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Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X - Source: Gamefreaks -
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Platform: Xbox 360/PS3, PC
Genre : Flight Combat
Feel like taking to the skies at sonic speeds and taking out bad guys with the world's top military hardware? Enjoy bombing the hell out of armies and engaging in aerial dues? Then Tom Clancy's HAWX might be the game for you.
Flight sim games on the consoles previously have been the domain of Namco's Ace Combat series - we're sitting at about five by now. Now Ubisoft is looking to take their slice of pie from the sky with HAWX. The events of the game are set in the near future, square between the events of Ghost Recon. In fact, your opening mission has you running support for Captain Scott Mitchell and his Ghosts in Mexico, and the WW3 events of Tom Clancy's Endwar.
It's all part of Ubisoft's blending their Tom Clancy series of games into one seamless universe. You take the hot seat as pilot David Crenshaw who, after the events of the first mission, takes up a role along with his wingmen in a private military organisation called Artemis Global Security, which contracts its services to countries and organisations like the UN all over the world.
The missions on offer are nicely varied, ranging from bombing the heck out of terrorist camps, escorting high priority individuals, defending cities against assaulting enemy armies and, of course, air to air combat.
To facilitate this, a pleasing range of recognisable military hardware is on offer: Air to air dog fighters, slower but sturdier ground attack planes and of course customisable payloads of stuff that goes boom. As you progress throughout your missions you'll gain XP and level up which in turn unlocks more goodies to play with and this carries over to the multiplayer side of things too.
Aided by real satellite imagery, the graphics look fantastic from up high and include many recognisable locations, including the likes of Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles. Realistic as they look, this does not carry on to the actual gameplay itself.
HAWX doesn't muck around with the more common aspects of flying a military jet, take off, re-fueling etc, instead you're thrown right into the thick of things. You'll rarely spend more than a minute before you're confronted by yet another threat. It also gleefully throws waves of opponents at you on both the ground and the air with little thought to conserving ammo. By the end of any mission your kill counts will inevitably clock up in the dozens.
Despite the variety in missions HAWX is a rather short game. I'd be surprised if most players wouldn't be done in eight or so hours.
My suspicion is that there will be a small but hardcore following for this game online. If you're keen on getting involved this will certainly give it some more oomph, especially if you take advantage of the drop in/out co-op mode which allows you to have up to four people playing through the campaign missions together. With extra enemies you can use team tactics to great effect, although generally most online games seem to have your wingmen charging off doing their own thing.
You can also go head to head with up to 16 players, but we had trouble finding this particularly rewarding - too many planes in the air and the whole lock on missile aspect will have you all dropping like flies.
Summary
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X certainly does a good job of capturing the feel of swooping through the skies. Put aside any sense of realism and enjoy the explosions. It does lack the depth one usually finds in Tom Clancy titles however...
This review bought to you by Gamefreaks.
