[Review] Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X 2: Take to the skies one more time

FULL REVIEW

Ubisoft’s Romanian team has returned to Tom Clancy’s universe for a second consecutive run; following the series’ debut last year. HAWX 2’s main storyline is set in the middle-eastern region and involves British, American and Russian government’s fight against a group of enemies that are vaguely referred to as insurgents in the game. The plot is everyone’s favorite doom’s day scenario, where a couple of nuclear warheads go missing. The three countries mobilize the best in their armed services, in a race against time to recover the warheads before they are detonated over civilian population. The player’s part in this is to provide air-support using the best and the latest in aerial warfare.  

Familiar nesting ground

At its core, HAWX 2 has remained largely unchanged over its predecessor, which was expected considering the short development time between the two games. Some of the significant additions to game-play includes introduction of UAV, ability to take off and land from air-strips and aircraft carriers and refueling in midair. The introduction of UAV brings with itself stealth-based missions like eavesdropping on the enemy conversation under the cover of darkness or clandestine bombing runs using precision ordinance. Coming to the meat of the game, HAWX 2 features over 30 aircrafts of American, British and Russian origin. These three nations have an elite squadron of fighter pilots with access to the latest and even prototype technology, and over the course of the main campaign, the player will get to play as a member of each of these squads. 

UAV based missions aside; most other missions involve supporting ground units, while at the same time engaging enemy aircrafts in dogfights at supersonic speeds. The missions are well-paced and are often challenging, especially to those not accustomed to flight games. On normal difficulty, it takes about eight to ten hours to save the world from a nuclear disaster. 

War never ends

After completing the main campaign, the game has decent amount of additional content to keep busy. There are three other single-player modes called Free Flight, Survival and Arcade, along with a good deal of un-lockable content. ‘Free Flight’ mode does not spawn enemies, which allows the player practice take-off and landing or simply appreciate the scenery. Survival mode, as the name suggests, challenges the player to survive increasingly difficult waves of enemy air-crafts and anti-air ground installations. Lastly, the Arcade version is a spin-off of the main campaign mode where the same missions are replayed with an additional challenge. For instance, the player is required to beat a mission using an aircraft that is equipped with only guns. 

Completing missions or taking out enemy structures and aircraft is rewarded with experience points that add to a player’s rank. Each time the player is promoted by a rank, the game rewards two points that can be used to unlock aircrafts, passive abilities, upgrades and support abilities that are exclusively available in multiplayer modes. Once an aircraft has been unlocked, using it in any of the game-modes adds to the player’s mastery of that particular aircraft. Mastering an aircraft comes with its own rewards in the form of improved performance, custom weapon’s load-out, alternate skin, etc. 

Going online

HAWX 2 supports up to eight players in multiplayer over the internet and via system link on the Xbox 360. The game also supports co-op campaign mode between a maximum of four players. Competitive team-multiplayer is a rush for a high score by taking out opposing team players and AI controlled units that function as common targets. For me, playing HAWX 2 over the internet was not the best experience due to crippling amount lag. This may not necessarily be a problem with the game servers, as I do not have access to the best internet service. 

Outside of Xbox Live, player can also connect to Ubisoft’s ‘UPlay’ service, which is still in Beta phase by the way. Just like other recent releases from Ubisoft, logging into UPlay gives player access to additional game content. Waiting for you on these servers is a theme for Xbox 360, a custom weapons pack for A-10A Thunderbolt II, custom skins and a multiplayer map. Unlocking these items require spending of ‘Action Points’ that are earned by accomplishing certain achievements in the game.

HAWX 2 is a fairly decent game for air-force enthusiasts who are looking for a game that is somewhere in between an old-school, arcade style action game and a serious flight simulation. Between the number of aircrafts, game modes and un-lockables, there is more content than most other games offer these days and in at least that respect this game justifies its price-tag.