Ubisoft confirmed to GameSpot UK today that Free Radical's upcoming first-person shooter, Haze, is currently only in development for the PlayStation 3. Previously announced as a timed exclusive for the holiday season (with Xbox 360 and PC versions to follow in 2008), this confirmation makes Haze a full PlayStation 3 exclusive -- at least for the time being.
According to the report, Ubisoft has not ruled out the possibility of new partnerships in the future, but that the official statement on PC and Xbox 360 is that these platforms are not confirmed.
Haze will ship exclusively for the PlayStation 3 on November 19th. Our hands-on impressions from the Leipzig Games Convention have the full skinny on the spiritual successor to the TimeSplitters franchise, just be sure to ignore any mentions of it being a timed exclusive.
This year's Fall is very, very crowded. Even with titles such as GTA 4 and Metal Gear Solid 4 slipping into 2008, the remaining months of 2007 will undoubtedly burn a whole through gamers' pockets. With that in mind, PSU's compiled a Top 5 list of titles that you absolutely must get before the year is out. Do some more chores, work overtime, demand them for Christmas or simply stop buying your girlfriend gifts (a last resort, of course).
5. Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Release Date: October 23, 2007
Platforms: PlayStation 3
:: Game Summary ::
Ratchet & Clank Future Tools of Destruction is a 3rd person adventure platformer where the player begins their journey with the shocking discovery that a villain from Ratchet's distant past has tracked him down and wants him dead. This revelation brings up many questions as to Ratchet origins and launches Ratchet and Clank into a mysterious adventure where they begin to... More »
The game already looks phenomenal, but when you combine that with a smooth frame rate, you've got something special.
There have been plenty of driving games of late that have been visually impressive, but very few live up to the visual fidelity displayed by DiRT. This game is a technical achievement in car design, track design, and damage modeling. To begin with, the cars are beautifully rendered, highly detailed models that are as fantastic to look at as they are to destroy. Damage modeling is one of the most impressive aspects of the game; you can lose bumpers or doors, break glass, tear up the paintjob, and roll your ride into a crushed, deformed mess. Tracks are equally beautiful and destructible. From the rain-slick tarmac tracks of Japan and the dusty backroads of Italy to the muddy, gravelly countryside of the UK, DiRT nails every environment wonderfully.
The game also uses lighting to fantastic effect, not just to emphasize how shiny and reflective th... More »
It doesn't matter if you call Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii home. The rest of 2007 is choc full of delights to splurge your hard-earned on (or convince a loved one that it's the only thing you'll expect to be getting come Christmas).
We've gathered together a list of the biggest games heading our way, and laid them out below - handily including their formats (exclusive games in bold). Unfortunately, you'll have to pick and choose - if you wanted all these games, you'd be shelling out over the best part of a grand!
SEPTEMBER Medal of Honor: Airborne - PC, 360 - Out now
MySims - Wii, DS - Out 21/09
World in Conflict - PC, 360 - Out 21/09
Halo 3 - 360 - Out 26/09
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - PC - Out 28/09
FIFA 08 - PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii, DS - Out 28/09
Sega Rally - PC, PS3, 360 - Out 28/09
Stranglehold - PC, 360 - Out now (360) | 28/09 (PC)
In an interview in UK videogame trade paper MCV, a Midway representative has made the interesting claim that BlackSite (its forthcoming sci-fi FPS) will actually benefit from going up against Halo 3.
"BlackSite will absolutely benefit from the popularity of Halo, and stands a fair chance of hitting number one," Aidan Minter, European brand manager for the company told MCV.
And while we're not going to say he's wrong per se, it does seem like a fairly bold claim, don't you think? With a TV ad campaign that cost $10 million alone, and one million pre-orders already for Halo 3 we can't imagine any other 360 FPS released this year will get much of a look in - let alone one released just a month after it, regardless of how good it might turn out to be.
And then there's the small business of Haze, UT3 (also from Midway), Call of Duty 4, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Orange Box, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Turok, name but a few. Do all these other shooters ... More »
List of PLAYSTATION®3 titles compatible with DUALSHOCK®3 in North America and Europe, as of September 20th, 2007:
The Darkness 2K Games
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Activision
Soldier of Fortune Activision
BIOHAZARD® 5 CAPCOM
Devil May Cry® 4 CAPCOM
N-Cube Creat Studios
Warbit Creat Studios
Dark Sector D3 PUBLISHER
Turok Disney Interactive
Highlander Eidos
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men Eidos
Burnout Paradise ELECTRONIC ARTS
FIFA franchise (title name TBD) ELECTRONIC ARTS
Legendary: The Box Gamecock
To End All Wars Ghostlight
RAGE id Software
WarDevil - Unleash the Beast Within Ignition Entertainment
Dynasty Warriors 6 KOEI
Fatal Inertia KOEI
METAL GEAR SOLID 4 GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS Konami
Blacksite: Area 51 Midway
TNA Wrestling Midway
Unreal Tournament 3 Midway
Wheelman Midway
Cops (codename, title name TBD) Pyro
Planet One (coden... More »
Free Radical's always bashed the right nerve with its TimeSplitters FPS series, which is why we're all over Haze like a rash. New screenshots, including snaps of the shooter's co-op mode, are on this page and demanding your attention.
Haze is set in a near-future where the government has outsourced military operations to private multinational corporations.
You play Jake Carpenter, a soldier who works for the Mantel Corporation who has access to high-tech vehicles, kick-ass weapons and performance enhancing bio-medical support.
Free Radical director David Doak has said previously that one of the developer's key goals with the game is "to make people think" in addition to "pushing the bar with gameplay and presentation".
He explained, "...in Haze we're trying to examine more the feeling of the soldier. If you're fighting in a war, you need to somehow justify your act... More »
The year is 2048. The United Nations is no more and in its place stands Mantel Global Industries, a private military corporation. In order to make its soldiers stronger and more deadly, Mantel has begun administering a bio-medical substance called NECTAR.
You control proud soldier Shane Carpenter who comes to realize that Mantel is not the most ethical of all cold-hearted multination corporations focused on global domination, and NECTAR may not be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I know – I’m as shocked as you are.
It seems NECTAR is being used to control soldiers and shield them from the world’s horrifying reality. As a result you switch sides and must battle wave after wave of jacked up super warriors.
Asininely left-wing, derivative dystopian storyline aside, trailer footage showed Haze as the PS3’s answer to Halo – offering similar style combat and multiplayer, but with a trippy twist. Unfortunately, the demo... More »
Gran Turismo has always been known as a series that pushes Sony's hardware to it's absolute maximum, but then GT HD turned up and although it looked nice, it lacked that 'wow' factor.
Now the GT5 Prologue demo is out on the Japanese PlayStation Store (free to anyone cunning enough to sign up for a Japanese PSN account), it shows what GT should really look like on Sony's high-performance hardware.
We've run the two demos side-by-side to give you some idea of what Sony's eye candy department has been up to over the past year.
The first thing to note is the fluidity of GT5P. The 60fps frame rate is solid as a rock. But the whole game just looks a lot slicker than the first GT HD demo, which now looks comparatively dull and washed out.
Sony has clearly upped the bloom lighting in the new version of the game, thrown in the fan-favourite heat haze (which blew us away in the PS2 era - remember that?) and brightened all the colours too, givi... More »
(0) 
