Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X Demo [Impressions]
February 19th, 2009
Tom Clancy seems like he’s associating his name with a variety of games these days, and not just tactical shooters, albeit all of them having a military theme of some sort. The latest offering, HAWX, hopes to take to the skies with the aim of shooting down its nearest rival: Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation.
I must admit that I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for air combat games. It’s probably because I had delusions of becoming a pilot whilst growing up and spent many pleasant hours flying around stark battlefields in games such as F-15 Strike Eagle
[1], and Gunship 2000
[2] – basically I would play anything from Microprose back in the day. I am always keen to see how any air combat game fairs; perhaps with the hope of rekindling a long lost passion.
With HAWX we’re thrust into the world of the PMC (Private Military Contractor) as an ex-USAF pilot now working for Artemis, whom have recently secured a defence contract with Brazil in the year 2021. In this demo you get to play through a couple of missions, although the first of which is really nothing more than an elaborate tutorial to familiarise oneself with the controls whilst practicing some rudimentary air combat against some remote drones. It does however demonstrate the difference between “assistance on” and “assistance off”. The latter apparently gives you more manoeuvrability but forces you to adopt a distant view of your aircraft, rather than a chase or cockpit camera angle - which to be honest you’re either going to love or hate. Personally, this view isn’t for me, and I found it incredibly disorientating. I want to feel like I’m flying a multi-million pound military fighter, not controlling a remote controlled plane I just purchased from Toys R Us. At least it’s an option – so everyone should be happy.
It’s the second mission that really gives you a flavour of things to come as we participate in the defence of Rio de Janeiro from an invasion by Las Trinidad. The action comes thick and fast as priorities change and you’re tasked with destroying landing craft, bombers, and provide air support to beleaguered ground troops. Fortunately you have a couple of wingmen and an unlimited supply of missiles to tackle the situation.
One of the main issues that can be levelled at modern air combat game is that your opponent is very rarely seen. It’s true, air combat is a series of neon geometric shapes displayed on your HUD and if you’re lucky you may catch a fleeting glimpse of an aircraft or ground unit. But this isn’t a criticism of the game per-se, just a side effect of the genre that hasn’t really changed in decades. What does change, however, is the realism of the world you fly in and HAWX looks as good as it can probably get; the plane models (those you can see) are excellent, smoke trails litter the air from missiles, and a mixture of polygon objects intermingled with bitmap images give an illusion of a detailed and realistic landscape.
HAWX looks like it’s going to be an accessible air combat game. There are a variety of control methods, systems to provide optional assistance such as EMS that displays a series of gates to follow so as to intercept targets or evade missiles, and there is even voice support – although I found it didn’t work too well in practice. With a variety of real world aircraft to pick from, what looks like a levelling system as you gain experience, and all this coupled with the strong branding courtesy of Mr Clancy, then this could be one to watch out for.
