Dogfighting at it's Finest – H.A.W.X. Review

Flight Sims. Excercises in masochism, or mindnumbingly simplistic aerial shooters. They come in all sorts and sizes… and I’ve barely played any of them. You see, I’ve never been much of a flight game player, unless it’s of the space-faring sort. Yet last week a flight game caught my attention after a surprisingly engaging demo.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. sets out to deliver a gripping storyline, sweet graphics, accessible gameplay, extensive multiplayer capabilities and mindbogglingly wild aerial combat. With GeoEye satellite technology for terrain graphics, co-op support and 19 singleplayer missions it certainly seems to be a long way there. But does it go all the way? Read on to find out.

H.A.W.X. kinda flew in under my radar, but gained altitude at the last moment with a refreshingly interesting demo. Playing through the demo convinced me to pre-order on Steam – and on release day I was soaring through foreign skies with a variety of modern fighter planes.

On that first day of play I intended to go to bed early, so I could rest up a bit for the LAN Party. Nothing of the sort happened, by the time I logged out of Steam it was nearly 2 AM. Yet this happened not due to H.A.W.X. being simply that great of a game, but rather because it was addictively entertaining in spite of its – many – shortcomings.

Gameplay

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is arcade to a fault. Inhuman maneuvres, impossible odds and unlikely scenarios are what this game is all about. Lift off and landing aren’t even covered, instead you’re always in the air at the start and end of missions. A nightmare for Flight Sim enthusiasts, but also very accessible and enjoyable for less experienced pilots such as myself.

As you might expect from a flight game you’re tasked with the usual destroying of other planes and a variety of ground targets (tanks, sam’s, buildings). Nothing groundbreaking there. Your ordenance varies between the usual suspects: bombs, (guided) missiles, rockets and cannons. But there are some innovations to be had in the pilot support department.

The Enhanced Reality System can be turned on to assist you in avoiding missiles, flying through heavy anti-air barrages and locking onto targets in well-covered positions. It’s a matter of flying through the triangles that appear on your HUD, which is about as easy as it sounds although close-to-the-ground maneuvres can get tricky.

There’s also the Assistance Off feature. Normally pilot assistance is turned on and prevents your plane from stalling and pulling overly ridiculous moves that no human pilot would ever survive. You can turn that off to start playing Tony H.A.W.X. and really stunt with your plane. Brake and pull hard in any direction to drift in the air and quickly turn onto your target… or brake too long and have your plane fall into a stall. Nice, but it’s hindered by its annoying habit of locking you into a sort of sideways 3rd person view.

The Enhanced Reality System makes for easy bombing runs

Controls

Only a few months ago I purchased a new joystick to play through some oldschool space sims. So obviously I used my joystick to play Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. rather than a gamepad or keyboard/mouse combination. Both of those are also available, but from what I’ve hard and seen a joystick is definitely preferred.

The controls are as basic as they’re going to get in any flight game. My joystick features 12 buttons and throttle and I never needed my keyboard during play (other than to take screenshots and open the menu). Very few buttons are required during flight and the game responds to joystick movement as you might expect, although it did require some (re)binding to get it to utilize all buttons on my joystick.

Oddly enough for a modern flight game like H.A.W.X. is its complete lack of force feedback support. Surely even arcade flight games benefit from the increased immersion of feeling like you’re actually piloting the plane!

Singleplayer

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. takes place in the same universe as the multitude of other Tom Clancy games. You play the role of David Crenshaw, a former U.S. Air Force pilot who joins the Private Military Company Artemis after his squadron (Hight Altitude Warfare eXperimental squadron) is disbanded. What follows is a rather unbelievable plot that mainly serves as an excuse for visiting a wide variety of locations and engaging in a wealth of differing missions.

Tom Clancy fans will love the references to the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter series, as you fly support for these guys on multiple occassions. In spite of the general cheesiness of the plot and mediocre voice-acting performances, the game still manages to stay interesting. Mostly due to the variety of recognizable and impressive scenarios. Fighting above Washington D.C., Tokyo and even covering for an American fleet make for some sweet scenes.

If you’re even remotely experienced with flight games then you’ll want to take Hard (or higher) as your beginning level. I had no trouble cruising through the Normal difficulty setting as an absolute noob – and only died 4 or 5 times, of which three were stupid crashes at low altitudes.

