The premise of Warhawk is simple. Choose a side, either the Eucadians or Chernovans and take up the fight against the other, either online or against friends locally via LAN or splitscreen. Your choice of civilization is irrelevant, as the differences are purely cosmetic. The Warhawk for example, is an aircraft only available to the Eucadians, inspired by a more 20th century design. While their enemy, the Chernovans, field their equivalent the Nemesis, a more futuristic looking aircraft. Indeed the side you play on is likely to change after every round and depends largely on which server you decide to join.
Highway to… the danger zone!
Battles take place on foot, within jeeps, turrets, tanks and from the skies when opting to pilot a Warhawk. Depending on the server, your character will roam and fight on one of five maps that are scaled based on the number of players in a given match. The game modes include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Zones. As you'd expect, ‘Deathmatch’ pits everyone against each other in a free-for-all. ‘Team Deathmatch’ splits players into two sides to do battle. ‘Capture the Flag’ involves capturing an opponents flag and delivering it to your base and ‘Zones’ is based around players capturing and holding specific points on the map.
Players who enjoyed following their progress via the online statistics tracking in Resistance: Fall of Man will love Warhawk’s comprehensive stat tracking set up. Warhawk boasts an extensively integrated rewards system which promotes team play, as well as great individual achievements. Medals, Badges, Ribbons, Rank Advancement, in addition to new character and aircraft skins, are all goals to shoot for while blasting away at your fellow gamer. The system is not perfect however, and many people are reporting frustrating bugs where stats sometimes take hours if not days to update. A downloadable patch to fix the issue has since been released by the developer Incognito, although some are still reporting statistic related bugs.
Here be an unlocked character skin.
Despite the issues, Warhawk offers a virtually lag-free online gaming experience, and can be highly addictive. The initial learning curve will vary, sitting somewhere between thirty minutes to a few hours depending on a player’s skill level, but learning the ropes really pays off. Blow an enemy Warhawk out of the sky for example, and it explodes in a satisfying mess of fiery debris that slowly descends toward the earth.
Piloting the Warhawk/Nemesis themselves requires a good portion of your overall commitment to learning the game. Motion controls are optional and analog stick flight controls work a treat. Analog controls can also be tweaked independently for troop, vehicle and air combat, so everyone should find a control scheme to suit them. The game’s array of weapons, vehicles and aircraft are balanced to an extent that allows anyone with a little bit of skill in the right situation to make a kill. Yet there’s enough depth and strategic options present for online veterans to sink their teeth into. Not too many online games exist that thread that line as sweetly as Warhawk does.
Attacking troops from the air, keep an eye on those missile turrets though.
With Incognito committing to bringing downloadable content in the future, the lifespan of the game should be extended over time. Even so, taken as it stands, this is an impressive multiplayer offering that is likely to last those who enjoy a good online shooter several weeks if not months. People feeling a little underwhelmed by Warhawk’s lack of a single-player campaign, would do well to consider the downloadable version. This version is noticeably cheaper and runs without the need of a disc in the system. At only an 800MB download, this is a great option. The retail version should also find its market, with a Bluetooth Headset included in the box, for voice chat with other players. The disc version also includes some ‘making of’ videos that the true enthusiasts should enjoy.
Warhawk is also a visual delight. While nothing necessarily ground breaking, its huge draw distance and large intricate environments are impressive, especially when there are 31 other players around you battling it out on land and in the air. While all this on-screen action takes place, the game maintains a smooth frame-rate that rarely, if ever slows. Physics routines, although simple, add to the on screen chaos and are suitably over the top. Observe an enemy step on a land mine or get hit by a grenade for example, and their character models get thrown back in the air.
Massive environments can take time to cross, even on the speedy 4x4’s.
Sound effects from all manner of weapons are convincing and varied. From the whistle of a sniper’s bullet straight past your head, to the jets firing up on your Warhawk as you ascend off the ground, the sound effects only add to the experience. Other nice little touches, like the use of short chimes, let you know when you have picked up a weapon. This is especially useful when flying around in the Warhawk at break neck speeds trying to collect floating weapon upgrades. The accompanying music is a sort of modern mix, which reminds us of something you might hear while watching an inspirational military movie. In all, it sets the tone of epic warfare nicely with plenty of drama.
For those who have yet to experience the adrenaline fueled rush of a frantic, online multiplayer game, Warhawk provides an excellent starting point. The unique visual style, large scale battles and focus on rewarding diverse play, combine to provide a very satisfying experience. In spite of the exclusion of the single player campaign mode and some buggy stat issues, the gameplay on offer is an addictive blend of modern warfare and screen filling chaos that’s hard to pass up.
Great to know Sony are supporting their titles with dedicated, local servers! That was my biggest concern about PSN, that we'd always be connecting overseas...but I can lay that one to rest, thankfully.
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