Flight Combat Game Tom Clancy's HAWX Review
Tom Clancy Challenges Ace Combat’s Dominance in Flight Games
Apr 1, 2009
When it comes to modern flight combat games on consoles, for the longest time Namco Bandai’s Ace Combat series has been the only game in town (or at least the only respectable one). Tom Clancy’s HAWX from Ubisoft seems made specifically to challenge AC’s position in this niche.
HAWX casts players as a U.S. Air Force pilot commanding the High Altitude Warfare Experimental Squadron (HAWX) in a variety of near-future conflicts over the course of several years. This ranges from supporting a Special Forces team in one of the missions featured in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter to doing various jobs for a private military company to fending off said company’s invasion of the U.S.
HAWX is a game that wavers between authenticity and glorification for the sake of being a game and makes a point of this in its mechanics. It’s this that puts it in direct competition with games like Ace Combat 6 as one of the best choices for a modern-themed console flight game.
A Flight Game that Looks Like a Simulation
The Ace Combat series is highly regarded because of its sense of balance between feeling like a somewhat-authentic flight simulation and still being an accessible game. HAWX basically uses AC’s controls as a base and then introduces its own mechanics to further what AC started. One could call HAWX “Ace Combat 7,” as fans of AC will feel very comfortable playing it.
Like Ace Combat, HAWX is nowhere near anything in the genus of Microsoft Flight Simulator. At the same time however it’s also not exactly Afterburner.
HAWX has players fly real planes over satellite-based reproductions of real cities. Players will interpret a full plane HUD and have to pull off maneuvers like Immelmann turns. At the same time the planes also carry over 100 missiles, have unlimited bullets, and can take several hits before crashing. To differentiate itself from Ace Combat, HAWX actually presents players with two different degrees of usability.
During normal play, HAWX controls almost exactly like Ace Combat, letting players roll and flip using AC’s freeform yet accessible controls. In this mode players can also opt to have the game show them flight paths to intercept targets or dodge missile which actually does good to illustrate common flight maneuvers.
HAWX also gives players the option however to switch to an “assistance off” mode which draws the camera further out and at an angle focusing on the player and their current target. This mode allows for significantly more speed and maneuverability but is also more dangerous and takes some serious getting used to. Once mastered however, the “assistance off” mode allows for some really cool moves not possible otherwise.
That along with a lot of other small tweaks to the interface elevates HAWX’s sense of skill and competitiveness a little bit above that of Ace Combat on the superficial level. This, along with the game’s mission structure could come to shine in what may make the difference with HAWX – multiplayer.
Flying With Friends
Online multiplayer is something that was long clamored for by Ace Combat fans and was a welcome addition to Ace Combat 6. Ubisoft with their experience making multiplayer for games like Rainbow Six, takes HAWX further.
HAWX’s campaign is tied intrinsically to its online functionality. Part of that is making online play easily accessible. Depending on whether or not a real user base develops around the game, HAWX’s status as really the only online flight combat game around now could make it a standout cooperative experience.
Similar to Rainbow Six Vegas 2, HAWX makes its co-op and singleplayer feel like one experience. Experience points and levels are racked up equally in both, and co-op with up to four players is possible at any time during the campaign with the press of a single button. While adversarial multiplayer in HAWX is comparatively bland, the co-op experience works exactly as it should.
Bottom Line
People will probably be making comparisons between HAWX and Ace Combat for a while. Because HAWX basically uses Ace Combat as a base and then adds its own mechanics, it’s technically the better game. Regardless, HAWX should still be appreciated as perhaps the first game to challenge what was beginning to become a stagnated franchise.
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