Unlike Rainbow Six Vegas, another Ubisoft title with four-player co-operative play, the co-op in Haze doesn't feel like a tacked-on afterthought. According to Derek Littlewood, Team Leader at Free Radical, co-op was always planned for Haze. "Four player online co-op has been part of HAZE since the very start of development. In fact, it was one of the very first features we decided on, as everyone at Free Radical believes co-op play is just great fun."
We pressed Derek for examples of levels where co-op was a fundamental part of the gameplay. Sadly, he wouldn't reveal anything this early, simply stating that "Working as a team also becomes far more integral to the game as you progress through it, but I'm not allowed to talk about that quite yet". However, during our demo we did get to see some vehicular co-op bliss, with the four players all piling into a Warthog-esque buggy. The two side passengers were able to lean out of the vehicle and spray any passers-by, exponentially boosting the fire-power of their four-wheeled mode of transportation.

One of the coolest features of the Gears co-op was the shared cut-scenes. We remember howling in delight when we realised our online buddy, located several hundred kilometres away, was watching the same jaw-dropping cut scene as us. We also howled in dismay when these were omitted in Rainbow Six Vegas'. Thankfully all of the narrative devices of the singleplayer Haze game remain intact in co-op. "Most of the narrative in HAZE occurs dynamically around you without affecting your control, so you're free to stay and watch or walk away if you want - and obviously, this goes for all four players in co-op too, so 'skipping' these sequences isn't really a problem. Occasionally you'll find we'll bias your view in a certain direction to see something cool, but again, anytime you or your three buddies want to look elsewhere, you're free to do so." So when your character starts hallucinating, thanks to the side-effects of the evil Nectar, you can be sure your buddies are having the same acid flashbacks as you. But how cool would it be if some of these hallucinations only affected certain co-op players? Imagine if the most Nectar-addicted of the four players suddenly started getting paranoia attacks, and saw his friends as the bad guys? It's a cool idea which we're sure the developers are all over.

Not every PS3 owner has a nice broadband pipe at home, so how are they going to get their killing fix with friends? Enter Free Radical's expertise with split-screen, as seen in TimeSplitters. Like the online co-op mode, split-screen co-op is available at any time, without the need to back out to the menu or loading screens. Just tap that PlayStation button on the second controller and watch in amazement as your one screen is converted into two, via the magic of technology.

We were intrigued by Haze before we'd heard about the four-player co-op, but now we're positively itching to get our Nectar fix. Considering that Gears was so much fun with two players, Haze has potentially double the fun! Damn, how do we give a game twice the score of Gears… 19 out of 10 doesn't really work, does it?