Warhawk

"If you're looking for crazy, multiplayer fun - you've come to the right place."

To be honest, Playstation 3 is lacking some great games at the moment. Sure, you've got Resistance and Heavenly Sword, but neither of them really offer a great multiplayer (in the case of Heavenly Sword, it doesn't offer any multiplayer...). Resistance's online experience was filled with a bunch of one-hit kill games, and there wasn't much strategy involved. It just required you to run around madly and fire whatever weapon in hand, hoping for kills.

Warhawk changes this, with a smooth and balanced multiplayer experience. Warhawk only provides multiplayer game modes, due to the fact that the developers thought the single player wasn't as good. You take on the role of a soldier, either on the Chernovans (red team) or Eucadian (blue team) army. As a soldier, you're given 8 weapons, each useful in their own way, although some players would agree that some weapons are 'cheap' (such as the mine, which instantly kills ANYTHING - aside from tanks).

You're given a basic pistol and knife upon spawning. The pistol is virtually useless, dealing small damage to foot soldiers, and practically no damage to anythign else. The knife is good for sneaking on people who are unaware of your presence as it offers a one-hit kill, but again, it doesn't work on anything else.

You've got your assault rifle, the bread and butter of every shooter. The rifle is fast firing, has a quick reload, and is good in every situation - although it doesn't affect tanks and turrets. Don't leave home without it. There is no shotgun in the game, you could say that the Flamethrower replaces it. The flamethrower is an absolute beast in close combat, even destroying tanks in a matter of seconds.

You've got your Rocket Launcher, a weapon dubbed as 'cheap' in many shooters, but in Warhawk, is one of the most wanted weapons. Against foot soldiers, it's very difficult to kill them - but the RPG is great for destroying a 4x4, tank, or that stupid turret that keeps killing your allies.

Then there is the Sniper Rifle, a weapon that is quite difficult to use. Have Warhawk's fast gameplay, and add server lag, it's very hard to hit an enemy. It's good for picking off stationary soldiers at a distance, but it's very hard to hit that guy running across the bridge. The sniper rifle is an instant one hit kill, which makes things a bit easier.

Then, you have your Land Mines. Land Mines are a bit of a misleading name, these mines can be stuck virtually anywhere, leading to some fun possibilities. Sneak into an enemy's base and leave mines on all their vehicles, or perhaps put a mine on one of your vehicle and drive it into a group of people. Land Mines are instant kills to whatever they hit, except tanks.

Of course, the holy grail of all weapons in Warhawk.. Binoculars. Upon picking these up, they don't look like much - but you can use it to request air strikes. A nasty surprise.

But don't think that's all you can do, you can hop in a tank (which can carry two people max) and wreck havoc, or jump in a 4x4 (which can carry three people total. one person can man a machine gun at the back) and speed around the map. Of course, you can pilot Warhawks (or the Nemesis in Chernovan's case), which are fast, fighter jets. You can even man numerous turrets, such as the missile turret, to pick off that annoying Warhawk flying around your base. Warhawk offers a very balanced gameplay, so even a infantryman can take out a Warhawk or a Tank if he or she is well prepared.

Warhawks are as equally equipped - boasting a machine gun that has infinite ammo, but is prone to overheating, as well as a load of missiles and bombs. There are Swarm Missiles, Homing Missiles, Air Mines, Cluster Bombs, Lightning Gun, Stealth (rendering your Warhawk invisible to radar, and making it impossible to lock on with missiles) and Chaff. As well as the almighty TOW missile, a missile that you can control through a camera - although this leaves your Warhawk defenseless.

All of this chaos and mayhem takes place of five, different areas. Each area is divided into 5 sections, so this comes into a total of 25 different 'maps'. Up to 32 players can take place in a match, and you can play classic game modes like Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Deathmatch (which does feel tiring after a while. Warhawk feels a lot more team-based) or Zones, a new game mode.

Each map has a couple of 'zones' which supply weapons and vehicles, as well as a place for a player to spawn once they've been killed. In order to 'capture' a zone, a player must stand next to the zone flag until their team colour's bar fills to one section (with a maximum of three, but only for Zone matches). The objective of Zones is to capture as many zones as possible. Points are distributed to each team every few seconds depending on how many zones they have captured.

On top of this, the graphics are very nice indeed. Soldiers are detailed finely, and so are the vehicles. Even the weapons look very nice. The environment is nice to look at, and there doesn't seem to be many faults. The graphics are nice, but nothing revolutionary.

The audio is well suited to the game - everything sounds very authentic - from the machine gun fire, to tank high explosive shells impacting with a group of soldiers. At first, you may notice the lack of in-game music, but when something 'dramatic' happens (for example, killing three people in one shot), music starts to slowly fade in.

There is no in-game keyboard, but, in order to communicate with other players, you must use a headset (which comes included with the hard copy of the game). The headset included with the game is of a pretty high quality - but unfortunately, the game's VOIP is quite poor, and it's difficult to hear anyone through the microphone.

Once you feel that you're good enough, you can start your own clan, or join another player's clan. A clan is essentially just a group of people right now, with not many options available.. Clan Wars would have been the obvious thing to do, but Warhawk doesn't seem to have a feature of any sort.

The online service is satisfactory, although there are some glaring faults. For example, you may notice that your rank increases to a very high level, even though you don't have the requirements for it. You may also have a bit of trouble entering game matches; the game telling you 'The game is full.' when there are 20/32 people in the match. There is also a glitch, known as the 'Tank Glitch' (making your tank invisible) which does make the game unfair. Fortunately, not many people use it.

Warhawk is an excellent game, hampered by a few faults. If you're looking for an excellent multiplayer experience, look no further!

Final Verdict: 9/10

Pros:
- Balanced gameplay
- Very varied gameplay
- Quite fun
- Nice graphics
- Good sound effects

Cons:
- Occasional errors
- Bad VOIP quality
- Not many maps / gameplay modes
- No clan wars

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/07

Game Release: Warhawk (AU, 09/20/07)