Where are all the sweaty dudes playing volleyball?
By: Nate AhearnWhat is one thing that comes into the awareness of all warm-blooded American when you mention dogfighting fighter? If the answer is not a movie starring a bunch of sweaty dudes playing beach volleyball in tiny jean shorts with Anthony Edwards wearing a painfully awkward Cutoff T-shirt, so you lie to yourself. Fortunately, that same flick is home to some of the coolest aerial battles ever put to the silver screen. It's called "Top Gun, and the husband has more material than anything you find on Cinemaxx.
Ever since then the game companies have tried to imitate the feeling that so many imagined with Goose and Maverick in the cockpit. The latest game to try his hand, Tom Clancy's HAWX Ubisoft Romania from the studio that brought us two Blazing Angels titles. HAWX is a sort of spiritual successor, but the benefits of being in a slightly more distant future, which means that players have benefited from some moderately futuristic flying aircraft and some practical DANDY navigational technology that is a little too smart for its own good.
It is important to note that HAWX (High-Altitude Warfare Experimental Squadron) is not a flight-sim. There is no fuel gauge to worry about, no real ammunition control - aircraft carry up to 200 missiles - and no worries of blackouts, red-outs or any other form of 'outs. "While I fully understand not want players to be mindful of their gas use as they are in a Chevy Suburban, the planes in HAWX move with very little realism. They look like their real life counterparts, but you can essentially fling them around the the sky with reckless abandon, regardless of brand or model.
One thing I had with each airplane, and it is a common event for games like HAWX is that there just is not a good feeling of speed as you career through the skies in more than 1,000 miles per hour. Even get close to the ground is not so inspiring. It feels more like you are flying an aircraft than a fighter jet goes faster than the speed of sound.
So why are you zooming around turning hostile aircraft in mangled metal? Well, it turns out that there is something of a conflict taking place in the world. You play as Captain Crenshaw, a former U.S. flyboy whose squadron was disbanded for whatever reason. Seeking work and money, Crenshaw switched to private groups and stumble when a company called Artemis. Long story short, Crenshaw works for Artemis Artemis is committed to protecting Brazil; Crenshaw follows. So, Artemis decides to attack the United States; Crenshaw revolt. Before you know it Crenshaw is fighting for the red white and blue again, trying to attackers attacks by Artemis at some of our nation's landmarks.
Flying above locations, such as a pitch black Los Angeles, Washington DC, Cape Canaveral and Tokyo, players will see some recognizable spots. Flying low to the ground may reveal some ugly texture work, but it is still cool to be defending these famous cities from an off-shore attacks. That said, the characters are quite forget table. The stars are of course the planes themselves, but the hat to at least try to make a wholesale singalong story line and tied up in a few other Ubisoft franchises (Ghost Recon and EndWar) on the road.
There are 19 missions to fly throughout the campaign, all of which are available for four-player cooperative play online. For the sake of fun, I recommend that you set up a friend to be your wingman (or Iceman would say you can be his) as AI and your control over their actions is very limited. You can tell them to attack or to cover you, but that is about it. Assign them to attack a ground target is working out pretty well, but tells them to attack an incoming group of warriors typically gives poor results. My biggest problem with the campaign is inconsistent with the design of each mission. Some are funny, like a later level, you provide air to the three squads of ground troops as they make their way to a nuclear weapon to be disarmed one way or another. Other missions, however, is just plain annoying. It's almost as if instead of making enemies more plentiful, or make them more cunning in battle, the developers decided to add the annoying limitations to the player. Perfect examples are the missions where you can not fly above a certain altitude for fear of being shot down by a radar tracking system. It is an unnecessary thorn in your side that will result in lots of deaths. Then there is the mission that starts with a terrible version of "hot and cold." I'll let you discover this for yourself.
In addition, the combat HAWX is not all that engaging. Ubisoft Romania threw in a camera mechanic similar to what we saw in Blazing Angels, which means that with the push of a button, the camera pulling back from your fighter and focusing on your goals as you move independently around the screen. It gives more maneuverable dogfighting moves, but can disorienting for newbies. The angles (known as "aid off") is a good attempt at spicing things up and add skill to dogfighting, but even play through the game on hard not force me to flip ping assistance in terms of strategy.
