SinceHaze was announced,the TimeSplitters team's next-gen debut has been firmly kept under wraps. Leading on PS3 but also in development for Xbox 360 and PC, Haze is trying to bring with it a strong story to the world where just shooting stuff up is what it's all about.

At Ubisoft's recent press eve♍nt in Paris Free Radical's main man Dave Doak was on hand to walk us through t🅺he finely-textured jungles and tell us what Nectar is all about.

Haze has been in hiding for over a year now. Remind us what it's all about.

Dave Doak: Well Haze is our new first person shooter and we started building the tech about three years ago. It's a war game but I think we're doing something exciting by telling a story which has got some real character. It's got some nice commentary on the world around it and the fact that war isn't all black and white, like Ghost Recon (laughs).

With a game that has only human enemies, how do you keep the combat interesting?

Doak: Something happens in the narrative of Haze that effectively changes the way you play the game. Rather than just trying to "step it up" we go for different situations. An example of that is the vehicle combat, which is quite impressi🌼ve. Sometimes you're in an arena where you fighting against many enemies until you're dead or you break through.

There are some weapons and evolution in t🎐here too and that's how we introduce different elements to the gameplay. But we've tried to keep the weapon set reasಞonably controllable. The industry has so often in the past got caught up with "well, how many guns has your game got?"

I guess the Nectar is almost a direct response to that. We've tried to make something that's not only an interesting weapon but is an intere🌠sting gameplay mechanic that isn't just pointing a gun at someone. The Nectar provides a risk-reward and it's also a hu💫ge part of the story.