Tom Clancys H.A.W.X

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

Sad to hear of the arcade like aspects and lack of proper animation for the planes in this one. Ubisoft actually had released one heck of a flight sim in the past - IL2 Sturmovik. That one was amazing, with incredible attention to detail*.

*and when they were not sure of the details, e.g. exact gunsight used on some extinct WW2 Nazi warbird, they pointed it out in the readme files!

[Keith]

Not to say the Ace Combat stories were epic, but HAWX is just plain garbage. If anything, they'd have been better off throwing in some AC 5/Zero style ace conflicts, instead of badly mimicing the trench runs & bombing missions. When will game designers learn when playing a flying game, we want air combat, not ground bombing!

[Roy Focker]

I spent $59.99 on his game only played 4 missions so far. Please tell me not all the missions are ground attack ones. The demo was fun.

[Keith]

There are a "lot" of ground attack misssions. There are some stupid "find the radar dealy" missions, there are some "don't fly inside the super radar deally before you ground bomb the other dealy" missions. And of course there's a healthy helping of "protect the air or ground thingy before air or ground troops shoot it up" missions. Ace Combat 5 & Zero this is not.

[Garou Kuroryuu]

I actually like both kind of missions, but I like'em distributed in a very healthy balance. From what I saw in the demo, balance is one of the things this game lacks most.

[Chronocidal]

Well, that and any concept of how aircraft are supposed to fly.

[Roy Focker]

I could care less about how accurate the planes fly. It is a game after all. I just want the more exciting type game play.

[Chronocidal]

Good point.. to be honest, I think I would've been much more likely to enjoy this game if they hadn't used any real aircraft. I can't really think of any good comparisons at the moment, but I get the impression that the real aircraft are only there as mascots to sell the game. It's like games that get famous actors, sports figures, etc, to endorse the game, because without that endorsement, the game just wouldn't attract any attention.

It might be a fun futuristic shoot-em-up, but using real life aircraft as a selling point kinda ruins it for me, when they don't behave anything like what they should. It's like getting endorsements from companies like Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche, and making an off-road dirt track racing game with their cars. Sure it might be fun, but it easily kills off any suspension of disbelief.

I may still give the PC version a go eventually, my brother and I were looking forward to playing this online together. I just hope someone manages to enable all the online features that are currently locked out.

[JB0]

I can't really think of any good comparisons at the moment, but I get the impression that the real aircraft are only there as mascots to sell the game.

Mario sports games?

Edited March 14, 2009 by JB0

[Cent]

I played through the entire campaign on PC with a Logitech 3D Pro in under 3-4 hours. I was pretty disappointed. Here is my review of it, and I compare it to AC, since of course, this game was designed with its major competitor in mind. Wall of Text incoming.

After accepting the game for its surreal tone, and the ridiculous maneuvers and poor assist-off camera, I was hoping it'd at least match up to being somewhat entertaining as the Ace Combat series for me. That is, I wanted the game to have interesting mechanics, challenging missions, larger-than-life boss fights, and some wild environmentals like in Ace Combat. I got none of that.

HAWX is has 19 missions, all of which are either defend a specific airspace, escort a platoon or another aircraft, bomb a set of ground targets, slip through radar, or shoot up all your objective targets as they close in on your position. Or a combination of any of those. It gets pretty tiring after a while, since there really isn't much more to it than that, and you really wouldn't be able to tell some of these missions apart. Their biggest gimmick was when your plane's computers got messed up and you couldn't fire any missiles. That's kinda funny, since I thought assist-off turned off all your computers anyway? Regardless, I like gimmicks, but if that's the best they can do, that's pretty lame.

What did Ace Combat offer? You got to fight spaceships armed with laser batteries. Gigantic bomber fortresses with a cloaking field. Flying through caverns in training jets with no armaments dodging the detection ace fighter pilots. Sinking submarines with ICBMs fired at you. Flying through nuclear compounds ala. Death Star to blast missiles within the silos. Or dodging giant pillars of lasers fired from space. It was ridiculous, but once you got past that, the game was actually enjoyable... It's an alternate universe. Think of the game more like a bullet-hell game where you slaughter hundreds of enemies until you get to the end where you fight a massive boss. Those were always fun. The problem is that HAWX went halfway and fell short at pleasing anyone. You get past the insane flight mechanics (or lack thereof) but there really is nothing left for you to like.

