Tom Clancy's HAWX

[Flawless]

Tom Clancy's HAWX Flies into the Danger Zone
Ubisoft set to release a new air combat franchise this fall. First details and trailer.

April 2, 2008 - Ubisoft and Tom Clancy games are like the peanut butter and chocolate of the games industry; the two go together naturally. Gamers who are already familiar with the Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six series have a new Tom Clancy game to consider this fall. Tom Clancy's HAWX (that's short for High-Altitude Warfare...X?) is flying onto PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this fall.

Developed by Ubisoft's Bucharest Studio, HAWX lets you pilot more than 50 planes in dogfights across the sky. Set in 2012, HAWX imagines a world that has become increasingly dependant on private military companies (PMCs). With PMCs increasingly gaining power, we sit on the precipice of a global conflict. Sounds like a good enough reason to hop in your fighter jet and shoot down some bogies.

HAWX features an Enhanced Reality System (ERS), which is meant to make even the average pilot feel like Iceman. ERS includes radars, incoming missile detection, an anti-crash system, damage control system, tactical map, information relay, weapons trajectory control and allows players to give commands to their AI squadron. With the Assistance Mode flipped on, the ERS will put pilots into a maximum safety mode. Think of it like having all the assists turned on in a racing game. You get more freedom and control with Assistance Mode off, but you will also be at greater risk without the full protection of the ERS.

Fortunately, you won't have to fight alone. HAWX supports four-player jump in co-op throughout the campaign. There is also a Vs. mode where up to 16 players can battle online for experience points and in-game cash, which is used to unlock new weapons.

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[Flawless]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

Another screen

[Flawless]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

CVG Preview

Long-time Clancy fans will recall HAWX's opening mission from Ghost Recon 2 - only this time, you've got yourself a bird's-eye view of the action. Instead of ordering air assaults from the ground, you are the air assault. You can communicate with the Ghosts on the ground either via the d-pad or through actual voice commands (sadly, this feature was disabled in the version we were demoed), allowing you to share intel or plan strategic attacks on your targets.

HAWX seems to have found a solution to the problem that has, ahem, dogged the dogfighting genre since the beginning of time. Make it too realistic, and all you're doing is shooting dots in the sky. Go too far the other way, and you've got yourself Sega's After Burner, something so arcade-like in nature that in practical terms you can't call it a flight sim at all. HAWX's answer isn't to find itself a halfway point between these two extremes. Oh no. Instead, it has a damn good go at doing both. This it does by allowing you to switch your Enhanced Reality System - a hi-tech pilot assisting tool - on or off.

When switched to 'on', as is the default, the camera positions itself directly behind the craft and acts as your in flight guide. Your movements are restricted so you can't deviate too far from your flight path, and if you wish to bring down an enemy craft, you have to position yourself behind them and follow the proper lock-on procedures.

On the plus side, having your ERS on saves you a hell of a lot of brain-ache. The ERS system will regulate your speed, preventing slowdown or stalling, will warn you of any imminent crashes, and will read the trajectory of any oncoming missiles and provide you with a safe flight path to follow.

What's more, you've got access to all your intel, and can communicate with your wingmen and supports (again, via the d-pad or through voice command). Through your ERS, you can gather intelligence from your reconnaissance units, talk tactics with your squadron and orchestrate close combat strategies with team mates. It sounds like a pretty cushy deal, and in many situations it is. However, when the enemies draw in close, you'll find the ERS' way of doing things far too restrictive. It's time for the ERS' rulebook to go out the window.

Turn the ERS system off, and the camera will zoom out, allowing you to get a better view of the battlefield. You're now in free-range mode, and dogfighting - the most intense stage of combat - can begin. With assistance set to off, movement is unrestricted and you can drift (or slide) through the air, allowing you to pull off incredible maneuvers.

One quick turn and you can find yourself directly behind the craft that was ready to pull the trigger on your life. In this mode, the only restriction to the lock-on capabilities is the skill of the pilot. On the downside, you don't get all that intel guff, but who needs all that, anyway? Er, you do actually - at least if you don't want to peel yourself off a mountain edge at some point in the next five minutes. Without any way of knowing when you're going to crash, stall or spin-out (aside from your instincts), it should be known that turning your ERS system off isn't a decision to be made lightly.

On the other hand, running the ERS is a real drain on your craft's resources. Although you can replenish it by 'cooling down', energy is in limited supply, so playing with the assistance switched on will hurt your firepower as much as your manoeuvrability. It's all about risk and reward - how long do you dare go without the ERS as your crutch?

