Tom Clancy’s HAWX Demo: Impressions
After sitting down with the demo of Tom Clancy’s HAWX that was released on Xbox Live this week, I came away with some enjoyable moments and a sensation to play more air combat games. HAWX is basically Tom Clancy’s take on Ace Combat, meaning there will be the usual Tom Clancy story to go along with the meaningless battles. The demo consists of a basic tutorial mission and one mission which is an all out battle.
In the basic tutorial you’ll learn to maneuver your plane in “Unassisted Mode”. This is strange at first because of the view but it’s the only way to pull off the drift turn. By braking and pulling the nose of the plane to the left or right you can make extremely sharp U-turns. In “Unassisted Mode” you view your plane from third person but the camera tries to keep the targeted enemy in view. This can be very tricky at first but is essential when dog fighting another aircraft hot on your tail.
Other than the “Unassisted Mode” the only other game play element that stood out in HAWX was their ERS system. When targeting an enemy you can press the X button to engage the ERS mode. When ERS is turned on, triangular shaped gates appear. By following the gates the system guides you to the best path to attack the enemy. An innovative feature but I liked fighting other planes manually. However, the ERS system was crucial when attacking tanks surrounded by tall buildings.
The demo starts you off with one plane but you’ll be able to unlock 2 more by replaying the same mission. Playing the same mission is a little boring, but I thought it was nice of Ubisoft to add in those 2 extra planes. There’s also a co-operative mode that I didn’t get to try out.
Overall the game is solid, the graphics are nice if you don’t get too close to the ground and game play is entertaining. I felt the controls to be a little limited. I might have liked to have more special maneuvers. Gamers that like flight simulators should give this demo a try.
Side Note: I feel like the air combat genre is starting to get a little thin. Especially when it comes to space flight simulators.
