Grumpygamer

It's quite a while since I've been this disappointed by a high profile release. There are so many bad design decisions in this game it almost seems the developer is trying to alienate people who like flight games. I've always thought that in designing a game you should please your core audience and add features to appeal to all, not fill a game full of stupid ideas that are bound to annoy the very people this game should appeal to.

Take for example the cockpit view. It's rubbish. You can't actually see the HUD within it, which negates it to some extend. Secondly you can't move the view around completely as you can with the chase view. This is really irritating as you can't look down. Well done with that one.

Then there's the issue of speed. Everything is too quick, the aircraft fly at stupid speeds. And despite the pre-release FAQs saying the player would have full control over speed this isn't true.

The assistance off mode is not very good at all. It's a terrible concept and it's not very well implemented. The mode and my critique of the cockpit view can be put in context by the following example. Imagine that Forza Motorsport 2 didn't let you have a mirror in cockpit view and used an arcade handling model, the only way to get the game to be more authentic was to use the outside view. How crap would that be?

The dumb bombs. Dumber than you may think. They break the laws of physics and fall forwards as though they are rocket powered.

Then there is the issue of graphics. The game features some extras looking at the company that supplied the satellite images. There's been plenty of PR about the "realistic" satellite scenery. Anyone who uses Microsoft Flight Sim will have seen much better in third-party expansion scenery. While the photo scenery textures are very attractive, they are ruined by the truly crappy 3D buildings plastered across them.

Finally the real tragedy is that this game marks the death of the Tom Clancy brand. The name used to be a mark of two things. Firstly quality. Secondly the TC brand stood for a kind of military authenticity - not necessarily simulation - but a kind of gaming realism and use of tactical/strategic gameplay.

HAWX has none of these things. While early details of the game implied this was a flight game set in and sharing aspects of the same world as Ghost Recon. But while Ghost Recon offers depth and a certain level of authenticity HAWX offers neither. The entire gameplay is nothing more than point nose of plane at enemy - press button. You could train a monkey to play this game. And that has killed the Tom Clancy brand as a seal of a certain quality.