An excellent way to make 5 or 6 hours disappear

Ever since the PS3 was announced, they were showing these amazing screenshots and videos from WarHawk.  They promised amazing levels of detail, action and nonstop warfare from all angles.  And then they took the storyline and threw it away making WarHawk an online only game.  And to be honest with you, I think they made the best choice they've made in a long time.

Incognito studios developed WarHawk for PS3 and they have crafted one of the most entertaining and addictive games I've played.  Ever.  The game play is very smooth and Incognito has a great habit of churning out quality add-ons and game upgrades.  New maps, weapons and vehicles have been introduced through upgrades and add-on purchases available via the Playstation Network.

The game was sold in stores with a Bluetooth headset included, or over the Playstation Network as a downloadable game.  From the outset you were thrown into the fire without a clue as to what you were doing.  There were no tutorials included with the game, and the learning curve was very steep.  The controls and weapons are simple enough, it's just that people who were involved with Beta Testing or who were religious WarHawk players in the past (WarHawk for PS3 is a sequel to WarHawk for PSX/PS1) had a bit of an advantage (read: they'd kill you in seconds) over a new player.  The effect of this was many one-sided games, an abundance of players being kicked or banned from private servers, and eventually many new players stopped playing when they couldn't get an edge up on experienced player.

Then, Incognito introduced their tutorials.  Basic weapons, flight, ground fighting, vehicles, and more.  The tutorials were part of an update.  One of many.  Some updates fix small bugs, lag issues, exploits, or other game functions.  But other updates improved the game play.  In one update they introduced two new weapons.  The Wrench and the Bio-Field Generator.  So... onto the weapons!

Weapons!  In the game, all weapons are well balanced and have strengths and weaknesses that can be used for your advantage depending on which side of the business end you're on.  The aiming in the game uses a simple auto-lock on system which works very naturally.  The weapons include:

Pistol (equipped upon spawning):  Good for close quarters rapid fire.  Unlimited ammo.  Not good at distance.  Will not damage tanks or Antiaircraft guns; will not damage jeeps or WarHawks significantly enough to attempt.

Knife (equipped upon spawning): Good for close quarters 'melee' kills.  Useless at distance.

Grenades (equipped upon spawning): usually an instant kill if the throw is a direct hit.  Will damage all vehicles and antiaircraft guns, will explode on contact of enemies, will roll on the ground for short time if no enemy is hit.  Max carry is 6.  Keep these in inventory at all times!

Assault Rife: Excellent for close and mid range combat.  Loses accuracy at long distance.  Excellent aiming.  Will damage jeeps and WarHawks.  Try to aim up while shooting, head-shots do count

Flamethrower: Absolute Carnage is produced and directed by this weapon at close range.  Useless at distance.  Excellent against vehicles and Antiaircraft guns.

Rocket Launcher: Has a lock on feature which works on WarHawks and Tanks.  Dumb fire is a dead on fire with little to no plane deviation.  Be cautious at close quarters.

Sniper Rifle: 2 mode zoom, sniping across the map is possible if your tv is big enough.  Leaves tell tale round trail in air for about a half second.  Does not damage Tanks or Antiaircraft guns.

Call For Fire binoculars:  Shoots a green laser on a stationary target (shooter must also be stationary) which calls for an artillery strike.  Certain death for anyone in a good radius of the strike.  Will take out Tanks, WarHawks, ground troops, jeeps, antiaircraft guns, APCs, and can even take out the Combat Drop ship (may require multiple hits)

Landmines:  Landmines are actually proximity mines which are able to stick to any solid surface.  On land, building or vehicles/guns.  Within the radius of the prox sensor, most enemies will be destroyed.  Max carry is 4 and max deployment is 4 at a time.  If you deploy more than 4, the first of the 4 will disappear and will be replaced by number 5.

And the two additions available via update:
 
Wrench: Replaces the knife.  Still performs Close combat melee kills. Has ability to repair friendly or unoccupied vehicles, or to damage and destroy enemy occupied vehicles. About 5 strikes on a tank and BOOM!
 
BioField Generator:  Shares weapons menu location with Prox mines.  Will create a cloud of healing 'dust'.  Will heal anyone on your team, damages enemies when they pass through it.  Stick it on an enemy jeep or tank as it passes by for some fun :)

Vehicles!  WarHawk is all about being able to seamlessly jump from the ground into the cockpit of jet, fly off, hover and land at a base, do a combat exit, hotwire a jeep, book it over a bridge and commandeer a tank.  OK, so it's not as cool as I make it sound.  You walk up to a vehicle and press 'square'.  But it IS seamless.   You can explore the world by foot, air (WarHawk or Combat Drop ship), or in a few different land based vehicles (Tank, Jeep, and APC).
 
WarHawk: The WarHawk is a very dynamic and agile flier.  The vehicle is capable of VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing), and is equipped with a limited afterburner unit.  Flight is performed in one of two ways.  "Pro Flight" behaves much like any flight simulator (and in this gamer's opinion should be the only available flight option) which requires you to perform all of the rolls and evasive maneuvers as you would in real life.  Uncheck this option and you are able to barrel roll, flip and carve up the air ways like a Top Gun.  And all you did was drop your controller... The WarHawk has a large assortment of weapons as well.

