Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X Demo Impressions
D’ya think Tom regrets selling the rights to his name?
Anyway, a demo of the latest installation of a Tom Clancy game is now available on the Xbox 360 marketplace for download. This time we aren’t sneaking around with a glowing green tricloptic visor snapping necks but rather blowing shit up 3000 meters in the air in the near future. The last time I really enjoyed a fighter game was on the PS2 so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I thought it sensible to first play through the tutorial portion of the game which teaches you the controls and gives you a taste of combat.
The big difference this game seems to have over your usual fighter game is this ‘˜assistance OFF’ mode. Basically it is a mode that, when activated, pulls the camera way behind your jet in a very cinematic manner, putting your jet between you and your target. Depending on your control setting it can also switch the left stick from rolling to just pulling the plane left and right and prevent your jet from stalling. Other then the cinematic effect which looked pretty cool and the camera positions usefulness for tracking down a far away target, I found this assistance OFF mode to be awful. Much of the time you cannot see what you are chasing down or shooting at.
If you leave the game in assistance ON mode you pretty much have your run of the mill fighter game set-up. You have three camera settings; in-cockpit, HUD only from the cockpit perspective and a third person HUDless perspective from directly behind your jet. Leaving the game in assistance ON mode also enables the Enhanced Reality System or ERS. The ERS projects flightpaths onto the sky for the player to help with intercepting enemies. It is a nifty feature though it didn’t get used much. It was helpful when hitting ground targets obscured by buildings but when up against flying enemies the route it suggested didn’t seem any more efficient than the ones I used.
The combat is fun but it isn’t anything special or new. You chase down an enemy and wait for your HUD to get a lock, release missiles, bad guys blow up. Rinse. Repeat for ground enemies. I found myself staying in the assistance ON mode for the entire experience as having it set to OFF was a chore. When OFF I had to keep pulling massive loops to see where I was supposed to be going and to even see which way was up.
As the level loaded there was a small briefing to explain what the hell is going on. The gist of it is: you are a pilot for a PMC (Private Military Company) called Artemis. You seem to have been contracted to fight against another PMC in the skies over Rio de Janeiro in defence of Brazil against Las Trinidad. The little cut scene was home to some of the worst lip synced animation I have ever seen in my gaming life.
The demo also comes with a 4 player online co-op mode and after about 5 tries to get into a game and receiving error messages or being disconnected immediately I managed to find a stable one. It was pretty much more of the same, but with human allies instead of AI. In H.A.W.X we get 5 characters to make a tag for ourselves so that we can have an identifier that isn’t our gamer tags, similar to Halo 3‘s call tag system. I recall in my first online game I was matched with a fine gent who had decided to tag himself as ‘˜WANKA’.
The game awards experience points for blowing up the enemy. Leveling up unlocks more fighters with different statistics such as armour speed and manoeuvrability. The only other Jet I unlocked was some kind of harrier jet. It had improved lock on time in exchange for speed.
I never had much interest in this game and this demo hasn’t swayed me in the least. All I had seen or heard about it previously was the trailer. I don’t think this will be a purchase for me though it looks like it might be worth investigating if you miss fighter games and you didn’t like Ace Combat 6.
HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE!! If they changed the name to Tom Clancys Top Gun, it would be the biggest seeling game ever!
I don’t understand the logic behind the “Assistance OFF mode”.
Why is it considered “Assistance” to have the same point of view as the pilot?
Also, it’s almost impossible to fucking aim in Assistance OFF mode, as you have no idea which way you’re pointing half the time
@The_Young_Scot:
Assistance mode makes it impossible to stall the plane, you have less maneuverability, and can press the X button to get the projected paths up. While turning off turns of the planes computer AI and gives you full control, like the stall turns(drifts as they call them in the game) and quicker roll speeds.
Yea ill give you the fact its harder to aim, at first, but a bit of practice to get used to the orientation and the camera as it is so different from what people are used to. But I do find it more fun, while also giving you a more responsive feel to the planes.
You can also use assistance mode to get to your target in your sites, switch off the assistance and that will give you the ability to chase the target easily as the camera is always pointing at the target.
Having only played the Ace Combat 6 demo and the HAWX demo, HAWX does feel more fun and seems more interesting then Ace Combat does now, although i will admit to being interested in HAWX since it was announced…. I also like Mirrors Edge so you could say that nullifies my opinion completely.
I played a little bit of the single player demo myself, didn’t really grab me like Ace Combat 6 did. Though i’m kind of obsessed with AC6 so possibly not the most rational person to comment on any potential competitor.