It's a question you'll have plenty of time to find different answers for during the single-player campaign, which allows you to take the throttle of over sixty real-life aircrafts in missions that take place all over the globe. But it's the multiplayer side of things that really captures the imagination. Like Ace Combat 6 before it, Tom Clancy's HAWX includes a 16-player online dogfighting mode, but rather specially, the solo campaign features four-player jump-in coop, which includes its own particular set of challenges.

HAWX is currently on schedule for an autumn 2008 release, and while it's still too early to properly assess its chances of replicating the success of its earthbound Clancy stable mates, it shares the same vision, attention to detail and sky-high production values that make the Tom Clancy brand so popular.

[Scott]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

Wow that looks awesome..

[SageInfinite]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

I'm all over this.

[Flawless]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

New Screens

[youvalss]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

If those pics are from gameplay it's simply AMAZING!!!

[Flawless]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

IGN: Hands-On

For years, Namco Bandai has owned the console skies with its Ace Combat series. Finally, a worthy challenger has appeared and put Ace combat in its sites. Ubisoft's latest Tom Clancy title, HAWX (High-Altitude Warfare Experimental Squadron) is a welcome blending of simulation and arcade fun. With a whopping 50 licensed planes and the use of real satellite data, HAWX certainly brings with it the authenticity we've come to expect from a Tom Clancy game.

Coming this September to PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, HAWX offers up intense -- and often deadly -- dogfights and a true challenge for those wishing to prove themselves to be Top Gun material. Using GOI satellite data, Ubisoft is able to ensure the areas you fly over are the real deal. When we took to the skies to battle an onslaught of MIGs in Rio De Janeiro, the entire topography was exact to the real life locale. And yes, even the famed statue of Jesus was standing, arms outstretched, at the mountain top. And no, we did not try and shoot it down. Ubisoft describes the use of GOI data as "flying over Google Earth on crack." We're inclined to agree.

[PhantomPain]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

I think the only thing that sounds very dissapointing to me is there doesn't seem to be a cockpit view. If there is and I have missed it, then great but the ign hands-on they spoke about only two views.

Other than that it sounds very promising and definitely a rental, maybe a purchase depending on OS member reviews.

[neillyb]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

Other than the interaction with Ghost Recon teams in the story and the "real" radar maps of the actual world, I don't see how it's any better so far than Ace Combat especially if there is no cockpit view. Ace's graphics are every bit as good as these and so is the gameplay. Don't get me wrong I will probably get it.

[countryboy]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

I'm all over this.

I want to be, but I can't get into aerial combat games.

[Bornindamecca]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

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I can't wait for this one. I'm probably going to grab that overpriced flight stick and be drawing planes for a month when this drops.

[Flawless]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

Gamespot put up about 50 minutes of new footage.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/tomclancyshawx/videos.html?mode=all

...

Gamespot: HAWX Cooperative Hands-On

HAWX is shaping up to be one of the games most worth watching in early 2009, with an intriguing plot firmly rooted in the Tom Clancy universe, overlapping with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 and EndWar, and featuring about 12,000 square kilometres of land to soar over. According to the game's lead designer, Simon Thomas, HAWX will take you across the Americas from Chicago, Cape Canaveral, and New England in the US, to Rio and even as far as the Magellan Strait at the bottom of Chile. In addition to all of the airspace you could want, there are more than 60 licensed fighters from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Eurofighter, and more, spanning from the first Gulf War in the early '90s to current-day prototypes. We settled into the pilot's seat and fired up the game's four-player cooperative mode at a recent event in London.

IGN: HAWX Hands-On

But the similarities go beyond skin deep, as HAWX attempts to take the streamlined tactical gunplay of Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six to the air. Ubisoft Bucharest, previously responsible for the frenetic Blazing Angels titles, has expressed a desire to make a game that plays like a first person shooter in the sky; and after an extended hands-on with the game we can report it seems to have fulfilled its ambition.

Lying somewhere between the more dramatic extremes of Ace Combat and the exacting demands of more serious minded PC titles, HAWX occupies a middle ground that proves to be uniquely satisfying. A number of neat systems help facilitate the faster pace; firstly, the Enhanced Reality System (ERS, acronym lovers)is on hand to highlight a path to intercept nearby foes, overlaying a digital tunnel on the HUD for the pilot to glide through in order to get a clean shot on the rear end of aircraft, or in one instance to allow player. An antidote to the problem sometimes faced by genre newcomers who find themselves performing pirouettes in pursuit of a target, it's an optional feature but one that's more than welcome.

[NINJAK2]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

video of cockpit view in HAWX

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkL3XzidwUU

[Keith121212]

Re: Tom Clancy's HAWX

I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Hopefully it will be a deep, skill based online game unlike every shooter that comes out these days.