Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. DEMO review

[Raptorian]

Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation is one of my all time favorite exclusive games on Xbox 360. I was more of Flight Simulator person on PC, but when I switched to console gaming, I had no choice but to embrace fighter pilot games. Never tried Over G Fighters, never played previous Ace Combat games. The flying genre is quite limited on this generation of consoles.

Ubisoft Bucharest, developer of TWO WWII flight combat games, Blazing Angels are delivering a new flight combat game with Tom Clancy name tacked on. Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. is the NEXT big thing for flight junkies.

The 730MB demo is up exclusivly on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for grabs. After spending sometime with the demo, I'm going to lay our simple THE GOOD and THE BAD about it.

THE GOOD

• Controls are mapped almost similar to Ace Combat 6.
• Technically, HAWX looks as good as Ace Combat 6 if not better.
• Four players online co-op.

THE BAD

• But controls don't feel like Ace Combat 6.
• HAWX encourages to use ASSISTANCE OFF mode, where the camera angle zooms out to show the dogfight from a side perspective. Consequently, the controls suffer a lot during this camera angle.
• During ASSISTANCE ON mode (normal behind the fighter jet camera), it's not possible to make high G turns.
• The ERS is kind of spoon feeding and kills of the thrill of evading a missile or chasing a fighter jet.

DEMO VERDICT

I'm not sure but after playing the demo, I guess it's not going to unseat Ace Combat 6 but it could be a filler for Ace Combat fans.
The ASSISTANCE OFF camera angle simply sucks and unfortunately, it's required to successfully evade incoming missiles or pull of high G turns. For starters, who is the moron who thought that this ASSISTANCE OFF mode was, in any way, "cool"? I figured it meant you could get rid of the clutter that fills the screen in assistance on, but it just means you get to move around from outside the plane, not really being aware of what you're doing. How does it make sense?The pilot suddenly gets an out of body experience when they turn off the super duper computers? It's so stupid I can't figure out when during development it was decided that this was the way to go.
In ASSISTANCE ON mode, it really doesn't feel right either. What was wrong with Ace Combat that they felt they had to change? No, just copy the damn game, it's the best (and only one) for a reason.
As for the actual story, dialogue... Damn dudes, shut the hell up for a second, at least. They won't shut their yap a single second, always talking.

I predicted this game to be even worse but I guess it might be an OK game if not a great game like Ace Combat 6.

 

[Krotos]

Ace Combat 6.

no game can come close to ace combat series i played each and everyone of them.but not the 6 version and was hoping HAWX TO will fill the gap now having second thoughts on that,nice review i was planing to get my self an original game. now it seems like its time to cracking.

 

[sliyk]

ace combat 6 had too many ground linked fights and too little dog fights, ive player all seven ace combat games twice and ace combat 5 and acecombat zero are truly the best, the americans have always been better at the action than the japanese who have always been more story oriented, lets give hawx a little benefit of the doubt

---------- Post added at 01:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:44 AM ----------

i downloaded the demo off rapidshare, and burnt it onto a dvd, but it doesnt seem to work

 

[Lars]

TOM CLANCY is much a futuristic show of fighter planes simulator thats why I love it

 

[radd]

missed this gem while i was away! great job rap!

i left Ace combat in the middle, not much interest in plane. im not even going near this one now!