HAWX 2: First Impressions

Wow. Two posts in under a week! I'm on fire! Now if only I could update my physical journal that often...

Anyway, I checked Xbox Live, and found a demo for HAWX 2, and decided to check it out. The demo included two short missions, each with only one aircraft and loadout available. Unlike HAWX, HAWX 2 is divided into three campaigns, one for each major protagonist, namely the USA, the British, and the Russians. These campaigns will apparently intertwine as far as the story arc goes, but since the demo only included two missions I have no idea how well that is going to work out.

The first mission takes place from the Russian perspective in what I believe is and Su-27 (though I'm not sure, so don't quote me on the plane.). The plot opens and explains that the Russians have surrounded and are preparing to destroy a group of insurgents that has attempted a military take over of SW Russia. In a last desperate move, the insurgents have stolen several bombers from a nearby airbase, and have launched them against the loyalist forces. You're mission is to intercept, and stop the bombers. After ordering the bombers to change course, your squadron is ambushed by fighters flying low under the radar. Dog-fighting ensues.

The Dogfighting was about the same as HAWX. You can fly more traditional third person or first person simulation style, or you can enter 'limiters off' mode, and use the crazy (but insanely fun) unrestricted, offset third person angle. After swiftly shooting down all the enemy fighters and bombers, you learn that the insurgents have launched an all out surprise assault, and that you are needed elsewhere. Unfortunately, your squadron is to low on fuel to continue fighting. Oh, wait. Fuel isn't an issue as you must simply hook up to an aerial tanker to refill you tanks. While the game lays out a digital course in the sky for you to follow, and gives you hints, hooking up to the taker was a long, and tedious process. Once finally linked and fueled, it turns out that Moscow has panicked and ordered a full withdrawal, so you don't need to go fight anymore today after all, making the whole refueling fiasco an utterly unrewarding experience. More on this later.


The next mission takes place in South Africa from the American point of view. Launching from the deck of an aircraft carrier in an F-35, your mission is to seek out and destroy physical assets of a terrorist network operating just offshore of Capetown. The launch is a simple, but amusing addition to the game, but changes nothing as it takes no skill. Simply hold down the throttle and pull up when given clearance to launch. Almost idiot proof. However, once at altitude, we get to play with an excellent new feature: Precision Bombing mode. When activated, you aircraft locks onto its current heading and autopilot takes over, leaving you free to zoom in on the ground and designate targets for your bombs. You get to practice on some terrorist affiliated container ships. This mode isn't difficult, but it does take concentration to keep everything lined up while your plane continues to move. Despite the simple system, I managed to miss one of the giant boats. Silly me.

Once you kill all the boats, you get to shoot down a couple enemy Helicopters operating in the area. Despite my best efforts, I never did manage to drop a bomb on them (though I came awful close...) and in the end, I had to fly in low and use my cannon. It was a little touchy operating so close to the ground, but fun nonetheless. Oh, I should also mention that the whole mission takes place at night, so you're using a night vision system too, something that was badly needed a couple of times in the first HAWX.

After you kill the helos, you get to go back to bombing mode and blow up the enemy airfield, and then shoot down a couple planes that fly in to defend their base. The last dogfight was probably the hardest part of the combat mission, as your only other weapon besides your bombs is you your cannon. Again though, it wasn't so hard that you wanted to quit. It was challengingly fun.

Unfortunately, this mission also ended with a tedious new feature, landing on the aircraft carrier. While not quite as time consuming or difficult as lining up for refueling, it was still way to tedious for almost no reward. 

So, my impressions of the game are mixed. While it appears that all of the good things from the first HAWX have been preserved in HAWX 2, not all the new features compliment them very well. While the new night vision systems and precision bombing modes are fun and add to the arcade style combat, the new refueling and landing gimmicks totally ruined both missions they were in. They were time consuming (using up over half the time spent on each mission), and horribly tedious, with one mistake forcing you to abort and start all over. In other words, they weren't fun at all.

Unfortunately however, Ubisoft has given into the bashing of a view over-voiced Ace Combat fans, and added these gimmicks to make the game more 'realistic,' which, if the demo is any indication, runs the risk of ruining the whole experience. The HAWX series was never intended to be a simulator. It was intended to be a console based, arcade style dogfighting game, with almost constant, intense action. Yes, I know real life refueling and landing is difficult and tedious, but real life pilots also spend up the six hours after take off just getting to the fight! That doesn't mean that I want that in my game. 

You can watch some footage of the demo here:



Overall, I remain cautiously optimistic. Since the core arcade style dogfighting is intact, the game should be mostly fun, as long as the crappy new simulation gimmicks haven't been overused. One thing this demo didn't give any clue about was multiplayer. The lack of useful multiplayer is what killed the first HAWX. Hopefully that hasn't been overlooked this time around.

If you don't like arcade style, and really want more simulation in your dogfighting games, then I'd recommend waiting a year for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.