Review: Tom Clancy's HAWX

I remember when Afterburner was the state of the art flight game. Coming straight after TopGun it felt almost like a good movie tie-in. Since then there's been a lot of development in the flight games with a clear division between arcade style games like Afterburner and more recently Ace Combat, and the simulators like Microsoft Flight Simulator. HAWX comes down firmly on the arcade side. Each mission starts and finishes with you already in the air so there's no pesky take off or landing. So if it's not going to be a simulator it needs to be fast paced fighter game. Now that might be fine on a console but does an arcade flight game cut it on the PC?

In the Navy

The single player campaign opens in the near future with you flying for the US military in an advanced fighter squadron. After the first couple of missions the squad is disbanded and you're given a contract with a private defensre contractor to go and fight for the US in a peacekeeping role. There are a few twists and turns to the story but it's a bit convoluted and not terribly well put together. Between each mission you have a briefing for the next mission. This is told with a small video screen on a background showing apparently random graphs and charts. After this short briefing you're given the option of which plane to take out. You can choose any plane but the game will recommend the most useful one.

A choice of armament type is also offered but again the game will recommend one. It's generally best to take the recommended plane and armament type. Once you get into the air you sometimes have a bit of help from your wingmen who have come with you from your military squad. Sometimes you have help from a larger squadron and sometimes you're on your own. I didn't find that the support from wingmen wasn't that helpful. You ultimately need to take out most of the enemy targets by yourself. Sometimes when there was more support the computer controlled characters managed to perform a bit better.

The need for speed

The graphics in HAWX are pretty good generally. There's quite a variety of different planes. To choose from and they each look distinctly different. They move quite nicely in flight although they all seem to handle quite similarly. The backgrounds are also quite nicely put together. The developers have used satellite imagery of the places you'll be fighting over.

Unfortunately they never look like anything except high altitude images. It doesn't matter how close you get to them, they never take on any real scale. Your plane seems to be the size of a small building and the whole pentagon at the same time. That's a real shame because from a distance it looks quite good but on bombing runs you need to get close to the ground and this just doesn't work well.

Never abandon your wingman

The camera normally follows the plane directly behind it but you can tap the right control key and the camera switches to an external view and removes the safety controls on the plane. You can accelerate harder and slow down until you stall. This allows you to drift turn the plane as you would a car in a racing game. This becomes an advantage in a heavy dogfight as it allows you to more easily track enemy planes and to easily avoid missiles heading your way.

The camera view though is rather disorienting especially as it always tries to focus on whatever you're targeting not where your plane is pointing. It's sometimes necessary to switch to the normal camera to find the enemy you want to target and then switch back to get into the dogfight. The other controls are also easily handled on the keyboard but you can play with a mouse as well or a game controller. The best type of controller is, as you would expect, a flight joystick to create a more natural effect. I found that the keyboard was sufficient with all of the necessary controls within easy reach.

Bogeys on my six

If you tire of the 19 missions in the single player campaign then you can take the action online. You can either play in a dogfight against other players online or you can combine forces and take on the campaign missions as a team. The missions vary from escorting other planes and tackling enemies in dogfights and protecting against SAM emplacements, attacking ground targets and protecting ground targets from planes and ground forces. Sticking with the recommended plane and weapons gives you a good variety of experiences in the game.

The missions do also provide some variety in the locations and given task. Although it's only one of a set, one mission sees you protecting Air Force One over Washington whilst another has you protecting a helicopter delivering and extracting a team and extracting attacking an enemy weapons bunker. Since there are only 19 missions they don't get repetitive during a single play through.

Sir, Yes Sir

So overall, Ubisoft has done a good job with HAWX. It doesn't set the world on fire and isn't going to teach you to fly. It is a good fun straightforward arcade title. The scenery could be better and there's not really a sense of speed but if you're focusing on the action then this isn't too distracting. The story doesn't really help the missions to string together but the cutscenes aren't too long so it doesn't really matter.

The main thing is that the dogfights are intense and involving which they are. There are mutliplayer modes which should keep you coming back to this title for a while. If you're looking for something more detailed like managing fuel, take off and landing, wingman orders and more limited weapons, then this isn't going to be for you. If you're more interested in getting straight into the action then this is going to appeal.