The latest instalment to the ever expanding Tom Clancy franchise takes to the sky in a near future story of Private Military Companies (PMCs) to whom nations are becoming entirely dependant, entrusting their national security and military prowess to elite mercenaries with a lax view of the law. Developed by Ubisoft Bucharest for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and by Ubisoft Montréal for the PC, the title promises to revolutionize sofa based aerial combat. Here I shall review the PS3 version – which has a few features missing from the 360 version.
High Altitude Warfare – Experimental Squadron, or H.A.W.-X (The “X” being the US military designation for ‘Experimental’) are an ultra elite secretive branch of the US Air force. The squadron’s elite fighter pilots are recruited from the most experienced and skilled combat veterans of the USAF, USN and USMC flight squadrons. The most highly-trained combat pilots in the world, they gain experience on all upcoming aircraft and weapon systems during the testing phase, helping refine designs and becoming the first to use them in combat should the nation require it. Capable of piloting virtually any aircraft from any branch of the US Military, in addition to many foreign designs, they are the ‘top breed’ of military pilots on Earth. In the game you play the part of David Crenshaw, recently retired from official H.A.W.X duty and a new member of Artemis Global Security set the task of helping to secure South American contracts via aerial supremacy. The story ticks along at a predictable pace via in flight conversations and cut scenes but ultimately none of it really matters as H.A.W.X is solid action from start to finish.
Be under no illusions that this is a realistic flight simulator with highly accurate avionics and aerodynamics to contend with. Think more Ace Combat for next-gen. There are no complex take-off or landing procedures to test your nerve and skill and no flying from one boring waypoint to another with the occasional enemy encounter to break up the tedium. H.A.W.X is all about dogfighting, bombing runs on both land and sea targets and more dogfights and the game throws you straight into the action. As you would expect the controls are simple to pick up: the left stick controls pitch and roll, L1 and R1 control the rudder, L2 slows the aircraft down for tighter turns and R2 engages the afterburner for increased speed. Triangle selects targets, X fires missiles or bombs – selectable from the d-pad – and circle fires the cannons. Square selects the Enhanced Reality System (E.R.S) – in game technology that assists with targeting, threat detection, escape manoeuvres, damage control and squadron order system – more on ordering later.
The game starts with `assistance mode` switched on, offering a cockpit, 3rd or 1st person view. This allows you to take full advantage of the E.R.S and in this mode your aircraft cannot stall. Once the first few levels are out of the way, easing you into the arena of aerial combat, you are allowed to double tap L2 or R2 to switch off assistance. In this mode you get a different 3rd person view, further back with a wider view of the action, but with much more manoeuvrability allowing you to out turn and shake off enemy missiles. This is also where the first problem creeps in: it is easy to see why this view was introduced because, when it works well, the action is much more fluid and dynamic as the camera swoops to maintain a view of enemy aircraft as your missiles hurtle to their destruction. Unfortunately a lot of the time the camera is so focussed on your target that control of your plane appears quite limited and I was often disorientated and found the camera looking back at my aircraft while the enemy I was trying to target was stuck behind me. Trying to twist my fighter around to get my sights fixed on my foe proved frustrating at best and I was forced to put assistance back on. After a while I rarely switched assistance off however and the game was still playable without it. This is a real shame as with assistance off H.A.W.X looks almost cinematic with the camera taking in all the action around your perfectly modelled fighter plane as it thunders over realistic looking terrain built on Geo Eye Satellite data.
The only blemish to the in flight graphics on offer appears when you are quite close to the ground: trees look very disturbingly like 16-bit pixellated sprites which you can fly through and textures on buildings and other ground structures are quite low resolution. Having said that, the only time you are likely to be that close to the ground is when you are about to crash. Dogfight a few thousand feet up in the air and H.A.W.X can be truly breath taking with fantastic lighting reflecting off the metal skins of your flying war machines – of which there are over sixty to unlock. Each target killed, every mission successfully completed earns you XP which adds up towards 40 different ranks which unlock new fighters, skins, weapons and further levels.
The PlayStation 3 version includes the option to use voice commands. You can order your squadron to attack your target, order them to protect you, turn assistance on or off, change weapons or switch between your maps. Sometimes it works, most times it doesn’t – there is no voice training, therefore H.A.W.X either understands you or it doesn’t. A feature unique to the PlayStation version is the ability to record in game action via the pause menu, which you can then either export to the XMB as an MP4 movie or you can upload it directly to your YouTube account from within the game. As you can see from the following example, YouTube quality can be somewhat blocky. The exported MP4 however is very good quality with a resolution of 640×368 – more than adequate for any home movie editing buffs.
In addition to the single player campaign Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X allows for online cooperative gameplay, whereby your friends can jump into your game to offer a hand as your wingmen and vice-versa. If you would rather shoot your friends out of the sky – and who doesn’t from time to time? – then H.A.W.X caters for up to 8 player online dogfights.
If you can overlook the slightly wooden voice acting, the occasional frustration with assistance mode switched off and the underwhelming animation you see in the corner of your HUD when your commander moves his lips out of sync with his speech, then H.A.W.X is a good fun game presenting quite a long challenge to would-be couch pilots and does a great job in conveying the adrenaline pumping excitement of high tech dogfighting. A little more polish may have changed this good game into a great one
[wordbay]Tom Clancy hawx[/wordbay]
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nice review there MG, i agree its a quality game, i got it today and its so much fun!! the assists off is dodgy for a while, but i found it quite easy after a short while, untill i switched to expert control that is!!!
Cool review MrG, picked this up on Friday so I shall be keeping my eye in the sky for you
looks good, nice review
My Review (although not as comprehensive as the one above)
I bought HAWX on a whim after deciding to trade in a couple of games sooner rather than later to maximise my trade in value
It follows the same form of plot lines as any other Tom Clancy game with shadowy organisations and military powers for hire aplenty
The action takes place over many famous and real landmarks with the physical locations being mapped from real satelite imagery.
The missions are generally in the form of go here, take out x ground objects or tackle y aircraft. The objectives are mixed up with the odd support role or escort mission and the story line unfolds to give your missions and death bringing purpose
To give the game some zest there is a unique view option unlocked as you progress. The camera zooms out to a sort of 3/4 aspect allowing you to dogfight much more easily. it turns off the computer control and gives you the freedom to perfomr tight turns and forced stalls – this mode is essential when entering into a dogfight section, of which there are plenty
The game also gives you ERS – or Enhanced Reality System – basically a guide of hoops to fly through to giude you directly to your chosen target – sessential if your target is a yank hidden in some city streets
In addition to these you often have 2 wingmen who you can assign simple tasks like “defend” or “attack”
Although enjoyable the missions do become a little samey and since buying I haven’t felt much of an urge to pick it up – for me there isn’t enough control over the aircraft, perhaps down to the more realistic bent of the game. I also feel that I am incredibly distanced from the game as often the enemy are taken out from a mile away or more, so you never get up close and personal with them – everything just seems like dots on the horizon so the gam can seem a little empty despite all of the action
I am yet to play this game online in anger but there are full mission, 4 player co-op options as well as straight up dogfighting for 8 players
All in all an interesting take on the genre but sadly not enough here to keep my attention
Pro’s
Vast array of aircraft and weapons options to unlock
Fun dogfighting with unique camera angle
You tube video capturing is fun
Full campaign available in drop in out co-op
Cons
Gameplay is a little shallow and repetetive
You can seem very distant from the action
Graphics seem a little last gen
Score
5/10