Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 PS3
Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 is the continuing saga of the most advanced high tech fighters based in a Tom Clancy themed story that gives you a mix of fighter and other air combat arcade flight action games.
Ratings:
Graphics & Audio: 15/25,
Gameplay: 18/25,
Creativity 15/25,
Fun 19/25
Total: 67/100
HAWX 2 (I'll keep the periods out of the title they are a pain to type) is an arcade action flight simulator, what the heck, it's a flying game but not an exact simulator. The game plays much like a combat simulator but without all the niggling problems of real physics to bore you and is about the best action flight game this year.
The main problem with the statement best of the year is that there is no other choice for modern combat/flight simulator games this year. HAWX 2 is the latest modern fighter game and the first of the sequel HAWX is the only other combat action game in the past two years.
While the pickings are slim in this category of games the two titles are actually pretty fun overall and well worth getting for both of them. HAWX 2 is probably going to be a lower rating but as the only entries to any modern flight sim games of the past two years they are your only choices.
HAWX 2 is the sequel to the previous HAWX air combat game that puts you in the driver's seat of the best modern aircraft the United States has never had. This game continues that story with a few chances to get into the driver's seat of some fictitious planes as well as several real ones.
HAWX 2 follows a typical Modern Warfare theme meets Tom Clancy story line to create a passable but somewhat all too typical flight combat action game. The flight simulator arcade style action is pretty good and fun with that correct mix of realism in flying and being lenient enough with physics and flight dynamics.
You can perform things like multiple G moves without blacking out and fly against a variety of aircraft that both out maneuver or fly faster than you for some realistic action. The game balances these action packed abilities of being less than realistic yet realistic enough to be frustrating and adrenaline inducing.
Some of the action can get frustrating like aircraft carrier landing or mid air refueling but combat is fun and difficult enough to make retrying several sequences inevitable. You start HAWX 2 in the age old story of Tom Clancy with nuclear weapons being stolen and you're the man for the job to get them back, from the seat of a fighter or aerial drone.
While this idea of being the Ghost Recon of the skies doesn't make much sense it does give you a bigger picture of a conflict and operation that really does occur. The game gives you a great overall picture of operations that include air combat, reconnaissance and ground forces that you have to protect from the air.
You fly combat fighters both realistic and fictional modern fighters and a couple of others like a drone or gunship to fight other aircraft, keep an eye on things and protect ground forces. You use the typical machine guns, air to air and air to ground weapons as well as the not so typical gunship weapons and drone rockets.
Missions vary from straight out dog fights to escort and ground attacks which can be exciting, boring, filled with adrenaline and repetitive at various times. You get to the point in some of the missions that you are merely helping the storyline along in fighting more and more enemies.
A few missions are tense and action packed and even some get a bit different like a canyon running mission where your main objective is to stay alive. This mission simply has you dodging anti aircraft fire and ground based missiles while staying low in a canyon to hide from other aircraft and more anti aircraft weaponry.
Some of the game is not as interesting or fun as others like the in flight refueling and carrier landings, they should have an option to skip these. A pilot trains for years to be able to land on carriers or refuel in mid air, as well the planes do much of the work in mid air refueling and not the pilot.
These are the kinds of sequences that in a game should really have an option to skip for those that really do not want to try it just like they skip over many takeoff sequences. When they gloss over some parts and do not give you an option to use the particular sequence like a takeoff but make landings mandatory the game seems unfair.
The story is not all that great and you will probably end up skipping the narrative just to not watch the cut scenes, they are that bad. The rest of the game has great to average effects and graphics with good textures and well done level design that looks realistic enough.
Cut scenes are bad, really bad, when you see a cargo transport crash land and they give you a close up of the nose and there is nothing inside. The plane in question has multiple windows above and below the nose cone of the aircraft and gives you a great view inside the plane but nothing is rendered at all inside.
It's like a fifth of the scene filling your screen and shows absolutely an empty grey interior of the plane, it kind of stresses the point they gave up on the cut scenes. Visual effects in cut scenes look very dated like they used effects at least five years old instead of newer, better looking ones.
Audio is alright for the most part but again the cut scenes are not really up to par for a modern video game or the story they are trying to create. Special effects and noises from those multi million, billion?, dollar machines are great and do sound pretty realistic, especially the Gatling gun fire from the A10 Warthog.
Controls work fairly well for the PlayStation 3 edition I reviewed but this is one game, just like the original that you really need a flight stick. I have a ThrustMaster T Flight Stick X and it works so much better than a Six-Axis controller on the PS3 edition of HAWX 2.
You can play the game without a flight stick or joystick but it does make things a lot harder as difficult maneuvers and things like switching weapons on the fly is hard on a controller. When using a flight stick things like switching weapons or changing targets is simply a matter of flicking the D button or hitting a switch that is positioned under your fingers.
I enjoyed playing this game for the most part but eventually skipped the story line when I ran through the game more than once as it just did not hold my interest. Much like the newest Tom Clancy novels the story has lost its luster and seems like the writer has lost interest in the writing that he had when he was in his prime.
HAWX 2 is a great flight action game and for the most part is well worth a purchase and definitely worth a rental even if it is not quite as good as the first HAWX game.