So Ubisoft again tries to set the world alight with a sequel to the meh-rated, million selling HAWX. Promising improvements in every aspect is this game a contender? Or should it rest in quiet slumber?
HAWX 2 consists of a few game modes. Single player (story, single mission, free flight), Co-op (Sory, single mission, survival, arcade) and Team Battle (TDM with some ground targets thrown in for teh lulz). Let's start with single player.
Single player starts with you, A PILOT, in THE MIDDLE EAST. Then the first gameplay addition is introduced to you: takeoff and landing. Unlike most other games, you also get to taxi to the runway, something I haven't seen since Over-G on the Xbox 360. your mission consists of recon, before shootan some ground targets, using the new 'precision bombs' - basically your plane goes into autopilot and you fire at the ground targets. Bonus points if you leave that all alone and use cannons instead. Then, as you return to base you get shot down. N00b. You then quantum leap between a few characters: A yank, bred from capitalism and apple pie, A Royal Navy pilot, who says and does absolutely nothing, and a Soviet pilot, who is probably from Turkmenistan, it's difficult to tell with the voice acting. The plot will then follow you killing insurgents all over the world, and fighting Chechnyans, who seem to have an infinite number of aircraft and tanks. Full plot summary will be placed in spoiler tags after the game's full release.
If you've played any flight game before, the first thing you will notice about HAWX 2 is that it is rather slow. Ubisoft Romania have tried to improve the dogfighting aspect of the game which means that your missiles cannot lock on within 500 metres (not that you'd want them to, enemy aircraft have a tendency to simply fly loops around you) and you are required to use the cannon a lot more. Fair enough, but the cannon has unlimited ammo which would mean little skill, but it is relatively weak. The first HAWX was criticised for having highly unrealistic amounts of ammo, even on the highest difficulty setting. HAWX 2 has resolved this by allowing you to resupply by flying back to base. You can complete most levels without resupplying, but the decreased ammo count does make the game better as it means you're not firing everywhere like an SMG user on any shootan ever. The game now has actual physics such as gravity and inertia. The game also contains midair refuelling sections, which you can't do upside down, disappointingly. The takeoff and landings are mandatory, but all are frontline, meaning that you land on the current field of battle. Crashing during a takeoff or landing will force you to respawn with full health and ammo. The bulk of your single player time is spent with the yanks, who have a great deal of variety in their levels, given that 1) They're Yanks. and 2) They're not tied down to a specific force. New weapons include the aforementioned precision unguided malarkey, the heat seeking missile (air-air only), air to ground missile (1 at a time), the Stand-Off missile (user controlled, guide to target. Anyone who's ever played Warhawk will recognise it as the TV missile), and the gunpod (works alongside your standard cannon, and has unlimited ammo too, so put as many as you can on the A-10 and win automatically). Changed from HAWX are the Radar-Guided missile (now only works on Air targets) and the All-Aspect Missile (removed).
And now for a rant:
UAV missions. Who's idea was this? There are multiple points throughout the game where you will be chucked into a UAV and told to fly around, zoom in on a target, mark it with an IR strobe, or shoot it with a slow ass rocket. These are without a doubt the most tedious levels I have ever played in a flight game, worse than that forced F-117 mission in Over-G. Here, there's no danger, just a depressing lack of urgency. I know that you had to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd somehow, but giving us multiple missions like this and not even giving us fire to avoid (futuristic space lazars or rail guns no?) makes them exceedingly boring. Much better is the AC-130 section, where unlike another game that has you gunning the thing, you have finite ammo. rounds have travel time and are affected by gravity, giving that thing a pleasant challenge. All in all single player is pretty generic. Some nice set pieces but lacks the imagination and drama that a certain other arcade flight game has been doing for 15 years.
