After Ubisoft initially announced its upcoming flight combat game Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. earlier this year, explaining that the acronym stood for “High-Altitude Warfare”, I had only two questions. One, what the hell is Tom Clancy’s name doing attached to a flight combat game? And two, what the hell does that X stand for? I got suitable answers for both of these questions, as well as a good first-hand look at the game, at a recent Ubisoft press event.
The X part is easy–apparently the whole acronym actually stands for High-Altitude Warfare - Experimental Squadron. It’s a little clumsy, but it’s not nearly as ridiculous as some of the alternatives I had dreamt up. As far as the Tom Clancy connection, H.A.W.X. looks to provide the kind of militaristic hyper-realism you expect from the Tom Clancy name, and it will also tie into the events in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 2. Don’t expect the heavy narrative of the Ace Combat series, though, as H.A.W.X. will focus more on the action. While all the aerial carnage I witnessed took place over a pretty convincing Rio de Janeiro, you’ll do a fair amount of globetrotting, taking the fight to other real-world locations, including Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern locales.
The game will feature roughly 50 licensed aircraft, including the FA22 Raptor, the Su-35, and the Rafale C. While Ubisoft has no intentions of releasing their own, I’m told that the game will support all of the existing flight sticks out there. If all this apparent realism sounds too intimidating, don’t fret–the action in H.A.W.X. promises to be pretty fast and loose with the laws of physics, allowing you to perform some incredible maneuvers that would tear the rivets out of a real plane.
One of the more interesting mechanics in H.A.W.X. is a HUD-based assist system that will lay out the flight path you need to take to perform specific maneuvers, such as attack a specific air target, ground target, or avoid incoming missiles, with different colored markers signifying which maneuver you’re trying to execute. You’ll also be able to give on-the-fly attack and defend commands to your wingmen. As unique as some of the features in H.A.W.X. appear, you can still expect some fairly standard mission structures like bombing runs, amphibious assault, and escort missions.
I’m not a big flight combat guy, so perhaps some of the minutiae was lost on me, but one thing that impressed me pretty thoroughly were the visuals. The game is already looking incredibly sharp, with a solid frame rate, good ground details, nice-looking heat-wash effects, deliberate HUD glitches, and vapor cones when you break the sound barrier. It still has some rough edges, though, with explosion effects looking a little lackluster. Also, there was also a dude in the upper-right corner of the screen–some kind of ground commander–who was constantly nodding his head like the command center was bumping some Nas.
As great as the Ace Combat series has been, a little competition doesn’t hurt anyone, and Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. looks like it might be up to the task. We’ll find out if it’s got what it takes when it hits the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC this fall.