Comments on: Tom Clancy’s HAWX Xbox 360 review http://www.avault.com/reviews/xbox-360/tom-clancys-hawx-xbox-360-review/ The Adrenaline Vault is an independent site providing uninfluenced and unbiased video game information. Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:50:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: MSpears http://www.avault.com/reviews/xbox-360/tom-clancys-hawx-xbox-360-review/comment-page-1/#comment-97641 MSpears Sat, 09 May 2009 08:10:51 +0000 http://www.avault.com/?p=8741#comment-97641 Oh, two more complaints: A total lack of an altitude readout in OFF mode makes achieving some of the challenges... like "fly below 30 meters in OFF mode without crashing"... very difficult at best, almost impossible at worst. You also have no autopilot of any kind, not even a key that levels out your plane so you can hold a level altitude. This makes some of the -other- challenges, like "Fly inverted below 40 meters for 2 minutes without crashing" that much harder, too. And, if you're interested in HAWX only for the single-player experience, don't expect to unlock everything without downloading an unlocker. When you complete a mission in campaign mode, it's available in single mission mode, and you can re-play those missions with different aircraft and/or weapons loadouts as often as you need to complete the single-player challenges. You'll shoot up through the lower ranks pretty quickly, but once you reach level 25 or so, it requires so many XP to advance to the next rank that it becomes a long, boring grind. You'll only get to level 27, or maybe 28, by completing all the campaign missions at Elite difficulty and completing all the single-player challenges. After that, you have to go into team deathmatch mode and start completing the TDM challenges, or get used to playing the same mission over... and over... and over... and over again, to get up to rank 40 (the highest rank in the game). Just as a general rule of thumb, once you've completed a mission at Elite difficulty, further replays of most missions only gain 500 or 600 XP for destroying targets. But just to get from rank 25 to rank 26 requires almost 12,000 XP... so you'd have to replay a high-scoring mission 10 to 12 times to advance, and it gets worse as you climb the ranks. Is it a fun game? Yes. I agree with Ryan's assessment of "Play it!" ... especially if you ARE interested in the multi-player aspect. If you only care about the single-player experience and you're a completionist... download an unlocker, that's my advice. Oh, two more complaints: A total lack of an altitude readout in OFF mode makes achieving some of the challenges… like “fly below 30 meters in OFF mode without crashing”… very difficult at best, almost impossible at worst. You also have no autopilot of any kind, not even a key that levels out your plane so you can hold a level altitude. This makes some of the -other- challenges, like “Fly inverted below 40 meters for 2 minutes without crashing” that much harder, too.

And, if you’re interested in HAWX only for the single-player experience, don’t expect to unlock everything without downloading an unlocker. When you complete a mission in campaign mode, it’s available in single mission mode, and you can re-play those missions with different aircraft and/or weapons loadouts as often as you need to complete the single-player challenges.

You’ll shoot up through the lower ranks pretty quickly, but once you reach level 25 or so, it requires so many XP to advance to the next rank that it becomes a long, boring grind. You’ll only get to level 27, or maybe 28, by completing all the campaign missions at Elite difficulty and completing all the single-player challenges. After that, you have to go into team deathmatch mode and start completing the TDM challenges, or get used to playing the same mission over… and over… and over… and over again, to get up to rank 40 (the highest rank in the game).

Just as a general rule of thumb, once you’ve completed a mission at Elite difficulty, further replays of most missions only gain 500 or 600 XP for destroying targets. But just to get from rank 25 to rank 26 requires almost 12,000 XP… so you’d have to replay a high-scoring mission 10 to 12 times to advance, and it gets worse as you climb the ranks.

Is it a fun game? Yes. I agree with Ryan’s assessment of “Play it!” … especially if you ARE interested in the multi-player aspect. If you only care about the single-player experience and you’re a completionist… download an unlocker, that’s my advice.

]]> By: MSpears http://www.avault.com/reviews/xbox-360/tom-clancys-hawx-xbox-360-review/comment-page-1/#comment-97627 MSpears Thu, 07 May 2009 05:08:31 +0000 http://www.avault.com/?p=8741#comment-97627 Just for the record, the third-person OFF mode is unlocked in mission 5. Considering there's 19 missions in the full campaign, that's more like a quarter than a third, isn't it? Aside from that, I agree with pretty much all of what Ryan said. And if you actually served in the Air Force, like I did, you have to check your sense of realism at the door. Believe me... I only *wish* my F-15 could carry 240 missiles and unlimited cannon ammo! I had to settle for 8 missiles and 940 rounds of ammo... never mind the fact that some of the aircraft, like the YF-12 (aka, the Blackbird) NEVER had weapons, and others (like the EF-111 Raven) carried only two missiles and no cannon. Every aircraft in the game (and there are a LOT of them) have at least one cannon and enough missiles to supply four air wings. Just for the record, the third-person OFF mode is unlocked in mission 5. Considering there’s 19 missions in the full campaign, that’s more like a quarter than a third, isn’t it? Aside from that, I agree with pretty much all of what Ryan said.

And if you actually served in the Air Force, like I did, you have to check your sense of realism at the door. Believe me… I only *wish* my F-15 could carry 240 missiles and unlimited cannon ammo! I had to settle for 8 missiles and 940 rounds of ammo… never mind the fact that some of the aircraft, like the YF-12 (aka, the Blackbird) NEVER had weapons, and others (like the EF-111 Raven) carried only two missiles and no cannon. Every aircraft in the game (and there are a LOT of them) have at least one cannon and enough missiles to supply four air wings.

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