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Have you ever wanted
to fly? To take to the heavens and explore the sky? To
see from one horizon to the next? To soar like an eagle,
or perhaps a HAWX?
Tom Clancy's HAWX allows you to take control of
some of the most powerful fighter planes ever conceived,
and attempts to provide you with the exhilaration and
adrenaline felt by pilots when in combat. I'm pleased to
say that, for the most part, HAWX delivers.
HAWX starts off in the year 2012. You play as the
pilot David Crenshaw, finishing off your last mission
for the US Airforce. You decide to leave the comforts of
standard military life, and instead join up with a newly
formed private military company, Artemis. After
completing a few missions for Artemis, you are
fast-forwarded six years and continue to perform
missions for the now very successful and profitable
company. This is where the story really kicks in, as you
will now experience the reality of intractable companies
and the US military's response - an interesting and
enjoyable (if somewhat predictable) story unfolds, in
true Tom Clancy style.
HAWX throws you
into battle right off the mark, and is strangely missing
any form of tutorial. The loading screens give you an
idea of controls and tips, but other than that, you will
need the instruction manual - which makes a huge change,
as manuals these days are usually completely redundant.
Fortunately, the controls are fairly intuitive and
simple, to start with at least, and as new weapons and
controls become available, the loading screen will help
you out. Part of HAWX uniqueness is the ERS
(Enhanced Reality System), which comes into play six
missions in. This system provides a new perspective and
adds additional controls to your aircraft. The ERS can
be a little tricky to handle at first, but when it turns
up you are given a tutorial session to help, and soon
enough you'll be using the system effectively and
blowing planes out of the sky with the best of them.
This does, however, bring up questions as to why there
was no similar tutorial at the beginning of the game.
The difficulty curve is consistent and steady. You won't
find yourself out-classed too early on and yet you will
still feel a great sense of accomplishment after each
mission. Destroying dozens of enemy planes, tanks, AA
placements, and ships, while heavily outgunned, does
make you feel like an ace pilot, so HAWX
certainly succeeds in creating a believable flight
combat simulator. The later missions can prove quite
challenging, and you will find that if you don't deal
with threats quickly, the battle will turn sharply
against you. Also, choosing and using the correct
weapons for each encounter becomes very important in
these later missions, and good use of your wingmen is
critical.
In total there are 19 missions, which lead you through
the compelling story. The missions are varied and
well-designed, but despite this, they can feel
repetitive. The objective is the same throughout: splash
the planes, blow up the ground armour and keep you
allies alive. While there's a nice variety of
objectives, HAWX still suffers from the common
problem that plagues combat flight games: you're always
going to be in your plane shooting things down.
HAWX is very pleasing to the eye: the plane
models are nicely detailed and the environments, helped
along by satellite images, are mostly bright and
beautiful. However, if you hit the deck, you will notice
a fair amount of pixelation in the trees, buildings and
ground. Mind you, if you're close enough to see the
graphical problems in the aforementioned objects, then
you're highly likely to crash, so these oversights are
minor. Still, they're evident ones nonetheless, and
problems that let the game down slightly.
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"Let
down by
multiplayer hiccups" |
The music will be very
familiar to veterans of Clancy games as the score was
produced by Tom Salta, who also produced the music of
the latest two Ghost Recon games. It's beautifully
composed, but feels somewhat incongruous in relation to
the action-orientated style of the game. A higher tempo,
more dramatic score would have been more fitting.
The missions are of good length and, even once
completed, HAWX offers fairly good longevity.
Based on your achievements in game, you will receive
experience; with experience comes rank, and with rank
comes more planes and weapon load-outs for you to use.
This rank system provides players with a goal, and you
cant deny that grinding for a higher rank is compelling
- why else would MMO games be so popular? Unlocking
these planes and load-outs will allow you to use them in
single player and multiplayer, potentially giving you an
edge in combat.
HAWX can be played co-operatively online and via
system link, and is great fun, but unfortunately the
verses mode doesn't deliver the same satisfaction. It
all comes down to how uncompromising it is. You are
given a bunch of options to customise your multiplayer
experience, each one restricting the abilities of the
players' planes, but the set-up is always the same: fly
at each other, lock-on and fire. Sure, you can try
pulling off manoeuvres to dodge incoming missiles, but
it still feels too manacled: HAWX's gameplay just
doesn't compliment this type of multiplayer experience.
HAWX is a decent single player game, let down by
multiplayer hiccups. If you're a fan of combat flight
games, HAWX will certainly appeal to you, but if
the genre never previously took your fancy, this wont
change your mind. More missions, addition of a dog fight
mode and improved multiplayer would raise HAWX's
altitude, but as it stands, it's just leveling out.
70%
Compelling
story, poor multiplayer.
About
our scores...
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