It's time to kick the tyres and light the fires

When it comes to flight games of this type, there aren’t many on the current selection of consoles. You can tick them off on one Hand; Blazing Angels, Blazing Angels 2, Ace Combat, Over G Fighters and the not yet released, Heroes over Europe. Blazing Angels and Ace Combat were very good, Ace Combat especially. But it has been well over a year now, and I’ve not been able to hum the Top Gun theme to a new flight game since then. This is why the roar of Tom Clancys H.A.W.X. is a most welcome one.

Tom Clancys H.A.W.X. moves away from the very strategic realms of Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six to deliver an arcade flight game that will start to test your nerve and responses.

H.A.W.X. is set in the year 2012 and private military companies are the new tool of warfare, fighting for the highest bidder. You are part of one of these military groups, in a division specialising in air combat.

Fly like an eagle, into the blue sky above

For the most part the attention to detail in H.A.W.X. is stunning; the smoke trail left by your missile, the sun on the water, the bullet trails as they rip through the skies and flying through the exploding carcass of an enemy aircraft. And the aircrafts themselves have been beautifully rendered, right down to the last rivet.

H.A.W.X. feels a bit like Ace Combat, but a lot faster. The left stick is for direction and the right stick is purely for the camera. This niggles me somewhat as I would prefer it if the stick was set up more in keeping with Ubisoft’s previous adventure in the skies, Blazing Angels. The control scheme on that stick was perfect for controlling the aircraft; left stick for turning and pitch, with the right stick for barrel rolls, acceleration and ‘braking’. Will there be an option to change the controls? Only time will tell.

Tom Clancys H.A.W.X. has 4 viewpoints to control the plane from. Two of the said view points are cockpit views, one with the dials and the other to show how level you are. The first external viewpoint is on the tail of plane, which is standard in driving and flight games. The second viewpoint is altogether different and once you have gotten used to it, it makes dog fighting not only easier (in my opinion) but also more cinematic. This viewpoint sees the camera drawn right back so you can not only see your plane but a lot of the dog fighting that surrounds you.

If you have a ground unit in the area, they will maintain constant radio contact with you to let you know if or when they need help. The challenge of H.A.W.X. is that you must judge what to do first, take out the enemy aircraft that are locking on to you, or take out the ground units that are pinning your allies. So it is all about switching between targets and whipping between one side of the combat zone to the other. On harder difficulty settings you really do feel the pressure of juggling air-to-air combat and ground strikes, trying to judge which would be the most effective action to take.

Bogey on your Six

You are not alone though as you do have wingmen who you can order to fight or defend by pressing a direction on your Dpad or by speaking down your microphone, EndWar style. But if AI buddies aren’t how you like to fly, get your friends in for a bit of drop-in drop-out co-op action. Having three of your friends taking to the skies to help you out is just part of the brilliance of H.A.W.X., although the co-op did cause a few arguments when I tried it with some of my own buddies, mainly over who got to be called Maverick.

The campaign is fully coop compatible so if you choose. I tried it out with three of my mates, without even a hint of lag. And it won’t be long before the tacticians and the fly boys among your buddies emerge from their shells. Having friends in a game really does beat the AI on so many levels, the biggest euphoric moment caused by two of us climbing to dodge a missile, cutting our engines then plummeting and locking on to our respective enemies. An amazing sense of achievement.

An area overlooked and underated?

At the moment it seems that we (gamers) can’t move for FPS’ and Driving games - the flight genre being sorely overlooked. But thanks to H.A.W.X. that looks like it could be about to change and change for the better. H.A.W.X. may be a complete change of direction from the normal Tom Clancy fare (for a start you are in the air) but it still maintains its Tom Clancy identity with occasional cross reference to other Tom Clancy brands, such as Ghost Recon with the Ghost squad featuring in the opening movie (which is viewable above). But also its HUD draws a similar resemblance to that of Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, but changed to fit its new aerial home.

One thing I would like to make crystal clear is that H.A.W.X. is not a flight simulation! H.A.W.X. is an action flight game, which sees you dog fighting dive bombing and barrel rolling all over the skies. It is a true adrenaline rush from the moment you get behind the stick and take to the blue skies above.

Preview by: Tom 'Maverick' Daly
Preview Published:20.02.09