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Warhawk Preview June 01, 2007 John JCal Callaham |
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Summary: Sony's out to meet the Halo challenge and one of the titles they're hoping to steal Microsoft's thunder with is Warhawk.
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 2 ) |
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Let's go over the reservations first before we get to the good stuff. For the most part, all of the issues we have with the beta are things you expect with a game that's still in the bug fixing stage; freezing in the middle of the match sometimes, losing online connections at times, occasionally not being able to get power ups, and a server browser that's gives pretty inaccurate info on ping at this stage. Most servers in the game's browser show a 9999 for a ping but it's likely that you can still play on those servers. We hope Incog and Sony will make sure that when the final game is release it gets the ping issue fixed.
So let's get to the stuff that's good about Warhawk and there's plenty of it. At E3 2006 we played an early version of Warhawk when it was still being described as a update on the PS1 futuristic flying action game. That's really not what the game is any more, however. Yep, flying in heavily armed flying vehicles is still a big part of Warhawk but now the game is Incog and Sony's PS3's exclusive answer to the Battlefield franchise, although on a somewhat smaller scale. Players can engage targets foot, shooting with pistols, grenades, machine guns, rocket launchers and flame throwers (all in third person by the way). There are jeeps and tanks to drive in addition to planes to fly and there's machine gun and rocket turrets to operate. The levels in the beta are massive and vary widely between environments and can easily handle the 32 player limit of Warhawk. The combo of all these features surprised us. Once more, playing the game (when the bugs don't come into play) is a joy.
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We will concentrate on the flying vehicles first, since the game still centers on this kind of multiplayer combat. While you can fly the vehicles with the normal analog stick configuration on the PS3 controller, there's really no reason to thanks to the SIXAXIS wireless motion sensing features. Simply move the controller left or right or up and down to control the flight of the planes. The learning curve is pretty easy and you will soon wonder how you played a game like this any other way (its not the default setting, however so you'll have to enable motion sensing if you want it before you go into battle). This leaves your fingers free to do other things like firing the default machine guns with the right trigger button and using the various weapons on the left trigger. The D-pad lets you select what extra weapons you can fire for the left trigger, from quick but low powered missiles to more powerful homing missiles to anti-missile chaff defenses to aerial mines. You gain these weapons by flying into symbols in the air that designate what power ups you can gain. There's even a cloaking device for your plane. You can also switch into hover mode and hide behind a building to fire the devastating guided missile that you guide yourself to its target.
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| Conclusion | Page:: ( 2 / 2 ) |
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Visually the game is a treat with some excellent and rather unique level design for the game, from a desert level to a European village setting to a really impressive island based level where the plane aspect of the game is really put into focus. The graphics really look good for a multiplayer title with impressive modeling for the planes and some great lighting and visual effects. Seeing a plane get destroyed in a huge explosion in the sky is something to behold. The game currently has four modes; standard deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag is included but you also get Warhawk's variation on Battlefield's standard Capture mode where teams take and hold onto spawn points on the map. The game allows the maps to be small for eight player battles or expand to their full size for large 32 battle. Leaderboards track your stats and compare them to other players and you can even launch your own dedicated server for people who want to run their matches 24/7.
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Warhawk is definitely not as deep as the Battlefield series in terms of amounts of weapons, vehicles and items but that's actually part of its charm. There's something to be said for a game that let's you just start playing without a lot of introductions or instructions. The gameplay is fast and furious, especially if you hook up on a 32 player match. The physics of the game are a little wonky (if you are on foot you can fall from a tall structure or location and there's no damage) but that's a quibble. We do have some concerns about how the final game will be marketed, however. So far Sony has declined to say how much they will sell the game for download on the Playstation Store. We hope that the game won't be sold online for more than $30 when it is released unless they release more levels than the five that are currently available in the beta (the game will also be sold as a retail product with a Bluetooth enabled wireless headset). It's also a good bet that Sony will offer downloadable expansions for the game after its release; what will the costs of those expansions be like?
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However, those concerns are for the future. For right now, the multiplayer beta of Warhawk has turned out to be a far different and more enjoyable experience than we were expecting. Having full featured downloadable games like this gives Sony a bit of an edge over Microsoft in this area who seems to be content to offer small Xbox Live Arcade games rather than larger offerings. The beta test period is scheduled to run until June 25; if there are any major changes to the beta before it ends we will post an update. We also hope to get more info from Sony on their release plans for Warhawk in the near future before its planned release later this year.
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