On top of that, for a Tom Clancy storyline, wow... Was it ever predictable and just mundane. I won't spoil it for anyone here, but the story was something you could see coming a mile away, and wasn't particularly noteworthy anyway. Maybe they wanted to really keep it down to earth (relative to Ace Combat) even though a few of the aspects about Artemis were outlandish, but what really bothered me, was the lack of character in both of your wingmen. They both like money, whores and money. Did I say money? They can't get enough of that. At least, until they need to be patriotic all of a sudden. Then it's all honor and glory. But now they want medals. And women. And medals. Did I say medals? Did they just cookie cutter these guys out of Army of Two or something? What the hell is going on here? Its even worse that at the end of every mission, you get the most juvenile dialogue out of these two, and its even REPEATED. As in, Ubisoft was too lazy to give them new lines. They used the same ones! And these are scripted dialogue lines, so obviously someone at Ubisoft didn't give a poo that you had to listen to the same ignorant crap that they already made you hear 3 missions ago. A few of the missions you fly will have your wingmen mysteriously not be by your side. What a relief right? Nope! They still come over your radio (and their portraits show them flying in their planes??) to pester you with their frat-boy depiction of warfare.

Ace Combat, which has little story-writing base, at least does fairly well throwing in lively characters with differing (usually foil) personalities. In some games, where your wingmen actually die, you do miss them somewhat. I won't say they're deep, but compared to HAWX, they're the Mariana Trench. Your wingmen in AC will actually play a role in establishing relationships and connections with other NPC characters... Especially those you save in several missions. Even better is that those you SAVE and assist actually often come back to help you out in your final missions. Cue the cutscenes of a fleet of jet fighters, bombers and AWACS and heavily-accented Russians singing along with your wingmen (who could do without that?). Damn that is awesome, to for once, have the numbers on your side. Characters actually mean something in AC, especially since the cutscenes show them having some persona outside of their cockpits. At least they have a face.

In HAWX, you never see your wingmen's faces. Talon and Casper (your wingmen) are as generic as can be. Worse, I would have thought that the Ghost Team you save in the very first mission, who tells you they 'owe you one' and they 'won't forget'... never actually come back to repay their due. What a letdown. Everything is very impersonal in HAWX, you don't really feel anything from any of the characters, save whoever is debriefing you... Since he's probably barking his head off at you (if anyone has played GRAW2, it's the same sort of 'way too loud and obnoxious authority'). I figured hey, maybe since its a video game, and they're not trying to be realistic... They'd actually try to aim at being entertaining instead.... Nope.

Characters aside, the storyline in AC's 3,4,5 and 0 still trumps that of HAWX. Sad to know huh? Fun events happen in AC, and you can have multiple mission choices. Depending on how well or what you do on your previous mission, your next mission may be something different. You may also unlock special planes by doing things differently. Your carrier gets sunk while you are being debriefed on it, so you get to emergency takeoff with whatever plane you want (a relief after being stuck with carrier-based planes for a good 3-4 missions). You deal with several layers of conspiracy and internal sabotage. You're led into traps. You have to fight people who were your allies in the past. You find unexpected help from people you thought were your enemies or who you thought were dead. You get framed for war-crimes that you didn't commit. They're not great plot twists, but at least they are there. For HAWX, they guide the player on a monorail of boredom. I haven't found any alternative missions, you unlock planes purely by your experience level, and replayability is hugely lacking. Grinding experience and achievements to unlock new planes and their weapon packs (which you need to do if you want to use the other planes in Multiplayer) is not my idea of fun. There aren't really any surprises either. People who start evil end evil... Those who start good end good. Not like it even matters, since everyone is so single-layered. But your story basically follows the same route. Its a war, and you're winning it step by tiny step. You don't ever feel like you're being pushed back, or have the carpet pulled out from under your feet... It's pretty linear progression.

HAWX singleplayer was a huge letdown. There's not much to do after you complete the campaign, other than doing it again on harder difficulties (or for achievements)... or free flight (fly around the map with no enemies). I don't remember for sure, but I don't think there were multiplayer modes outside of team deathmatch and coop either... So that will definitely get stale as well.

One of my favorite parts was when one of your wingmen says "I haven't been in a battle like this since the Gulf War!"... Only for him to say again 3 missions later "I haven't been in a battle like this since the Gulf War!" .......... >_>

Edited March 20, 2009 by Cent

[Keith]

That pretty much sums up the game, I'm gonna try online multiplayer sometime soon to see if that adds anything worthwhile.

[anime52k8]

That pretty much sums up the game, I'm gonna try online multiplayer sometime soon to see if that adds anything worthwhile.

most published reviews said that multiplayer was the games weakest point. don't get your hopes up.

[ntsan]

VF-0 Roy patch

http://www.rayfile.com/en/files/07f2f563-1...e-0014221b798a/

pictures

http://dl.duowan.com/pcgame/download/6196.html

Edited April 1, 2009 by ntsan

[shiroikaze]

Aww, it's only a skin , I thought it was a full blown model...