Co-Op
Pretty much the same as last time out, as far as the story levels go. Moar players = moar enemies etc. what has been changed is that now the host selects difficulty for all participants, and some things require everyone to do summat before the game can continue (landing at the end of a mission for example) but in that case you can always dick around on the runway and try to get in other people's way before landing. Survival is rather limited, with the same enemies spawning in each wave, and having the same AI patterns, but heaven knows people enjoyed Nazi Zombies so they might enjoy this. If it is your first run through story mode, you're locked to whatever plane the game chooses for you. On your second run through, you can choose whether to play in story configuration, or let everyone choose. If you have finished the single player story, there's no SP new game option but you can choose to play the story afresh, completely in Co-op.
Multiplayer
Still TDM, although there are a couple of ground targets you can kill for XP or lulz. Support actions can now be carried by all planes, and have differing functions, such as rendering enemy flares useless, or EMPing their ass. these have cooldown times, so they can't be spammed. The concept of 'match leader' and 'streak' seem to have been eliminated. The host options have been altered. You can now limit the planes used to a specific era. You can choose weapons: All permitted, unguided only, Radar guided excluded, guns only. There are now only two ordnance settings, 'normal' or 'simulation'.
Common Issues
There is now no way to change your camera ingame, you must go into the pause menu to do so. There are a few glitches, such as the game randomly changing your difficulty, or your control settings. The soundtrack is extremely repetitive, consisting of theme and variation of the same damn piece of music over and over again. The notable exception is the vocal harmony playing over the Soviet missions. It's most certainly not at Namco Bandai level. The voice acting is constantly awful. Characters show no emotion, the writing is full of clichés and the accents are all over the place. Not just from the Ukranian/Georgian/Venezuelan/Who Knows but from the British as well. When a character starts speaking, their face will appear at the top right of the screen and there will be no lip synch at all. The whole audio is a mess actually, with most engines sounding the same, missiles sounding like sparklers and gunfire sounding as if it's at least 100 miles away.
How music should be in a flight game.
Ubisoft Romania seems to have forgot to research again, with the MiG-29 refuelling probe doubling as a cannon sometimes, the stealth aircraft magicing weapons into existence rather than opening weapon bays, and aircraft having no weaponry in cutscenes. Other goofs include: The NPC SU-27 actually being a SU-37, every plane having the same HUD, some aircraft having their altimiters turn into speedometers, and the F-35 having an internal HUD. There seems to be a lack of choice all the way through the game, with single player missions having few branching paths and there only really being one real multiplayer mode, the only lasting appeal for the game is unlocking everything.
Unlocks
Levelling up XPwise now gifts you unlock credits. These then get invested into distinct tiers for you to unlock abilities, crafts and support. This does mean that you can easily get the plane you want, but why would you carry on to unlock a turd like the F-22? 'Mastering' your craft does not gift any extra XP, but surely that's what the custom weapon packs are for. Custom weapon packs are exceedingly easy to create, much easier than other games. You are given a payload, and then can add weapons and ammo (which each have specific costs) until you reach your limit.
Overall
HAWX 2 is a great improvement on the first, it's still not quite there though, is still very generic, and I can forgive any arcade flight fan for waiting on Assault Horizon. HAWX 2 is still quite good though. If you can handle the repetition, and aren't expecting it to last into the next decade, you could enjoy HAWX 2.
Note: I don't know how this will appear to non-flight game players, or 'nuggets' as they are sometimes known, because I have been playing flight games for yonks.
I bought Halo: ODST the other day as you probably don't know. Previously I was skeptical about the series, but I'll give you a review with my opinion after actually playing
Yes, I am completely aware that ODST is essentially an expansion pack for halo 3 and not typically the best choice to start into the series with. But, it comes with the halo 3 multiplayer stacked up with all the maps, and it's the multiplayer that I'm most interested in. Anyway what's done is done.
To start out, I played the campaign. It's incredibly short at only 4-6 hours but I ramped up the difficulty to heroic so it would take me longer. Now I will address my biggest problem with the halo series and get it out of the way. The game appears to take itself very seriously with the dramatic music and the plight of mankind etc. but the whole thing is so cartoonish. This goes from the graphics to the designs of the guns and vehicles to the enemies and characters. The game, to me, appears to have an identity crisis. The Mass Effect series, on the other hand, has done a very good job of crafting their universe so it feels very real and I was immersed in it at all times. If they want to go for more of a cartoon style then go for it 100%, what they did feels like they're trying to make it serious but it doesn't come out that way to me. Yeah, I know halo is a shooter not an RPG but from the way people talk about it I expected it to be a true epic, and it wasn't doing so for me.