Co-op is intense and fun

Multiplayer

This is where H.A.W.X. really shines. There aren’t a whole load of options to choose from with just co-op and Team DeathMatch available, but what’s there is solid. The level of realism and difficulty can be altered for the entire server or on individual basis, making for a very customizable online experience.

Team DeathMatch is intense with the implementation of ERS and Assistance Off. Loads of aerial drifting and missile dodging guaranteed. Up to 8 players can blast each other out of the sky and the game mode is further spiced up with powerups for good players. If you shoot down a number of planes then you can use the points you’ve gained to call in radar jamming, missile jamming, repair drones and other support powers for your team. You can play either ranked or unranked matches, with ranked matches improving your level and standing.

Co-op is the other game mode and the most interesting one. You can play through any mission in the singleplayer with up to 3 other players. Every player that joins will make the game that much more difficult as it sends more waves of targets to you and has your team splitting up all over to complete all the objectives in time. Sweet in multiplayer and awesome over LAN – and more challenging than the singleplayer campaign.

This may not be the most complete or the most robust of flight games, but there’s nothing quite like taking some mates up into the air and defending a carrier fleet in the Pacific from hundreds of bogies. It also draws some inspiration from Left 4 Dead in making your teammates vital for surviving missions. You simply don’t have enough ammo (or speed) to take out all possible targets in 4-man co-op, even if you’re uberpro with onboard cannons.

H.A.W.X. also comes equipped with Call of Duty-like ranking systems and unlockables. In singleplayer and multiplayer you rank up as you score points and fulfill mission objectives, to a maximum rank of level 40 (General of the Air Force). With each level come additional planes and custom loadouts. There are also challenges, such as shooting down 50 planes with on-board cannons, available in singleplayer and multiplayer for unlocking even more custom loadouts. It’s a system that can easily get you addicted to getting just that extra bit of XP for another rank and newly unlocked loadouts.

The Technical Side

As you may have gathered from the screenshots strewn throughout this review: H.A.W.X. is a beautiful game. As long as you stay at high altitude that is.

H.A.W.X. utilizes GeoEye satellite imagery for it’s ground texturing, which makes for realistic images and beautiful scenes from high above. But if you get too close, then the effect wears off and it often seems like a blurry 2D image of the real world. Of course you won’t be looking at the ground from up-close most of the time, unless you’re doing something wrong, so overall it’s still a very pretty flight game.

In terms of sound it features a decent soundtrack and good sound effects. There’s nothing particularly remarkable in this respect, other than the mediocre voice acting. Frequently it’s only all-too-easy to picture the actor sitting back in a chair and monotonously spewing out line after line.

Much of the dialogue can also get lost in the heat of battle, because frequently part of the story is told during missions, while you’re still fighting. The game does use cutscenes for most of the important moments, but not everything is covered in them.

Don't look down if you want H.A.W.X. to stay this pretty

Conclusion

There is no doubt that H.A.W.X. is a solid arcade flight game that has fully made due on it’s promises of realistic ground texturing, accessibility and extensive multiplayer support. However it does suffer from a number of issues that make it hard to recommend.

Singleplayer may be fairly engaging, but it’s a short affair at a mere 6 or 7 hours, with a meager story to back it up. The gameplay may be solid, but flying can feel a bit too much like a game of missile dodging, rather than a game of dogfighting, because missile locking is so easy. Furthermore the unrealistic flight mechanics will definitely not suit any hardcore Flight Sim fans.

I loved playing this game over LAN in co-op and Team DeathMatch and I played through the singleplayer campaign in one quick go. In my opinion it was definitely worth the money, in spite of its many shortcomings. But whether or not you should shell out for it yourself depends on a lot of factors.

Gamers with friends will definitely get more enjoyment out of this, as will those not quite as picky about realism and flight mechanics. Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. really is the very definition of the Try before you buy rating.

Score

Pros

• Sweet graphics at high altitude
• Plenty of aircraft and loadouts to choose from
• Arcade flightmodel (accessible & fun)
• Multiplayer
• Simple and understandable HUD
• Rankings and unlockables make it the Call of Duty of flight games

Cons:

• Poor terrain graphics at lower altitude
• No force-feedback support
• Arcade flightmodel (unrealistic)
• Assistance off locks in 3rd person view
• Only a single multiplayer mode
• Short and mediocre singleplayer story

Try before you buy

Reviewer Score: 7.5

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