[Cent]

Its just a few stripes and decals over the F-14. It's not even a VF-0

[Chronocidal]

Give it time, apparently the model format's already been figured out to a point. They can replace geometry, just can't convert the animations yet. Someone posted pics of a Gundam in there in one place. If I can convince myself to spend the money on it, I may see about sticking a few of my Macross models in there. But so far, Ubi's shown little to no interest in actually fixing a lot of the problems that are popping up.

I get the distinct impression that Ubi did absolutely NO beta testing on this (especially when it comes to cross platform/hardware testing), and that fan mods are the only hope this game has at this point, at least on the PC. Frankly, for all the bugs people are finding, Ubi should be paying them for beta testing the game for them. The chatter on the Ubi tech support forums has been rather... well, to sum up, it seems about half the posts are about the game not working in one way or another, and the other half are about the multiplayer not working at all.

[Warmaker]

Glad I held off on this thing. A shame, since I was in the mood for an Ace Combat type of game.

[wm cheng]

Has anyone gotten the PS2 Ace Combat HOTAS controllers to work with this game? (demo) If so how?

[grss1982]

There are a "lot" of ground attack misssions. There are some stupid "find the radar dealy" missions, there are some "don't fly inside the super radar deally before you ground bomb the other dealy" missions. And of course there's a healthy helping of "protect the air or ground thingy before air or ground troops shoot it up" missions. Ace Combat 5 & Zero this is not.

I actually like the first mission (Mexico) and the second mission (Oil Refinery in the desert) in 4 player co-op. Me and my buddies had a fun time doing dive bombing like attacks on the first mission. Although I had a blast on the second mission especially since I was the only one riding an A-7 (unlocked after repeating mission one several times) loaded with iron bombs and Joint Strike missiles (my other teammates were using SU-25s and one preferred to use an EF-111 Raven that he just unlocked). Nothing like obliterating some tanks with iron bombs.

I hated the fourth mission (Afghanistan) though especially in 4 player co-op since it felt like a million MiG-23's were trying to shoot us down and the bomber we were escorting.

Me and my buddies are only up to here for now, since they wanted to repeat missions 1 & 2 to unlock more planes like the F-22 and the F-35. For my part I only want to take an F-5A or F-5E for a spin since these same aircraft gave me and my buddies a hard time in the third mission with their freaking maneuverability and agility. Also wanted to unlock the F-15 and the F-14.

[Awacs]

I've been playing my way through H.A.W.X on and off for the last few weeks and I do find it is beginning to out-stay its welcome. I think the biggest problem is the "leveling" mechanic, which means that I am ending up grinding over the same couple of missions over and over again without any real feeling of achievement. Each time I get a few arbitrary points which move me closer to the point at which the game will decide what new plane or weapons package I am allowed to have. It probably doesn;t help that with my current set-up I am not able to go online with my 360, so I am only able to experience the single-player game.

At least with AC6 I had the ability to chose which aircraft I acquired. (So of course I picked up the Typhoon and the Rafale at my first opportunity :- ) ) The flight model was also a bit more interesting. It would appear that it is impossible to stall in H.A.W.X unless you are in Assistance Off mode - which I avoid being in wherever possible - it makes the various aircraft all feel pretty much the same. I never have the feeling that I got in AC6 of fighting the 'plane a little on the edge of its envelope.

I did want to hang onto H.A.W.X, at least long enough to unlock the Black Widow and the Berkut, but I am beginning to wonder whether I might just cut my losses, trade it in, and report back for duty with the Emmeria AF....

Karl

[Wes]

20 bucks now at Gamestop if anyone still wants it.

Edited July 8, 2009 by Wes

[Chronocidal]

Until they pay you to take it away, I'll pass. Everyone who buys it is essentially paying to beta test their game for them.

[Keith]

I demand PS3 Ace Combat NOW! No more pale imitations!!

[wm cheng]

I demand PS3 Ace Combat NOW! No more pale imitations!!

YES! YES! - I second that! any news on that? Is there the possibility or is it just a pipe dream?

[shiroikaze]

Unless Bandai Namco has some kind of blood-contract tethering the Ace Combat series to Microsoft, you can be sure as hell that they will make Ace Combat 7 sometime in the future. Thing is though, how far is that and will it be multiplatform? =\

[Chewie]

pictures

http://dl.duowan.com/pcgame/download/6196.html

This link made my AVG anti-virus go apesh*t.

Careful.

Edited July 9, 2009 by Chewie

[mikeszekely]

This link made my AVG anti-virus go apesh*t.

