Written by: Ian

 

 

 

The fourth flying game on the 360 (after 2 Blazing Angels games), and promising a raft of improvements, does "H.A.W.X. 2" fly high, or is it writing cheques it’s body can’t cash?

 

The first game was a solid if unspectacular effort, hampered by the ‘off’ mode, which just didn’t control well at all. Hopefully with closer integration to the other Tom Clancy games and a long list of new features, this game will be everything flying fans have been looking for.

 

 

The story is all told through some pretty neat-looking CGI cutscenes, although it must be said that the lip-synching is dreadful.

 

The action is typical of a Tom Clancy game- all bombastic, but fun, rubbish about various plots involving stolen nukes, a mad Russian general, and the Middle East gets involved too, of course.

 

Played out over the 20-odd missions, there is actually quite a bit of story, most of it an excuse to get you in the air, but I found everything to be enjoyable, although ridiculous and over-the-top.

 

 

HAWX 2 is definitely on the arcade spectrum of flight games. You can stall, but it’s pretty hard, and recovering is easy. There are no blackouts, you get loads of ammo, and whilst you can land and take off, it’s all heavily assisted and pretty difficult to get wrong unless you have the shakes! Even carrier landings are far too easy.

 

 

The action is definitely more akin to Ace Combat- on some missions, I would start with 60 or even 70 missiles, and still have to land to re-arm. Some of this is due to enemy AI though, which is pretty handy, especially on the higher difficulty levels. The AI does consistently cheat though, which is annoying, focusing all their fire on you, making it difficult to chase after them, and often having unlimited countermeasures, which means you waste loads of missiles. This makes you use your gun from time to time, but it’s still pretty annoying in some situations.

 

The controls are pretty decent, and ‘OFF’ mode, where you see the action from outside the plane has been much improved, with a better camera, and a lock on your nearest target.

 

There’s a 20 mission campaign that takes roughly around 5-6 hours to complete, and has more variety than the first game, featuring some UAV missions, and a Call of Duty style Hercules level where you man some fixed place guns on an escort mission.

 

 

There are also arcade and survival missions, and your single player and multiplayer progress is tracked whilst you gain XP. This allows you to unlock new planes and perks to help you out. You also gain plane specific XP, which helps unlock upgrades for each of the aircraft in your hangar.