Nevertheless, let's move on to the real important part. Shooting teh aliens!!! In the campaign you spend time wandering around the streets of "New Mombasa" looking for clues that will give you insight to what happened to your squadmates, who got scattered around the city. Everytime you find a new clue, you are taken to the perspective of a squadmate and get to play out a mission explaining what happened to them. These missions are pretty fun, actually. But what really sucks is the part where you have to roam the city looking for clues. It's pretty tedious and somewhat unnecessary.
Now after playing a couple of missions I decided to play some coop with my friend. This was actually rather enjoyable, we worked together and it made it much easier to take out some of the tougher opponents. In one situation I had to lure a large monster thing (hunter?) towards me so my friend could shoot him in the vulnerable area near it's back. Simple coop stuff, but nonetheless fun. So later he decided to leave and I went back to my solo campaign to find that the missions we accomplished didn't count for anything, meaning I had to do it all over by myself. So coop is somewhat pointless unless your going to do the whole campaign in one run through.
Next up I rounded up some more people to play firefight, which is essentially a survival mode where waves of enemies come at you and you and your buddies use teamwork to last as long as possible. This is generally good fun, a few problems now and then but I've been assured it will all be straightened out in Reach. Also fixed in Reach is the fact that you can't use matchmaking with firefight, meaning you have to have friends on call and ready to invite.
Now, on Disc 2 is the Halo 3 "multiplayer experience" with all the maps included. This is where I felt the game really shined. I've heard good and bad things about halo 3 online but I found it to actually be quite good. There are 2 things I really like about the multiplayer.
1. In shooters like COD, all your basically doing is pointing and clicking which gets quite boring. Now I'm not saying halo takes a ton of skill, it doesn't really, but most encounters you have with other players are somewhat more memorable because each one is like a small duel ( ). By that I mean that you don't just pull the trigger for a second and move on, you have to employ your environment and your arsenal as well as tactics and some good timing if you want to kill someone. Of course, there will be some times where you can just pound led in the persons back for a while, but in general I found myself on the edge of my seat while playing then getting a real rewarding feeling every time I scored a kill, and cursing every time I died.
2. Teamwork is huge in this game if you want to win. While playing basic gametypes it's not that much of a concern but in the smaller, objective based games it comes into play. Because players have so much health I found it best to squad up with some people and roam the maps in pairs taking out the opposition. Being a lone wolf in these games doesn't work well, I tried that too and got slaughtered by people in groups. The game is totally playable by yourself, but it gets much more enjoyable in pairs or squads when you have people to talk to and work with. PROTIP: I'm speaking of XBL friends here, NEVER attempt to talk to people in halo through gamechat, 99% are assholes or screaming kids.
The game has a ton of different game types to keep you busy (although it should be noted that you need the DLC for most of them), as well as custom games where you can make up whatever rules you want (there are plenty of options) and play them out with friends. There is also forge mode where you can create your own maps. It didn't seem that deep but you have enough tools to make some interesting stuff.
Overall, I'm enjoying my experience with Halo 3 online, and the single player gameplay isn't too shabby either ('cept the coop in ODST). The biggest downfall for me is still the fact that I don't like any of the halo "lore" or the story in general.
The sequel to 2007's Mass Effect. Since then, Bioware has been purchased by EA. What effect will it have on this game?
Mass Effect summary:
Spoiler
Also, there were vehicle sections, and everyone complained that they were shit, because they were.
The game itself was a bit meh, but the coversation options were fun, even if it was hard to believe that people would spend hours having in-depth conversations rather than saving lives.
If you would like to know moar, read. http://www.gamesrada...888000000020740
Additional Mass Effect info will be given under spoiler tags.
