Auto-aim, Ranked Servers, and Conclusions

What makes the flying difficult is that you make yourself a clear target for other pilots, ground personnel armed with RPGS, tanks, and people in turrets. The aircraft can deal out the damage but with a bevy of locking missile weapons available you'd better have the chaff ready. No matter what side you're on it's a rush to be on the ground and see a Warhawk / Nemesis slide in and hover low to strafe the ground only to be blown up. It reminds me of the ending in True Lies but with a lot more Harriers. Warhawk captures the sights and sounds of big-budget action and the explosions are top notch.

View the Warhawk slide show (20 images)

The vehicle combat works great but the wheels come off when you fight mano-a-mano. The target reticule has an enormous auto-aim area so all you have to do is keep the guy in the middle of your screen. There is very little finesse or "aiming" except for the sniper rifle. It's almost the same as the missile lock-on interaction but you're using a machine gun instead of a missile launcher. I'm not sure why they went this direction for the guns but it didn't work at all for me. There's an impressive flame thrower that makes the ground fighting a little more interesting but most of the time I felt like I had no control at all where my bullets were going yet they kept killing people. There's a disconnect there so I tried to stick to the vehicles.

Increasing rank allows some player customization.

If you fancy yourself the competitive type then don't waste time on the regular servers. Find yourself a ranked server and the game is much more intense. Playing on the ranked servers is the only way to increase your rank allowing you to customize your character and aircraft. It's a trivial reward but it also makes you instantly recognizable once you get into the upper ranks. Getting into a ranked server can be tricky since there is no filter for it on the server list and you can only run one as a dedicated machine - meaning you can't play on the system running the server. There are a number of Sony servers highlighted in blue running all the time but they are almost always full to capacity. If you're patient and want to play for a while it's worth the struggle to get in one so you can stay there for a few hours.

The big problem with Warhawk is the price. $40 is certainly cheaper than $60 - the retail version is $60 but it comes with a Bluetooth headset - but it's still a lot for what Warhawk offers. It's a multiplayer-only shooter with four game modes - deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, zones - and five maps. To its credit the maps can be reconfigured for different types of games so while you may be able to utilize the entire map for one game in others you may be relegated to just the fortress in the middle. These different map configurations stretch those five maps a little further but there may not be much meat there after a couple weeks of play. Warhawk offers a solid multiplayer action experience and if you're one of those guys who just kept on playing CS on de_dust you may not mind the lack of map variety.

Where I'm Coming From: I'm a long-time PC shooter fan so I tend to growl at anything that isn't mouse and keyboard for controlling guns. With that in mind I did really enjoy Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty 2, and a number of other first and third-person shooters with console controls so I know it can be done right. I also love when shooters involve vehicles. Unfortunately for Warhawk I love a good single-player game so the absence of one here will hurt it.

What I Compared It To: On the consoles it's more like The Outfit without the base building than Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. Since Warhawk doesn't have any classes and the man-to-man shooting is so inaccurate the only similarities to Battlefield 2 are the inclusion of vehicles and the multiplayer aspect. Warhawk lacks Battlefield's precision but replaces it with speed.

What I Liked: Sharp graphics; online split-screen preserves social gaming; I never had to look far for a Warhawk or a Nemesis and with so many birds in the air the action was never slow; great sound. Warhawk is all about shallow action and if that's your thing then this is your game.

What I Didn't Like: The price. It's too little game for too much money even at the $40 download. I didn't like having to accept the usage policy every time I play either. The shooting controls when you're out of a vehicle are way too loose for someone used to PC shooters. No single-player mode.

Value Meter: Rent it. It's worth playing but $40 is steep.

Final Score: 7.5 out of 10

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