Crytek: Free Radical devs doing things 'they always dreamed to do'

No! They need to port Haze to PC and 360 first!

MrSpaceCowboy,

Why should they? Haze was, by far, one of the biggest disappointments released thus far this generation. Free Radical took an interesting concept and completely ruined it by giving us such a cliched, boring, stupid, and predictable story that the movie Commando looks like a piece of intellectually stimulating high art by comparison. It certainly didn't help that they constantly said, "It'll make Halo look like a kid's game." Newsflash guys: if you want a serious, gritty game, don't simulatneously try to implement a piss poor excuse for satire or "funny social" commentary. Sorry..I meant to say, "Boosch! This sure beats pumping gas!"

Visually, it's an abortion. Fire effects are awful (n64-ish), everything is noticeably low res (the game's native resolution is just higher than 720x480), animations were poor, tearing was eye-clawingly obvious, art direction is incredibly mediocre, and the HDR lighting effects they frequently bragged about would've looked great...had the game been the first to use HDR lighting. If I paid $400-$600 for a machine, I'd expect a developer like Free Radical (who, up until Haze, had a flawless pedigree) to use that hardware competently enough to deliver something far beyond the scope of what its 6 year old predecessor could pull off. I remember how, prior to launch, PS3 fanboys even compared it to Crysis and claimed it to be the visually superior title.

This:
http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/784480/free-radical-project/images/haze-20080508104117421.html

looks like a competent PS2 game circa 2004 compared to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30843645@N04/3343396583/sizes/l/

Enemy and allied AI was mind numbingly awful, as well. Allies would freqently step directly into your line of fire and even the most basic form of self preservation was completely absent from whoever you were fighting. I'm not saying Free Radical should've taken a page from Monolith in terms of AI (FEAR's almost 4 years old but still has some of the best AI in the industry), but good god...an enemy NPC that sees me should at least take some sort of cover or shoot me before I knock a whole in his low poly skull. The ONLY thing Haze did well was environmental audio.

So....no...leave Haze be; one port was more than enough.

And before anyone says, "Well...Free Radical was just coming to terms with the PS3's hardware." Resistance was Insomniac's first PS3 title (a launch title, none the less) yet was far more impressive from a visual and technical aspect. Unreal Tournament 3 was Epic's first PS3 game, it was released months before Haze, and it was still in a completely different league; it looked good, sounded good, and ran exceptionally well. I couldn't even make it through the Haze PS3 demo.

/facepalm

tl;dr

Looks like Jackal has a case of the Tuesdays...

...

I've got a case of bronchitis that's bordering on pneumonia; I'm allowed to have shitty days, ya know.

@ Jackal: Being completely serious - Watch for symptoms of swine flu dude. That shit seems to be sneaking up on people.

commando was awesome

Haze 2 Hellz to the Yah! That game was TIIIIIIIGHt BOI!

not really though.

i would be a happy person. especially if it was done by holiday 2010. that means MW2 this year, timesplitters 4 with MW2 in 2010.

I would not be happy, as it would not look or play like Timesplitters is supposed to.

JUST MAKE TS4 please D: I WILL LOVE YOU ALL FOREVER :D

Timesplitters is pretty strange in artistic style. I've only seen the cry engine do realistic stuff.

I want to see 1080p monkies with guns already.

@Demon G Sides:
What leads you to that false assumption? Do you think the engine dictates the artistic style or gameplay they decide to program? I mean they are owned by the company that created the engine. If FR came up with an idea that wasn't possible in the engine (unlikely), I'm sure Crytek would do what they could to add the feature to said engine.

*drools

Man, that'd be awesome. I don't own it anymore :( but venture to say that TS2 has aged remarkably well, and is still an awesome multiplayer FPS.

It wouldn't be totally impossible. If LucasArts licensed the property to Crytek, they could still make it. (They really need to make it.)

yeah i was gonna say that.