Careful.

I'm not saying there is or isn't viruses with regards to that link, since I didn't click it. But AVG has been going a little nuts with false positives lately, so that could be relevant. I actually dumped it and switched to Avast! myself.

[David Hingtgen]

My copy of Avast! has been going nuts with various pages lately... (though 1 was legit for sure)

[Warmaker]

I demand PS3 Ace Combat NOW! No more pale imitations!!

It's weird that the devs for Ace Combat totally neglected the PS3, when it was the PS that had the first Ace Combat console release in the 90s.

[JB0]

It's weird that the devs for Ace Combat totally neglected the PS3, when it was the PS that had the first Ace Combat console release in the 90s.

*shrugs*

They go where the money is.

Think of all the franchises that started on the NES or SNES and totally skipped the N64 and GameCube.

[mikeszekely]

*shrugs*

They go where the money is.

Think of all the franchises that started on the NES or SNES and totally skipped the N64 and GameCube.

Final Fantasy, anyone? I'm sure there were some kids with N64's griping about Final Fantasy VII coming out for the original PlayStation.

My copy of Avast! has been going nuts with various pages lately... (though 1 was legit for sure)

Really? Since I switched from AVG a little over a month ago I've had one solitary hit, and it wasn't a web page, but rather a zipped file I'd downloaded that happened to have an extra surprise inside. Do you have the scanner sensitivity set to normal or high? I left it on normal.

[wm cheng]

Unless Bandai Namco has some kind of blood-contract tethering the Ace Combat series to Microsoft, you can be sure as hell that they will make Ace Combat 7 sometime in the future. Thing is though, how far is that and will it be multiplatform? =\

Can anyone clear this up? I heard that Microsoft entered into a exclusive agreement with Ace Combat so they had AC6 only for the X-Box for a set number of months till the contract expires.

Then I also heard that Microsoft bought up the Bandai Namco department that developed AC6 with the intention of developing more games like it, but due to the recession, it had to close down a bunch of its assests including their Flight Simulator arm (this is where it gets even more sketchy and "rumoury")

Now I heard that includes closing down the development team of AC effectively stopping any future development of the franchise.

Please tell me this isn't so and that its just a stupid rumour?

Does anyone have any "REAL" news that AC7 is coming for the PS3?

[mikeszekely]

Can anyone clear this up? I heard that Microsoft entered into a exclusive agreement with Ace Combat so they had AC6 only for the X-Box for a set number of months till the contract expires.

I'm not sure if this one is true or speculation. I mean, the Xbox 360 enjoys a larger user base, so it makes sense to develop for it, but with the cost developing games what it is today, it makes more sense to go multi-platform. It's probable then that Microsoft might have left suitcases full of cash on some desks at Namco Bandai's offices.

Then I also heard that Microsoft bought up the Bandai Namco department that developed AC6 with the intention of developing more games like it, but due to the recession, it had to close down a bunch of its assests including their Flight Simulator arm (this is where it gets even more sketchy and "rumoury")

Things got a little sketchy here. Microsoft has been dumping or closing studios left and right. And they did indeed ax the Flight Simulator team... that is, the people who developed games like Microsoft Flight Simulator X. That studio is in no way related to Namco Bandai or Project Aces. I haven't heard of Microsoft buying Project Aces from Namco Bandai, and as far as I know Project Aces is still with Namco Bandai.

Now I heard that includes closing down the development team of AC effectively stopping any future development of the franchise.

Please tell me this isn't so and that its just a stupid rumour?

I'm going to go with stupid rumor born from entirely unrelated fact.

Does anyone have any "REAL" news that AC7 is coming for the PS3?

The magazine scans were confirmed fake. There has been no official announcement for either Ace Combat 7, or a PS3 version of Ace Combat 6.

[shiroikaze]

Then I also heard that Microsoft bought up the Bandai Namco department that developed AC6 with the intention of developing more games like it, but due to the recession, it had to close down a bunch of its assests including their Flight Simulator arm (this is where it gets even more sketchy and "rumoury")

Now I heard that includes closing down the development team of AC effectively stopping any future development of the franchise.

Well that's not true, the Ace Combat team is still alive and kicking (and still with Bamco) as they're developing a Sky Crawlers game for the Wii:

http://kotaku.com/5312030/one-weird-wii-control-scheme

Edited July 10, 2009 by shiroikaze

[the_foul_fowl]

HAWX2 announced:

linky

Not sure if anyone cares though. Me, I'm so starved for a Ace Combat-styled game on the PS3 that I'm almost tempted to pick up the first HAWX.... nah...