Revolutionary in thought, Haven falls a bit short in reality. In this inspiring adventure, you take control of Haven, a young man who’s been chosen to free the enslaved population. But to free his people, he must venture to distant lands and experience life-threatening challenges through a variety of genre-themed gameplay levels. Indeed, the game’s highlight is that Haven's adventure encompasses a wide variety of styles like platform jumping, rail shooting, and racing. The transition between challenges is surprisingly smooth and works well with the game’s story; there are, however, some control difficulties, such as unadjustable button configurations and confusing camera angle setups. Despite the intended scope of the game, Haven’s sights and sounds are barely average. Characters are blocky, have little animation movements, and wear boring-colored threads. The environments are also bland and lack detail. The soundtrack thumps with an ever-moving frantic beat that can either stress you out or quickly become annoying to the ears. Plus, the voice-overs are just plain cheesy. While innovative, Haven doesn’t push the PS2 technology to make it a revolutionary game. At least give it a try as a rental to see if you want to be king of Haven.