The strategy is an element that could be worked in HAWX bit harder. Too often I found myself just trying to fire missiles and cycling through the targets as quickly as possible, so do not have to make a second pass. I was not worried about taking down minions before working towards a larger warship, instead there is just a bunch of flies swarming in the air for you to slam one at a time in any order you choose.
Assists with the mindless gameplay is the ERS (Enhanced Reality System) which, when activated, brings a series of gates, which will lead you to the goal. It plays as a pseudo mini-games that you have to pilot your jet through each gate to keep the pathway active. This is a seriously smart system also handy if you ask me, you will finish with a perfect shot lined up every time. It takes the drama out of dogfighting, which is something that is lacking as it is.
As I said before, there is no real physical limitations on the aircraft. Each craft has a set of turning radius, depending on speed, but then you can frenetically whip your scrap metal through the air, however you want. The best way to avoid a missile is just thrashing around in random circles and turns. Forget flares, just act crazy. I would have preferred to have some kind of physical constraints on my crafts, so I had to strategically plan a route to safe ground. Since it is all quite silly, ERS on or off.
An important thing to note is that I played through HAWX with Xbox 360 controller, but the game supports PC flight sticks. I recommend playing with the flight stick, if you have one. The experience was much more fun with the flight stick that I used for the Xbox 360 version of the HAWX.
There is no doubt that's HAWX gameplay have questions, but many jets and weapons packs that you unlock throughout the game, and the fact that you get to fly jets said about American landmarks is cool in its own right. The fight may not be all that inspired, but it is exciting enough to push you through the campaign a mission at a time. A word of advice, never use the ERS, unless absolutely necessary. The dumb the experience down a little. HAWX has a handy dandy experience points and leveling system, which crosses between single-player and multiplayer gameplay. You can unlock things such as aircraft and weapons packages that can be taken into battle. Little challenge acknowledgments pops up when you kill X amount of enemies with a weapon and you get a nice sense of accomplishment every time you rewarded with a chunk of XP for the time you have put in. I think I would have preferred a system costs, let me unlock the items from a set list, however I wanted, but the auto-lock system that is in place works well enough.
Multiplayer, as it is right now is pretty Barebones. There is only one condition in which eight players can join up and take on the usual team death-match affair. Granted, flying against the human pilots are much more exciting and challenging than flying against AI, but the fact that you are fairly cramped in the number of players and conditions are alarming. Multiplayer support has cool powers to chime in when players string together multiple kills. Things like an EMP strike, which sends all enemy aircraft in a stall or the ability to reduce all evils to the gun is absolutely cool and can change the flow of a battle very quickly.
Of course the upside to a substantial reduction in the number of players comes in the form of no delay. Admittedly, we here in the IGN office bet on a T1 line, I saw no sign of delaying or dropping frames. At least not more than I saw in solo play.
Sights and sounds of HAWX doing a good job of creating a world that is clearly within the universe of Tom Clancy games, while still invent an identity for High Altitude Warfare. The picture-in-picture cutscenes can safely use a lot of work, but the planes (the stars in the show) has some nice details, especially when you enter the cockpit view. The exterior of the aircraft has all the right angles and parts, but they seem a bit lifeless. There is no point, no match ar; no real signs of life on the outside of the aircraft.
Similarly, land in all these major metropolises across the country is pretty barren. They are accurately modeled a T and you will spot things that Tokyo Disney on earth, but it looks a bit too much as they took a satellite picture and wrapped it around objects.
Sound-wise HAWX performs slightly better. The music pumps through while not up to Hans Zimmer quality is still solid. Explosion effects also provide adequate thump if you are close enough to the impact. I would like to have if your jet had more of a roar when going max speed, but the clash between breaking the sound barrier would have to do.
Concluding remarks
Tom Clancy's HAWX is very close to being a great game, it's just missing a few of the intricate pieces that create a border experience. Since it is the mission design is lacking combat is unimaginative, and the multiplayer is shallow. Still, there are plenty that will be able to enjoy the soaring 40,000 feet above the ground, destroying dozens of enemy aircraft. All the while belting out lines at risk. It is not surprising is it?
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