Latest crap game: Hawx

[cuddly_tomato]

Well I just DLed and had a go at the Hawx demo courtesy of Xbox Live, and all I can say is wow! Game developers just don't seem to get that people who play games want to play the fucking games.

This is the newest Tom Clancy game, meaning realism of gameplay and subtlety of plot take a back seat while scripted "in-your-face" testosterone does the driving and gung-ho heroics does the navigation. This in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing (I loved R6:Vegas).

What is a bad thing is a control scheme that makes the shite that was Too Humans control scheme look like a stroke of genius. Flying has two modes, some kind of assistance on, and assistance off thing.

Assistance on is your standard "in the aircraft" fare, just like from the Ace Combat series. Well not just like. In Ace combat the actual cockpit view is useful as it still contains a HUD. In this game the cockpit contains no HUD, rendering it useless. This leaves you with Third Person and First person perspectives, thus Right stick to look around isn't really too useful. But this isn't too bad.

Assistance off is... it is the worst, most pointlessly stupid, idiotic, and frustrating thing I have come across on a next gen game. Watch this youtube video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvJ4hH6yjOg] from 1:05. Assistance off takes your POV to some point about 50 feet away from the aircraft, but keeps your view locked onto a target. This means you are suddenly flying completely blind. You not only have to concentrate on whatever else is going on, but you have to manipulate your own vehicles speed, altitude, heading, and vertical orientation relative to the ground, sky, target, and incoming missles ALL WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO SEE WHERE THE FUCK YOU ARE GOING!

Why in the name of Baraks balls do game developers keep on insisting on screwing around with things that work just in the name of being different?

Yes, it looks really cool. But it is hard to notice how cool it looks when you are fighting with your own controller. Games are about immersion, about loosing yourself in a story or in exciting/relaxing/tense gameplay. ALL games control schemes should be seamless... intuitive. No matter what the game, your desires and reflexes should tranfer from yourself to your on-screen alter-ego without any conscious thought. The instant the game makes me fight not with bad guys it throws at me, but with the controller nestling in my hands, it fails. It reminds me I am playing a fucking video game, not really zooming through the clouds bringing death to the commies (or whoever else Mr Clancy doesn't like).

My opinion - avoid Hawx as if it carried bubonic plague.

 

[Art Axiv]

Wow. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Singing Gremlin]

Now, I have to disagree with you there. I think assistance off is pretty damn cool, and useful to boot. What it strikes me as is the natural progression of the manoeuvres in Crimson Skies. Remember how the camera flicked to third person when you used one? It's like that, but you're still in total control. It takes a while to get the hang on sure, but I don't see how it's such a bad thing that the game doesn't let you master it in the first five seconds.

 

[Omnipotent_Mortal]

I found it quite enjoyable actually. I'll admit that it annoyed me at first, but once I got the hang of it it seemed to work quite well

 

[bkd69]

This is one of those games that fell into the category of "title denial" for me. The stoopid misspelling in the title fairly accurately telegraphs that this is a game designed to annoy people who enjoy flight sims.

Likewise, Crimson Skies' title also telegraphs that it's not a flight sim, but at least conveys the sense of being a rip-roaring action-adventure game.

 

[Ultrajoe]

Ah, the bitter pang of those who find there will be no spoon to feed them.

Hawx is a damn fine game, if you can stand the requirement to engage your brain long enough to complete the mission. No offense to Tomato, but if your finding Hawx overtly challenging then you should hand in your gamers badge and sit down to play some checkers. It is something you have to learn, yes, but it doesn't have the time or patience to massage your balls while you do it. If you can get the knack, and breed the skills, then it is rewarding and pure electric awesome.

If you can't, then don't blame the game for not being made for you and only you.

 

[cyber_andyy]

I've found that Tom Clancy games have gone down hill recently (mainly because of ubisoft) just look at the Rainbow 6 series.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

I don't know what orface (sp?) you're talking through, I really liked Hawx. It feels damn intuitive.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Ah, the bitter pang of those who find there will be no spoon to feed them.

Hawx is a damn fine game, if you can stand the requirement to engage your brain long enough to complete the mission. No offense to Tomato, but if your finding Hawx overtly challenging then you should hand in your gamers badge and sit down to play some checkers. It is something you have to learn, yes, but it doesn't have the time or patience to massage your balls while you do it. If you can get the knack, and breed the skills, then it is rewarding and pure electric awesome.

If you can't, then don't blame the game for not being made for you and only you.

Ahhh.. Why am I reminded of allll the people who came out in support of Dennis Dyacks dismal failure, Too Human?

Skill, and challenge, should be offered by the game. Not by the Xbox controller and certainly not by some idiotic attempt to be different. I should be challenged by enemies who can outwit me once in a while, or challenged by difficult to predict and dangerous weapons (Stonehenge form Ace Combat 4 anyone?)

Being "challenged" because I can't see where the fuck I am going isn't a challenge. It's a frustration.

 

[J-Man]

Being "challenged" because I can't see where the fuck I am going isn't a challenge. It's a frustration.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner! I agree with your thoughts, and probably won't be buying the game unless I spot it in a bargain bin.

 

[Fire Daemon]

That's odd, I think the Hawx demo was a fine demo and got around five hours of joy out of it. The controls where simple as soon as I inverted the controls. Could that perhaps have been your problem?

Hawx is looking to be a really fine game and I wonder how exactly you can say that it is terrible. Not being able to grasp the controls may only be something you have a problem with and just because you can't play the game does not mean you should tell others to avoid it.

 

[Singing Gremlin]

Ah, so what you want is a game that makes the flying a doddle, and then requires you to use your noggin to actually get anywhere? I'd suggest that's not what the game is about, instead being about getting reaaally good at flying stuff. Just because it doesn't make what you want to be easy easy, doesn't mean it's crap. It means you're approaching it in a way it's not designed to be, and if that's not your thing, fine. A lot of us like it though.

 

[Lukeydoodly]

Also, online Free-Fall Bombs don't explode.

 

[Siris]

I agree, the non-assistance is a total neucense, but I thought assistance on was perfectly fine

 

[DirkGently]

So we're punishing games for having a learning curve now? While OFf Mode is a bit confusing at first, it's fairly simple to control your plane in after a few minutes of playing about, like, I dunno, using the goddamned tutorial. Then not only to do you get fly about like Maverick, you can actually see you're self doing it, and do cool things like dodge missiles, or crazy tricks that risk stalling out. My only complaint about "Off" mode is that it's impossible to select long-range targets. You can only select targets within a certain range of your plane and you'll have to switch into ON mode to target that far-off objective target. But that's still no big deal because it's two trigger taps, a Y button, and then two more trigger tabs to get back into OFF.

The only time you can't go into ON is during the tutorial mission, when you're always pointed at a drone or instructed to do some cool things. And you're flying a few kilometers in the air, so you're not going to hit anything unless you're, really, really bad.

 

[TopHatTim]

ONE, its a demo...calm your hormones.
TWO i saw all the release footage and gameplay, looks fucking TITS UP on the PS3.
THREE. You really need to be a hippy to not like blowing shit up

 

[scnj]

I played the demo, and while I didn't find it that hard, I did find it boring. I haven't found a good flight sim since X-Wing Alliance, and none come close to the majesty of TIE Fighter.