A Blast to Play, but not worth the RRP
Tom Clancy is the man for near future military action. If his name is on the book/games/film you can tell it will be a least way half decent. Does H.A.W.X. match up to this standard?
H.A.W.X. is a arcade style flight combat game from Ubisoft Romania, those fine fellows who brought us Blazing Angels. And this shows, as the game handles very similarly. The A button is fire missiles, B is cannon, right trigger is accelerate and left trigger brakes. Oh and entering the Konami code allows you to fire kittens rather than missiles. (just joking. But wouldn’t that be awesome?) However, instead of flying around in old propeller driven monoplanes or biplanes, you instead take to the skies in the latest in military hardware and carrying enough ordinance to turn Leeds city centre into rolling plains. And to fit the near future Tom Clancy thing, these planes appear to have computers that are able to work out the opposing pilots every action and line you up a course on it mean you can fill it with hot rocket powered lead. Similarly, these planes are designed for idiots and so have safety locks on them. By double tapping the triggers, you can toggle these off which allows your jet to do drifts and other such tricks.
The story is the usual Tom Clancy military thriller. Guy fighting for USAF is fired (bizarrely mid mission while still carrying a load of bombs) and joins a PMC. Years later, said PMC become involved in battle alongside the US. Deciding that the US are nicking all their money, the PMC (in a twist a blind person could see miles away) invades the States. The player, being the type of person who probably sleeps in the star spangled banner, rejoins the US and beats up every PMC jet who attempts to attack him. Its an alright story and does a good job setting up the missions, but lets say it won’t win any awards. The mission on the other hand are all superb. From bombing African rebel camps, to protecting Air Force One, the varied missions make flying great fun. However, there are one too many escort missions which may drive people insane. Similarly, the game can get really annoying when the designers thought it would be funny to jam your plane, limiting your ability to use missiles. Although good fun, when they do it four time, it looses its novelty and instead becomes a pain in the ass. Additionally, the game also bridges the gap between GRAW 2 and Endwar showing some of the political changes that occurred to pit the world power against each other and the rise of Captain Mitchell up to a position of power.
The other point about H.A.W.X. is the COD4-esque XP system. By leveling up, you unlock more aircraft and weapons packs. This system does add a lot of replayability to the game, as many of the best weapon sets require you to reach level 40ish. Multiplayer is a good way of getting points and is also great fun, although hampered but a lack of modes. The addition of an attack/defend mode (so beloved in the singleplayer) would provide some much needed variety. The number of aircraft in H.A.W.X is amazing. There are around 50 aircraft ranging from the venerable MIG-21 up to the F22 and beyond including the SR-71 Blackbird. Most of these aircraft have unique cockpits and models, although the variants are often just reskins. The number of aircraft will drive completionists to madness unlocking all of them and their weapon loadouts and skins. Graphics-wise the game is really good looking. The aircraft models have good look to them, with a shine off the cockpits and the wings. The world also looks good, until you reach less than 100m above the ground. Then the satalite imagery based textures start to show their limitations. The sound is also pretty good, with the jets having different sounds for their roaring engines. It is however let down by the appaling voice acting from your breifing officers, which was almost as bad as the ones from Men of War.
H.A.W.X is an absolute blast to play, but has a serious length issue. I finished the story in around 5 hours on normal. Admittedly, I only got to level 20 and had tons of aircraft left to get but for many people that would be enough. Therefore, if your only interested in the story, this game is more of a rent. For everyone else, the game is worth of a purchase but only if its around £25 or less. It isn’t really worth the RRP but pick it up for a bargain and I guarantee you a fun few hours blowing 4 million pound jets out of the sky.
I give H.A.W.X. for 75%, praising it for it action but marking it down for the little annoyances and the short length
