Warhawk

Usually I like to put a couple days between my blog posts and Alex's. But, I bought Warhawk today, and I really want to post something about it. I just want to make note that Alex wrote a blog post earlier about World of Warcraft.

Now, on to my review of Warhawk.

I don't play very many online games. I have strong social anxieties, which include online communication, to an extent. So it makes me nervous to play with other people, and I avoid voice chat like the plague.

When the release of Warhawk came closer, I was torn. On one hand, it looked like an awesome game. On the other hand, it's online only, and I don't know if I'd like it enough. I ended up giving into the hype, and earlier this morning I bought the game via the PlayStation Store.

Unfortunately, shortly after I installed it on my PS3, I found out that the servers were down for maintenance. By the time I found out, the servers were only down for another hour or so. Thus I've had plenty of time to play the game. And once I got over my initial fear, I found myself becoming addicted to the game.

Overall, I think the game is really good. The visuals are excellent. The vehicles look great, the environment looks awesome, and the actual player characters, while having a bit of a cartoony look to them, look pretty good.

There are only five maps, currently. The developers have said that downloadable content is definitely coming. Also mentioned is that some content will be free, while others will have a fee (a small fee, I'm sure). So you can bet on the number of maps increasing in the next several months.

The controls are nice. There are options for inverting Up and Down, as well as inverting Left and Right. These options are available for your Character, Ground Vehicles, Aircraft (Hover Mode), and Aircraft (Flight Mode). You can also adjust sensitivity, and turn on the Sixaxis motion controls. It's all a matter of personal preference.

The game modes include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, and Zones. The first three should be familiar to anyone who has played a multiplayer shooter before. Zones is pretty interesting. The major gaming outlets can describe it better than I. But basically you have to capture command points, and expand your control over that zone. You can link zones together for faster point gain. You gain points for each zone, and how big it is. The game ends when the point total is reached.

All in all, the game is great. The sound effects are really cool, too. The explosions and planes flying around can make you a bit jumpy. But it all sounds amazing. The rest of the game comes together so well, too.

If you have a PS3, and a broadband connection, I recommend you get this game. It's a lot of fun.