bad.'
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PSX_Legend |
KillZone3000- 2:03am BST - August 13th, 2009
- 38
Nicelly said @1 Haze is a good game with a nice plot. :)
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bluesuedeshoes
- 10:42am BST - August 13th, 2009
- 42
It wasn't Haze that did for Free Radical design, it was Lucas Arts who ultimately did them in by pulling funding and eventually all support for Star Wars Battlefront 3, which Free Radical were developing. Obiviously terrible sales of Haze didn't help and probably led to Lucas Arts scrutinising the company a bit more closely. As for Haze I think its stark graphical style of the Mantel troopers although iconic also did for the game visually as it meant it rapidly got samey. Clearly graphically it wasn't the best FPS out there, and not even the best looking on the PS3. However it did play very well like all other Free Radical games, the story showed promise but was ham fisted in its delivery at times. Multi-player was very good and one of the few games on the PS3 that DIDN'T have network issues. Lets hope from the ashes of Free Radical that both Crytek UK and Pumpkin Beach or Zinkyzonk or what ever Doak and Ellis are up to produces some good results.
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zarajoe
- 3:54pm BST - August 13th, 2009
- 46
This is why I hope that Haze is one day remade, into the game it should have been. Still I like Haze, the only thing that annoys me is your team mates just don't shut up.
As for using CryEngine to push the ps3, best of luck. Just don't forget that you have a very high bar to beat thanks to Killzone 2.
Finally I'm glad Crytek bought Free Radical so that they can continue developing games, but they should have kept their own name.
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