Each WarHawk is equipped with a machine gun which will overheat when used excessively, and a Chaff for escaping the lock of a missile.  Weapons which are suspended in the air and available to the pilots are as follows:

Swarm Missiles: multiple targets can be acquired and many missiles launched when these are equipped.  Not very powerful, but kill when launched in numbers.

Homing missiles: Very powerful missile, follow up a brief machine gun battle with one of these for a kill.

Cluster Bombs:  Umm... Do I need to go into this?  Get. Drop. Boom... boom boom boom.

Stealth: Acquire this and you'll have the ability to go invisible.  A faint outline of the WarHawk is visible and no radar locks are possible.  If you engage this while someone is following you and they have a lock before you disappear, they will remain locked on.

Aerial proximity mines:  I hate these things.. pop one out when you're being chased!

Charge weapon: This weapon shoots high voltage energy shocks.  If you have a full charge (10 value) you can charge it up by holding in the fire button and release when charge indicator is full to instant kill troops, destroy all landmines within the blast radius, or 'deposit' the energy on any vehicle/WarHawk or solid surface.  It will damage surrounding units or vehicles.

TOW missile:  The TOW is the most powerful weapon in the game.  It is a remotely guided missile which you control in a first person view to meet with its new owners.   Only one vehicle can survive the TOW strike - the Combat Drop ship - but it will severely weaken it.  You are very vulnerable when firing the TOW as your WarHawk will enter hover mode and your entire screen is taken up by the TOW video system.  Use for a lot of points in DM or TDM, or when chasing your flag in CTF.

Phew... OK, on to the next aircraft!


Combat Drop ship.

The combat drop ship has room for 6 soldiers (other than the pilot) which will in turn be given access to the drop ship's missile targeting systems.  The drop ship also has machine guns, but much more devastating ones than on the WarHawk.  The drop ship is heavily armored, has recharging Chaff, and also has the ability to pick up a Jeep or Tank.  The only disadvantage the drop ship has is that is very slow.
This is available in the Omega Dawn add-on pack.


Land Vehicles!


Jeep.  Ah, the Jeep... A personal favorite.  The Jeep has room for 3 total.  One driver, one useless passenger, and a gunner for the .50cal machine gun mounted on the back.  The jeep is low armored, fast and readily available.  Fun tricks with the jeep include running over enemies, attaching proximity mines for suicide runs, and knifing enemies who get stuck in corners when driving the jeep.


Tank.  The tank is a heavy, slow vehicle, but it is still much faster than a man on foot.  The tank's gun will take out a man on foot in one shot, will destroy WarHawks as fast(if you're quick enough on the trigger) and can destroy any other vehicle or gun, but the shots required vary.  The tank has a hatch position as well as the driver position and can be manned by another player.  The other player can repair the tank by using the wrench with out getting off of it.  The player is in the open for fire though.  A good tip would be to use a BioField generator, and repair with the wrench when needed, using a rocket launcher to fend off WarHawks.  Do this and drive directly into your target base.


APC (armored personnel carrier).  The APC is an add-on vehicle (Operation: Broken Mirror) which is heavily armored, and operates as a mobile spawn point.  The APC also randomly gives soldiers weapons when they spawn in it.  The APC has a 'dash' ability which can destroy jeeps, tanks, other APCs and even aircraft.  It is also equipped with a shield which protects from incoming fire and WarHawks.

OK, so you may see why the learning curve is so steep if you're not familiar with the game.  But everything works so well that you'll pick it up very quickly.  And the seamless game play also includes the ability for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th player on your PS3 to simply press 'Start' on their controller to start playing.  The screen will automatically resize itself and game play never stops.

The game play is very fast and addictive.  If you swear a lot, you will be learning new swear words to describe how you feel about the people you're playing!  Servers are online around the world and there are many different game play modes.


Death match:  Kill one, Kill all.  No teams, just get out there and stay alive as long as possible and get as many enemies as possible.


Team Death Match:  Just like Death Match, only it's Red vs. Blue, and you can acquire spawn points.


Zones.  Takes TDM to a new level by making it harder to acquire a base if the enemy has a certain level of 'zone' at their home base.


Collection:  Tokens are on the map and need to be brought back to collection points.


Capture the flag:  TDM + a flag.


Heroes:  One player on each team is the hero.  Teams get points when someone on the team kills the other hero, or if the hero kills the other hero.  The hero is harder to kill, has more powerful weapons and is glowing and easily found.

I know this is a lot of information in the review, but I'm just such a huge fan of this game, I had to describe the game in my own words.


NOTE:  I'm not done.  I'll be adding some stuff about the combat systems, levels, add on features, as well as the flight dynamics, and will refine the information in the post above.. I didn't intend for this to be so lengthy, but I'm enjoying writing it and plan on updating it about 3 times.

Also, armyinf227 is my PSN name if anyone wants to toss around the grenade.


Update 1: 17 Nov 2008
Update 2:
Update 3:
Final: