Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X 2 Video Game

With their recent release of H.A.W.X. 2 Ubisoft provides a fresh face for the FPS, MMO and RTS dominated gaming climate. It comes to Benchmark Reviews eighteen months after the less-known H.A.W.X. game. Unlike many flight sims of the past, which were nearly impossible for anyone to play, HAWX 2 is a mix between a full-blown simulator and and arcade shooter that can be played by almost anyone. So grab your flying cap and join us as at 15000 meters as we take a plane or two (or three or twenty) for an inverted spin.

There is something compelling, something interesting that draws us towards the technologically complex and towards the fantastical. There is also something awe-inspiring about the vehicles and tools of war as well as the drama associated with conflict between nations. Book have allowed us to imagine complex scenarios in our minds, and computers have enabled us to play them out first-hand. But to make our games enjoyable we often draw boundaries short of reality. No one has a whole week to spend doing a real-time sniper campaign. And who is going to buy the first person shooter that you can only play till you die once? Somewhere there is a line between realism that brings the awe and interest and the playability that brings enjoyment.

Flight games must also find the balance between realism and playability. Super-aggressive flight physics can make a game down-right boring, but make it too simple and people will get bored. In this review we evaluate HAWX 2 to see how well the storyline, gameplay, flight physics, technical performance and other features maintains the good balance between realism and fun.

Manufacturer: Ubisoft
Product Name: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2
Price As Tested:$33.49 (PC Download) or $54.99 (Deluxe PC Download) from Amazon

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by NVIDIA.

HAWX 2 Storyline

In HAWX 2 the player fulfills air support missions of multiple varieties from the perspective of pilots from different nations. You begin flying as Colonel David crenshaw, part of the elite HAWX squadron suppressing insurgent uprisings in the Middle East. You begin your first mission with a scouting round but are shot down and captured by insurgents. The cut-scenes and music are excellent and immediately bring you into the game with a sense of purpose, anticipation and then foreboding.

This attack was part of a larger scheme where nefarious insurgent leaders start showing up, three nuclear warheads go missing, the base at which the HAWX are stationed gets attacked. With this increase in activity a joint-global taskforce is setup with members from various nations including Great Britain, the United States, and Russia. You fly in mission from each branch, each with their own brush with insurgents and Russian separatists. The nice thing about having so many different perspectives is the broader variety of aircraft you get to fly through the missions. You even get to man the guns on an AC-130 and participate in recon missions to collect intel.

Throughout the mission you work closely with a Russian intelligence agent named Drachev (image below) who has been undercover in the Middle East. You collect information bit by bit and gradually come to a larger picture of the uprising. You notice that the insurgents are particularly well armed, well manned and well led by people like Hafiz (image above). So you work hard to find the head of the snake.

In the midst of your investigations and insurgent "hits", larger scale military campaigns are engaged by Russia and the U.S. to eliminate the insurgents and separatists. The focal point of the action shift to the recovery of the stolen nukes. You manage to track down and capture two nukes but are overwhelmed by the separatist forces. I really want to know how they got so many planes and boats and land and SAMs and whatever else. To keep the nukes from being recovered by the separatists you have to cover them in water by blowing up a dam.

Despite everyone's heroic efforts a warhead gets deployed in a major Russian oil field. Throughout this interplay your Russian boss General Morgunov feels restrained by political leaders. Lucky for him an ultra-nationalist group led by Treshkayev (image below) forces the current Russian president Karzkazev to step down. Now Morgunov is given a free ticket to military exploits and Russia seems to conveniently end communication with the other joint forces.

But they don't stay hidden for long. Soon the Russian Navy shows up in full force in Norway to confiscate their much needed oil. During an aerial espionage mission you intercept a phone call from a separatist to Morgunov (image below) and discover he has been feeding the rebellion with support from Treshkayev. So Morgunov wanted war, but apparently not against the insurgents.

From the perspective of your Russian protagonist you fly this vital intel with Drachev to the U.S. and Colonel Crenshaw. Now comes the big Russia versus the world climax, the air filled with modern jets. The rest of the battle must be won through the world's most glorious dogfights.

So in summary, you play from many different perspectives, then war mongers and traitors start a global war which results in a nuclear warhead detonation. A select few on the inside are the only ones with the knowledge to indicate the true bad guys and must fight their own military to bring the truth to light. In a plane. Wait...did I just get done playing Modern Warfare 2? In a plane?

The cinemas and story-telling were done well-enough, but throughout the entire game I couldn't help but think the storyline was stale (done this before) and that the graphics, mood, and general presentation of the storyline was a rehash of Modern Warfare 2. In the end it was interesting enough to keep playing but bland.

I also found the story to be a little unrealistic. How do insurgents get so much military support without anyone being able to track down where half of their manufacturing line was going?! Although the game started well, I had a hard time "buying in" in later missions. There was something missing that made it too hard for me to make the leap and feel like I was actually some flying ace in a state-of-the-art aircraft. Maybe it was because I had a difficult time keeping track of who I was and what I was flying, but I think a larger part was the lack of mission briefings. Luckily there was enough variety to keep things from dying.

HAWX 2 Gameplay

I'm a big fan of the storyline. A good story line can provide excellent replay value. But when it comes to flying games the flying alone can keep me in my chair. HAWX 2 is not a flight simulator. There's no huge flight manual and not a single tutorial on how to fly the plane. Controls are simple enough that everything can be learned in the first few missions. That is good because it lowers the learning curve for some fun play. It's bad because it makes all modern planes exactly the same. Take out the advanced targeting, instruments, flight controls, etc and all that is left to distinguish planes is the cockpit picture, speed and maneuverability. As a result I was often completely unaware of which plane I was using during the campaign. Where's my thrust vectoring?

As far as airplane physics go I thought HAWX 2 was very forgiving. Corners were tighter than should have been possible, stalls easy to recover, and slipping the plane could be done at any speed. The physics depended heavily on "Assistance Mode". The default mode is "On" and the planes are kept in balance, on course and "guided" to help make flying easier. I come from a flight sim background so I felt like I was in a physics box. In reality planes are much harder to fly but can do alot of tricky things. This was supposedly enabled by the "Assistance Off Mode". Turning off assistance mode unlocks the physics box and lets you do many great things, like a back-flip at mach 2. WHAT?! Not believable. But to make the game fun and accessible we have to take small sacrifices like that. The bigger problem is that assistance off mode is third person and you cannot control the camera angle...UGH.

How about enemy physics and AI? In my opinion this was one of the worst aspects of the game. All enemy aircraft were alike to me, except as the difficulty increased they had more flares, more missiles and were better at slipping to stay behind you. Also, every enemy plane on the map basically always targets you or a critical mission objective. What this means for gameplay is endless circles stopping just long enough to lock a missile. But during that lock five enemies will lock you and fire their missiles. So back to endless circles. It's actually faster to use your cannons than to use missiles. The thing that bugged me most was that the expert AI was so good at slipping that they could back-flip or slip into a stall and fly backwards while shooting you....BACKWARDS! Of course it's nearly impossible to get a screenshot of this. I was close to getting a screenshot in assistance off mode, but I couldn't control the camera's view.

Just when you're tired of the cockpit you get to fly some new mission types that don't typically show up in a flying game. One such mission type is the UAV. Unmanned aerial vehicles are a recent addition to the military and play a very real role in today's warfare. I thought these missions were perfectly fitting for a flying game in the modern military.

In the UAV missions you are always floating high above some city trying to gather intel by checking buildings and vehicles and listening to conversations. This could be a really cool mode, but I think the experience was cheapened in several ways. First, any thinking or skill was eliminated by pointing to every objective with huge yellow arrows. Also, the vehicles of interest were always highlighted in bright white. You couldn't lose sight of a vehicle if you tried. But keeping your cross-hairs on an objective is a completely different issue. The simulated bobble of the aircraft made this a tedious task. I seriously doubt that the UAV sensors have such poor gyroscopic balances. In essence, all the difficulty was in trying to keep the cursor exactly on the objective...BORING.

How could this be made better? Make the mission more realistic. Have a briefing or an intel file that tells about the objective, but make us do the work of finding and tracking! Don't highlight the car I'm supposed to be tracking. Isn't that what's actually hard about UAV missions? Stuff like determining friend from foe and whether some guy is holding a rocket launcher or a video camera?

In addition to the UAV missions there is one AC-130 mission while you rescue Colonel Crenshaw. You get to provide support from the gunship for the rescue transport. This was a little more realistic than the UAV since you had to actually aim your guns and avoid friendly fire. But it still suffered from some of the downfalls as the UAV missions. All the bad-guys were clearly marked, even the guys shooting from inside the buildings. On the upside, this mission was probably much more fun than reality. I doubt that our gunships ever get to take out a hundred jeeps, tanks, foot soldiers, and armed boats all in a few minutes. I think the fun here was definitely more important than the realism. I would have liked at least one more mission, but more would be welcomed if it involved something other than blasting single file lines of cars.

HAWX 2 included a few other minor features that improved the experience. there were two missions that included an in-flight refueling. I'm sure this would be near impossible in a real flight simulator, but it was quite manageable in the arcade-style. It allowed the armchair pilots to get a somewhat more realistic experience. But the flight controls during refueling is another example where realism was sacrificed for usability. These between combat scenes play in segments. When prompted you hit a key to enter the segment. Once you complete the segment you move to the next segment. For refueling each segment zooms your view closer to the plane and reduces the sensitivity of your flight controls. It is easier to dock this way, but not at all real. For example, you need to hold your throttle at full during the entire docking sequence, but the throttle does not respond like normal.

Finally we come to take-offs and landings. Sadly, they are segmented like refueling. Of course this is good for anybody who has a hard time landing. When you approach an air strip you are prompted to press 'R' to enter the approach segment. As you do this the speed indicator on your HUD changes to show you the optimal approach speed and prompts you to slow down. When you reach the speed you are prompted to press 'Space' to enter the glide slope segment. In this segment you see a glide-slope indicator on your HUD which shows green when you are pitched and yawed correctly.To land all you need to do is hit the runway while in the green.

Since this can still be difficult for non-flyers there is an option for assisted landing. An assisted landing displays large green triangles through which you must guide the plane. The triangles turn rise and drop to put you on the optimum approach. If you get your attitude and elevation correct on your approach the rest is much easier.

There are a fair amount of weapons used in the game, which is nice, but nothing ever tells you how to use them correctly. The intuitive ones don't need much explanation because you lock and fire. Others you may want to read the instructions. Sometimes the most useful and most frustrating ones are the segmented weapons. For these you need to fly your aircraft level and enter the weapons mode (usually with 'V' or 'B' then 'Space'). In the weapons mode you have an overhead view where you can target and fire while your airplane flies on autopilot. This is great because you can focus on blowing stuff up without worrying about flying. It is frustrating because you cannot maneuver your plane or even slow down without switching out of the mode. So if you didn't give yourself enough space for a bombing run you're gonna have to do it over again.

HAWX 2 allows input from keyboard, mouse and joystick. I've never been a fan of mouse flying, but it was workable. Due to the limited flight physics of the game it was perfectly playable using only the keyboard. By default the throttle is self stabilizing at a moderate cruise speed. You can hold a key to go faster or hold a key to go slower. There's also not a hundred inputs like in other flight games. Since the flight modes are segmented the same keys are frequently reused. So instead of having a unique key for night vision, special weapons, landing gear, etc.the same key serves different functions in each mode, and you're prompted to press the key when you need it.

The default layout often requires you to move your hand to complete different functions. For this reason I preferred playing with the joystick. Since there was so much looping required to kill baddies I also found the joystick reduced the constant tension from holding keys down. All the keys can be customized, and you can set the sensitivities for your joystick/mouse. The controls are few enough that I could fly with a gamepad without needing to rely on any keyboard commands.

H.A.W.X. 2 Extras

While single player campaigns can be fun (often the selling point for a game) the extras that are included can add to the replay value of a game. So you understand my bias in this review there are two things to know about me; I own many flight simulators of the impossible variety, and I am a completionist. In other words, I like to be challenged, and I like to keep trying till I get it right (whatever it is).

By the time you finish the campaign you have accomplished several "achievements" and gained access to a handful of custom modes. You can refly the campaign missions by the book or using custom settings. You can also fly the missions in an arcade mode. It took me some time to figure out the exact differences between these various play styles, mostly because they all seemed redundant. For example, the custom mode allows you to replay the campaign missions with you pick of plane and weapons (if you have unlocked them). The arcade mode also lets you refly the campaign missions with alternative scenarios (e.g. radar guided missiles only).

Well, by this time I had only unlocked two planes. It again took me some time to figure out that I had accumulated XP points that could be spent in an upgrade tree with 5 different branches. This allowed me to unlock additional planes, weapons, passive abilities, etc. It took me some time to figure out alot of how things worked in the game. I still haven't figured out exactly what is wrong with the game, but I do know that the leveling/points/XP/upgrade system is not intuitive. Neither are the menus. Basically you need to gain experience by doing anything. You can refly the campaign, custom, arcade, etc to gain experience points. Once you have enough points you gain a level and an XP point to spend on your upgrade tree.

To gain experience faster you can complete challenges during your games. This was again very much like the acheivements in Modern Warfare, but in a plane. I really like achievements and often feel compelled to complete them all; especially the hardest ones. In HAWX 2 the challenges are suited for aerial combat and general flight. Some of them you have to purposely try to obtain like recovering from a stall 10 meters above the ground or flying in assistance off mode for 30 seconds while staying under 20 meters. During the many single player modes these challenges help to break up the monotonay of enemy planes circling incessantly.

When you unlock a plane it comes with some bare essentials. By spending time and gaining experience in a plane you can unlock additional abilities, weapons, skins, armor and speed. Of course the most desired planes aren't unlocked until the end of the technology tree, so by the time you get there you might have already mastered a few others.

Experience can also gained during multiplayer combat; indeed some of the challenges can only be completed through multiplayer matches. As with everything else, it took some poking around to try and figure out how the multiplayer works and what the different modes mean (like the difference between a gun battle and a deathmatch). There is also the option to play the campaign missions (default, custom and arcade) in co-op. Online game browser is fairly scant on information. It would be nice to see detailed explanations of the game types and the match settings for matches that other players have setup.

The PC version of HAWX 2 hasn't yet mustered a large following. The leaderboards contain the names of a few hundred pilots, the vast majority of which appear to have only flown in one or two online games. There seems to be maybe a hundred regularly active players. During the evenings in the U.S. I occasionally see an online match, but most often there aren't any games.

The last extra is the survival mode. Survival pits you against waves of aggressively harder enemies where your sole objective is to survive. If you thoroughly enjoyed the dogfighting from the campaign then this will give you much more to enjoy. Early enemies are easy to pick off by missile or cannon, but the later enemies have an uncanny ability to get and stay on your tail, unlimited flares and unlimited missiles. If you need a little help just get a friend and play survival mode in co-op.

I like to unlock abilities and enjoyed the variety of planes available. Without the extras included with the game I don't think it would be worth buying. I didn't get to spend much time in the multiplayer due to the small community, but from what I saw things seemed just as redundant as the single player modes. While there were a couple new game types there wasn't anything new or novel. Multiplayer could be improved by having some really novel game modes, or at least more game modes. I think something as routine as capture the flag could be made fun when flying mach one through some tight canyons! However, unless Ubisoft can garner a larger community of flyers then no amount of novel gameplay can keep things alive.

DirectX Comparison Tessellation

Testing Methodology

HAWX 2 plays using either DirectX 9 or DirectX 11. By default the game launches in DirectX 9. To play using DirectX 11 you must launch the game using a different executable in the install directory "HAWX2_DX11.exe". HAWX 2 includes a benchmark routine that can be launched from inside the game or as a stand-alone application (also requiring a special shortcut). This is a decent benchmarking tool if you want to evaluate system improvements or to tune your graphics settings to an enjoyable level. But outside of this there are some flaws that hinder its ability to compare across systems.

First, the HAWX 2 benchmark simply isn't rigorous enough to put a demand on newer video cards. At a 2560x1600 resolution, 8x AA, 16x AF, and tessellation "on" a GTX480 nets 78 FPS while the HD5870 nets 41FPS. In other words, even the most strenuous game settings can easily be rendered by newer video cards. Likewise even mobile GPU's can get decent frame-rates at commonly used graphics settings (see ASRock HTPC).

The second issue is the imbalance between NVIDIA and ATI cards. Most of the benchmarks I've seen between the HD5870 and GTX480 were much closer than the near 50% gap listed above. The worst I had seen on any previous benchmark put the HD5870 falling 30% short of the GTC 480. But you probably could have expected this discrepancy in both the game and the benchmark since the NVIDIA logo is plastered all over the game and ATI is not to be seen.

From the perspective of a game developer who needs to cut costs and meet arbitrary release deadlines it probably makes sense to rely more heavily on the company that consistently leads the GPU market in performance. But for a system tester trying to give a balanced view of different hardware components a biased testing tool just can't be used.

In the end the game was tested with different cards and different graphics settings to evaluate the impact on the gaming experience. Screenshots from each setting were taken and displayed for you to make up your own mind on the difference offered.

Test System

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P
• Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE CPU HDZ965FBGIBOX
• System Memory: OCZ Gold 4GB 800MHz DDR2
• Disk Drive: SAMSUNG HD251HJ (232 GB)
• PSU: Antec EA500 EarthWatts 500W PSU
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional
• Video Cards:
  
  • PowerColor Go! Green Radeon HD5670
  • Palit GeForce GTX 260 Sonic 216SP

Tessellation Results

The first test was made using an HD5670 and full graphics settings. One screenshot was taken with tessellation on and another taken with tessellation turned off. The DX11 benchmark was also run at both settings to see the impact on frame-rate. With tessellation on the HD5670 drew 55 FPS max and 30 FPS average. With tessellation off it drew 91 FPS max and 51 FPS average. The images are displayed below.

I left the images unlabeled on purpose. Without reading ahead can you tell which picture is which?HAWX 2 was written to take advantage of DX11 tessellation.Terrain is formed by a rough height map spliced together with a bi-cubic filtering then jittered using fractal noise. After all this the tessellation is applied to draw 1.5 million triangles per frame, all on the GPU. The result with or without tessellation is quite impressive. This is definitely the best terrain I've seen in a flight game. I honestly find it difficult to see much difference between the tessellated scene and the non-tessellated scene.

Now for the answer; the image on bottom is the tessellated landscape. The first thing I notice is the difference in lighting. The non-tessellated image looks like the landscape is dark and blurry, like the features are smeared together. The tessellated landscape has better distinctions between small peaks, valleys, cracks and such. It makes things look more alive. But I hardly notice any of this while I'm looping endless circles. Next we'll show some larger images in which the other graphics settings are also varied.

DirectX Comparison TakeOff

The following screenshots were taken from the in-game benchmark to compare the differences between DirectX 9 and DirectX 11. The first image was taken using DirectX 9 at minimum video settings. The second image was taken with DirectX 9and 16x CSAA. Third and final image was taken using DirectX 11 and 32x CSAA.

With minimum settings and DX 9 the terrain is impressive but shadows blend together and features are blurred.

With DX 9 and 16x CSAA things seem lighter.

At 32x CSAA and DX11 the picture seems more crisp, like a haze has been lifted. Still, these observations are based on experience from playing and seeing a much wider variety of terrain. From just a few still images it can be difficult indeed to pinpoint any differences.

When it comes to the plane models there doesn't seem to be any differences between settings. This is probably because the models are not amenable to advanced graphics processing. Next we'll compare three different images at the same settings to see the differences in graphics settings.

DirectX Comparison In-Flight

The following screenshots were taken from the in-game benchmark to compare the differences between DirectX 9 and DirectX 11. The first image was taken using DirectX 9 at minimum video settings. The second image was taken with DirectX 9and 16x CSAA. Third and final image was taken using DirectX 11 and 32x CSAA.

With minimum settings and DX 9 the terrain is impressive but shadows blend together and features are blurred.

With DX 9 and 16x CSAA this image doesn't look as nice to me as the minimum image. The features don't seem sharper though they seem a bit lighter. It's quite possible that the difference in landscape resolution is due to subtle differences in where the screenshot was taken. The second image seems closer to the mountain and maybe this can account for the difference. If that's the case then your distance from the mountain may make a larger difference than the graphical settings.

Finally, at 32x CSAA and DX11 the picture again seems crisper than the second image. The ridges in the mountain seem to pop out more. I would say this is this best image of the set, but not by any drastic means. While the scene has been improved I don't know that it is worth the loss of frames. If I were using a midrange card I would definitely opt for more frames over marginally better terrain.

Game Play Final Thoughts

There seemed to be a lot of little things that kept a good game from being a great game. That's a hard hit during a time when gamers are getting an excess of great games. It's like releasing an average movie during the holiday season. It just doesn't seem as good because the holiday movies are usually awesome. The little things covered the entire map. The airplane in the benchmark didn't have moving surfaces, the user interface was not intuitive, there was a larger learning curve to use the experience points then there was to learn how to fly.

There was one major thing that kept the game from being great; repetitiveness. Most of the battles felt the same. All the enemies flew the same. Most of the features and extras were rehashes of the same missions. The planes all felt the same. It was just too much of the same thing over and over.

There was some good stuff too. The terrain was beautiful and based on satellite imaging. Gaining experience allowed you to choose your unlocks and you could unlock things that actually help you win more battles. You can play any of the game modes with a friend.

The debate between realism and fun doesn't have a solid answer. The game was very playable and accessible for a larger audience. This was definitely more important than staunch realism. But some of the game modes suffered badly by being reduced to brainless button pushing.

HAWX 2 Video Game Conclusion

HAWX 2 is definitely the best looking flight game I've played in a while. It gets high marks for beautiful terrain based on satellite imaging. There was nothing striking about the plane models, but they looked good. The color schemes, music and presentation of the campaign missions were well selected and set the mood well, but they all seemed to blur together, especially since they were just like the campaign from Modern Warfare 2. The explosions were well-done, maybe a little over-the-top, but I think it makes for good fun.

The plot was as generic as any cold war novel and quickly forgotten. Espionage, traitors, stolen nuclear warhead, insurgent groups, it was moderately entertaining, but not a movie I'd watch again. You at least get to participate from multiple perspectives and your not always confined to dogfighting. The UAV and AC-130 missions were a nice touch of flavor. Unfortunately all the UAV missions were exactly the same. You spent more time trying to keep the cursor steady than actually paying attention to the plot. It was dumbed down way too much.

When it came to straight-up dogfighting there was much lacking. In advanced levels it too often boiled down to ten enemy planes endlessly circling you while you dodge non-stop missiles. I often caught the enemy flying backwards while firing off a missile. About the only way to get a lock was to slip your curves until you stall. Of course the second this happens you've got 5 missiles coming at you. Between the dogfights you got short snippets where you could use other weapons which were a blast. But those snippets were typically timed rounds before the next dog-fight sequence.

There are plenty of extra things to do included with HAWX 2. But nearly all of them are variants on the single player missions. The multiplayer games had a few additional game types, but it was hard to find others online since the HAWX community is small. In order to fly all the planes, players have to spend time earning experience and unlocking abilities, weapons and planes. This provides a good amount of replay value since you can play the same boring missions while focusing on a challenge or task.

Overall the game had enough enjoyable parts to recommend to people that enjoy flying games. The HAWX series is good enough that it could still be saved. I know this game is good enough that when it hits the bargain bins there just might be a community to play with. Ubisoft should really consider dropping the price on the game and take less revenue in order to build that community and focus on a better sequel or a really awesome patch. Presently HAWX 2 is availble as a PC download for $33.49 or $54.99 for the Deluxe edition.

Pros:

+ Good Terrain
+ Playable on most video cards
+ Controls easy to learn, anybody can fly
+ Variety of game types
+ Co-op Campaign
+ Experience unlocks weapons and planes

Cons:

- Dogfights very repetitive
- Small multiplayer community
- Bland campaign
- Missions repetitive

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