Plot:
The game opens with a conversation between an Aussie bird and Jed Bartlet, discussing how awesome the protagonist, Shepard, is. The camera then cuts to the 'Normandy', in space, doing nothing until a huge ship appears and proceeds to pwn you. You, the commander, risk your life to save your crew, and actually die, rather than just play dead like in other games. You then wake up 2 years later after being rezzed by Cerberus,
Spoiler
Minor baddies in the first game, they conducted 'sick experiments' consisting of locking people in a room and telling them to shoot you when you came through the door
and are asked to complete the tutorial level. Along the way, you meet your first two support characters, Michael Jackson and a black guy. After escaping you get to meet with Captain Willard himself, who tells you that you were kill by aleins but he got the defib out and saved you from having to respawn at the base. You basically say 'O RLY?' and he replies 'YA RLY FOR 2 YEARS LOL'. It then turns out that human colonies are being eaten. Being the heroic idiot that you are, you set out to help, and find that your enemies today are 'The Collectors', an ancient race that no-one believes in. Sound familiar?
Spoiler
That's what everyone said about the reapers in the first game.
You then find out that all your old crew fucked off, and you need to recruit a new one, with the ultimate goal being to go through a certain Stargate and get into the collector base, killing their d00ds. There's more, but if you're interested, I'll spoil it, and if you're not, then it'll be tl;dr.
TEH GAEM!!!!!!!!
Most of the game involves you running down corridors, headshotting foos that stand in your way, similar to the first game. However, Bioware have made a few changes, the first one you'll notice being that weapons now have limited ammo and you'll need to reload.
Spoiler
The original game used an 'overheat' mechanic, meaning that if you simply fired in short bursts, you could win automatically.
As innovations go, that's pretty weak. Also, the weapons have been rebalanced (The snipars are actually useful now) meaning shotguns are completely useless. Meleé attacks are now one button and cover is now performed by sprinting into chest high objects. The previous health and shield system has now been replaced by fully regenerating bollocks. So far, so Gears of War. Apart from the combat, Bioware seems to have taken an 'If it's broken, incinerate it' approach, so gone are the vehicle sections, except for one section in DLC, The inventory system no longer exists, meaning that you cannot purchase new weapons or armour, only 'upgrade' them, so the only things you'll be picking up during missions are upgrade schematics. You can however now paint your armour any colour that you like, including the classic RB pink. There are some alternative weapons you will find however, always in scripted locations, and they don't differ too much in stats. It will only really come down to if you prefer semi-auto snipars, burst-fire assault rifles etc. They all run off the same upgrades so it won't matter which shotgun you use. Grenades have also been completely removed, replaced by new heavy weapons. These run off a different, rarer ammo supply than your small arms, and consist of Граната launchers, lasers and other stuff you'd generally find for 20 seconds in an FPS. All of which draws Mass Effect towards a shootan rather than being an RPG. Presumably this is EA's fault, trying to make the game even more casual. This might be fine for most of you, but I personally had an issue with the auto-aim, which cannot be turned off. If you are trying to snipe a boss for example, and some low level idiot tries to zerg rush you, the auto aim will follow him and let the other guy boom headshot you. Or, if there are a group of enemies hiding behind a wall and you see an explosive barrel behind them, the sticky aim will automatically keep you locked onto the small area of wall that the baddies be hiding behind. Seeing as shooting takes up a large part of the game, and the auto-aim cannot be turned off, it can get really frustrating. Although, when you come towards the end, if you've been upgrading well enough, you can breeze through just about any section, provided you hide behind a wall for 5 seconds to let your health regenerate.
The replacement for the vehicle sections (as far as charting worlds goes) is the planet scanning/resource mining technique. This consists of you holding the aim button and pressing fire when a graph hits a certain level. This is exactly as boring as it sounds, but is the only way to unlock some side missions, and afford the upgrades for your guns, new heavy weapons, and armour upgrades. Also 'probes' are limited, meaning that you'll have to buy them after raping mining each world. For some bizarre reason, you have to occasionally travel between local star systems, using fuel, because that whole 'Mass Relay' system making possible instant travel to any point in the galaxy is a bit picky. So you'll need to buy fuel as well. Not overly difficult, but boring and tedious nevertheless.
