Warhawk Review

Playstation 3
$40 via Playstation network store
$60 retail w/ pack-in blue-tooth headset

Watch the Trailer

The Playstation 3 got a price drop, and I got a Playstation 3. Funny how things work out.
Two months later, I finally purchase my first physical Playstation 3 game, Warhawk.
Within 60 minutes, I wanted to throw my Sixaxis through a window and take the game back.
Two days later, I played 5 hours straight without a break, and it drove me to actually sit down and write a review.
So let's discuss Warhawk.

Warhawk was the first game I fell in love with on the original PSone (we called it the PSX back in my day). Developed by Singletrac, it was on the demo cd that came with the system, and it was the first exciting flight combat game I'd ever played. It was pretty (for an early 3D game anyway), and if you put the demo cd into a cdplayer, you could listen to the epic music from the game (which I loved). Sadly, I never owned the game. I was young, and on a limited budget. But I played the demo countless times and loved every second. Many people must have done the same thing, because Warhawk never saw a sequel. It faded into obscurity, overshadowed by Singletrac's other major franchise, Twisted Metal.

Years have passed. Twisted Metal was sold to 989 studios, who promptly ruined the franchise. 989 studios shut down, and sold Twisted Metal back to it's creators, formerly Singletrac, now known as Incognito. Twisted Metal Black put them back on the map. War of the Monsters came from Incognito a few years later and showed they still had the ability to make genuinely fun games that didn't involve blowing up cars. But as the years continued to pass, Warhawk was only regarded as a forgotten gem.

12 years later, we finally see Warhawk reborn on Sony's newest system, with the original developers still at the helm.

I could talk for several paragraphs about the games difficult development, and how the final product is only half of the game that was originally planned. But this is a review, and I should focus on what we have now, instead of how we got here.

As I said earlier, after 1 hour of play, I hated this game. There is frustration, then there is Warhawk. The game itself is an online multi-player action game. To be clear, there is no single-player campaign at all. There is also no tutorial whatsoever. When you pop this game in, you had better have read the manual. My recommendation would be to read it once before playing, then again after the first couple hours. Once you log in and find a server with room (more on that in a bit), you're dropped into a battlefield with little to no knowledge of what you are doing, surrounded by people who want to kill you. And kill you they will. For the first several hours, I amassed maybe 5 kills total.

You start on foot, 20 seconds later, a guy in a tank blows you up. You start again and find a jeep. Some guy on foot blows you up. You start again and hop in a jet, some guy in another jet blows you up. You will die over, and over, and over again. I can't stress this enough. This game hit me with an Enrage plasmid that got me more upset than any game I've played in years. But I could see what potential there was, and I stuck with it. I'm glad i did.

The game offers a wide range of game-play styles and tosses them all into 5 giant battlefields. Your on-foot combat give you access to 8 different weapons, with enough difference in each that none of them feel ignored. Your combat knife is a one-hit kill weapon which makes you invisible on radar. Your pistol has infinite ammo and can be fired as quickly as you can hit the button. Your Machine gun is your classic pray-and-spray weapon of choice. Your RPG is useful against vehicles and has a lock-on function. Sniper Rifles are just what you would expect. Proximity mines make defending choke points plenty of fun. Flamethrowers are a nice alternative to the standard shotgun; relatively close range with lots of damage. And my personal favorite, the Binoculars, used exclusively for designating air strikes. You also come equipped with standard issue frag grenades. If it weren't for this weapon selection, you'd have little reason not to jump in a vehicle at the very start of a match.

The ground vehicles and turrets are simple by design, but still useful. You've got heavily armored tanks that seat 2, light but fast jeeps equipped with a mounted machine gun that seats 3, AA turrets, and Missile Launcher turrets. These all play important roles in the large scale battles.

Finally we have the Warhawks. These aircraft can hover like helicopters, and streak through the skies like jets. They have access to 8 different secondary weapons, in addition to the primary machine guns. Mines, unguided bombs, lightning guns, remote guided missiles, etc. The variety of aircraft weaponry is just as diverse as on-foot.

Controls are fairly easy to come to grips with. The triggers are usually for forward and reverse, left and right shoulder buttons are for primary and secondary fire. However, if you try and use motion-controls, the learning curve becomes much sharper. It's recommended that you learn to master the motion-controls for flight, since they give you the ability to aim independently, but I found it too difficult and just stuck with standard analog controls.

So the first knock I have against the game is the aforementioned learning curve. With no tutorial, and no single-player campaign, it really does become a trial-by-fire. Many people will be turned off by the repeated deaths and brutal opposition. But when given some time, the game begins to shine. It's got a strong balance between the different forms of combat, and successfully gives the player the feeling of being in a major large-scale war (in 32 player matches anyway).

The second knock against the game is against its ranking system. In games like Socom, Halo, or Gears of War, I always found myself playing the game for kicks. I'd jump online, join a few random matches, have a good time, and log out. My rank never entered into my mind, due to the fact I hardly ever had time to play. When I did play, I just wanted to have some fun. If I wanted to, I could focus on my rank. It was easy to join a ranked match and see what I could do. But I didn't really care. However, Warhawk's character customization options are tied to your rank. There are plenty of interesting skins and paintjobs you can unlock by increasing your overall rank. And ranks aren't gained just by getting kills. There are certain objectives and achievements you have to meet in order to go up in rank. Connecting rank with customization encourages players to play in ranked games. I consider this to be a wise decision. The problem comes in when you look at the number of games available to join. Out of 800+ servers up, you may find 6 or 7 currently hosting a ranked game. 4 of them will have a ping of over 250 (which means your connection would suffer), and the last 3 or 4 will be full. Sony hosts ranked games on banks of PS3s stationed around the country. Players can also host ranked games on their PS3s as well, but cannot participate in them. It's the consensus among players online that the real challenge to getting a high-rank isn't in defeating other players, it's in actually finding a ranked match with an open spot.

These issues regarding rank advancement and open servers will mostly likely be solved withing 3-6 months. The lack of friends-list integration will also be getting some attention soon. There has already been one patch regarding some rank problems within 1 week of it's release. Hopefully the only remaining complaint in 6 months for a new player will be the steep learning curve. The game is beautiful, and the gameplay itself is varied and balanced. The simplistic design choices make it accessible and addictive, but the server issues and online competition may ruin it for some. And as a $40 download via the playstation network store, it seems a bit pricey for just 5 maps, no box, and no manual. Your best option would be the $60 retail copy that comes with a pack-in blue-tooth headset.

So if you're looking for something to justify your PS3 purchase, Warhawk is definitely worth picking up. If you're looking for a reason to pick up a PS3, Warhawk is not it. It is definitely the best PS3 exclusive out at this point, but I still wouldn't call it a "killer app."

Personal Score: Z 4 Q Q Q and the Batman Symbol out of The State of Illinois.
Subjective Score: It's fun. See above.