Members of the Free Radical Design team have had almost as much effect on FPS titles on consoles as anyone. After all, many FRD members worked on Goldeneye 007, which introduced the genre to an entire generation of console players. The developer is also responsible for the acclaimed TimeSplitters series, which incorporated much of the creativity and variety that made Goldeneye a hit.

It was with no small amount of anticipation, then, that Haze released this past May. The game is the first for Free Radical Design this generation and has seen its release date pushed back multiple times, ostensibly to improve the quality of Haze. We take a closer look at the game's results, looking at Haze's pros and cons.

Juice up on Nectar and it gives everything a golden glow
According to the NPD, Haze was the nineteenth best selling title for the May period. This made the game a distant second behind Grand Theft Auto IV on the PS3 charts. Overall, the game sold 67,000 copies during the month of May.

The results for Haze can be taken either optimistically or pessimistically, depending on how you look at it. On the upside, the game managed to make it in the NPD top 20, even though the critical response to the game was not kind (more on that below). It also achieved these sales despite high competition in the shooter field from military shooters like Activision's Call of Duty 4, Ubisoft's own Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and EA's Army of Two.

This is what happens when you try to take my Nectar!

Of course, Haze can easily be looked at in a negative light as well. Firstly, it's easy to see these results as disappointing, given the pedigree of Free Radical Design and the extended development time on the game. Secondly, the sales do not seem proportional to the amount of hype the game received (again, more on that below). Finally, Haze may have ultimately been hurt by its PS3 exclusivity; the Xbox 360 has proven to have a large fanbase for shooters, and not releasing Haze on that system potentially crippled sales.

Have you ever been experienced?
The setting for Haze is that of a near future conflict in some unspecified part of South America, where PMC troops for Mantel Corp. are sent in to clear out a group of rebels known as "The Promised Hand." The player starts out as a Mantel soldier, Shane Carpenter, but it quickly becomes apparent that things are not as the propaganda said it was, and he ends up switching sides. While the story premise for the game holds huge potential, many reviews say most of it was squandered in poor execution, with irritating squad-mates, poor dialog and predictable plot twists, compounded by the fact that the campaign is only about seven hours long.

The set up for the game, with the two opposing sides, gives Haze some variety in its game content. The Mantle troops get high on Nectar, giving them enhanced senses and strength, while running the risk of an overdose that causes the soldier to go berserk. The Promised Hand, by contrast to the brute strength tactics of the Mantle troopers, use more guerilla methods like land mines, disarm attacks, dodging, "playing dead," and leveraging Nectar against Mantle soldiers by using Nectar-coated knives and Nectar grenades, which can cause an overdose. These differences switch up the gameplay a bit, but some critics contend that it wasn't enough. The arsenal of the two sides is composed of nearly identical guns, from sniper rifles, shotguns to submachine guns, and is hard to distinguish from the myriad of quite similar military shooters on the market.

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