The conversation system has been revamped, including 'interrupts', when a symbol will pop up on screen, letting you tell the other person to STFU. examples:
Spoiler
Yes, the morality system is back, still just black and white, angels and devils sort of things. The writing and voice acting is still as good as it ever was, and if that's what you liked about Mass Effect, then you'll like it again. If you had a Mass Effect save, you can import it into this game, and start playing with your old character. Their level is reset though, which is a fair price to pay for dying. However, the game allows you to completely change your character's appearance, class and even gender. I appreciate that there might be some tissue degradation after being dead for 2 years and all, but surely they had a photo or something for reconstruction? No? OK then. There's more potential teammates to recruit this time, and if you talk to them enough, they'll offer you a 'loyalty' sidequest, meaning that they'll gain a new ability and appearance option, and maybe not die in the final mission.
And the main reason people liked the first one: sexytime! The actual sexytime content has been toned down, to 'Sex and the City' style clothes-on, premium chat rate level. The actual sexytime options have been increased, there are more people, and you need to talk to them in different ways. If you only liked the last game for it's Channel 5 porn-alike sequences, be prepared to be disappointed by the sequel.
DLC:
Mass 2 Effect comes with a code for the 'Cerberus Network', or as it's more commonly known, 'Fuck you Gamestop.' The idea being that you'll buy the game new to get this amazing content for free. Buy it now and you'll get: A new character for your crew, 5 new side quests, with vehicle sections similar to the last game, A new heavy weapon that shoots lightning, almost exactly the same as the one in Resistance: Fall of Man, and a new suit of armour (non-customisable) and a new shotgun. The cost of all this? 1200 M$P.
The 'Alternate appearance pack' grants you three new costumes for your squadmates, which don't change anything - 160 M$P.
The 'Equaliser pack' gives you a couple of new armour items. Another 160 points.
'Kasumi - Stolen memory' is the first piece of proper content available. It introduces a new character and a couple of hours gameplay for their loyalty mission. - 560M$P.
'Overlord' is the best of the DLC so far. Shepard must shut down a rogue VI, and spend 5 hours in new areas doing so. - 560 points.
^Of these, only the Cerberus DLC is available on the PC.
Overall:
Mass 2 Effect is a good deal. You'll get plenty of play time from the game, even if you only do the main story missions. The main problem is that the actual 'game' element of Mass Effect isn't great, but the choices, dialogue options and game writing make up for it. The game is a step up from it's predecessor, both graphically and structurally, with less pop-in in the former, and more game length and depth in the latter. I recommend the game to anyone who has played the first, but to any n00bs, I would recommend the first over this. It's a bit better in terms of actual game, plus you get to play through the backstory, rather than have it predetermined by answering a series of questions. You should be able to get it for about a tenner these days, which is more than reasonable. Hopefully for the third in the trilogy (The loading screens tell you outright that there will be a Mass Effect 3) Bioware will abandon their 'If it isn't great, amputate it' mentality, and deliver a game worthy of the extra-curricular activites. If you have an interest in the game,
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In the campaign you spend time wandering around the streets of "New Mombasa" looking for clues that will give you insight to what happened to your squadmates, who got scattered around the city. Everytime you find a new clue, you are taken to the perspective of a squadmate and get to play out a mission explaining what happened to them. These missions are pretty fun, actually. But what really sucks is the part where you have to roam the city looking for clues. It's pretty tedious and somewhat unnecessary. 
). By that I mean that you don't just pull the trigger for a second and move on, you have to employ your environment and your arsenal as well as tactics and some good timing if you want to kill someone. Of course, there will be some times where you can just pound led in the persons back for a while, but in general I found myself on the edge of my seat while playing then getting a real rewarding feeling every time I scored a kill, and cursing every time I died.
Buy it now and you'll get: A new character for your crew, 5 new side quests, with vehicle sections similar to the last game, A new heavy weapon that shoots lightning, almost exactly the same as the one in Resistance: Fall of Man, and a new suit of armour (non-customisable) and a new shotgun. The cost of all this? 1200 M$P.
