Get Your Flight Suits Ready For Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2

For the past couple of months I’ve tried to become an elite jetfighter pilot: dogfighting, bombing targets from amidst the clouds, shadowing stealthy enemies – I’ve done it all. Not in real life though, I’m actually Sorin Muresan, a Community Developer working at Ubisoft Romania. In doing my job I get to rub elbows with the devs and talk with the fans, write news, capture screenshots and videos, organize events and, hardest of all, I have to play a lot of games. ;) The one I’ve been working on and enjoying lately is H.A.W.X. 2, an aerial combat game that put me through a rollercoaster ride with fireworks going off all around.
From the first cinematic, I got a glimpse of the Tom Clancy storyline: I was in the middle of a world conspiracy with terrorists threatening to use stolen nukes against whoever doesn’t meet their demands. So I got comfortable in my chair and ready to dispense some justice and peace with my trigger finger.

[viddler id=ecd9109b w=545 h=327 playertype=simple]

The first mission started me off easy, with a take-off from an airbase to inspect the area around. Piece of cake! Full throttle, pitch up and the sky was the limit! But I would later find out that landing is not a piece of said cake, especially when attempting it at night on an aircraft carrier, even with the onboard computer helping me a little. And it seared a mental note into my brain: always make sure to lower the landing gear before attempting to touch down. I still have no idea how I simply forgot to do this. Twice.

I guess I’ll just blame it on not having had any other aerial combat game to play for quite a while. Nevertheless, there I was, back in the cockpit, refreshing my aircraft piloting skills. While I recognized a lot of the planes from the first HAWX, the way they behaved felt different. With a much more life-like physics engine, I had to scrap some of my old tactics, like flying inverted to have a better view of the ground targets. When I tried this in H.A.W.X. 2, the plane would fall towards the ground and I had to constantly correct the flight path.

But I quickly adapted and evolved so I was flying better and better, ever so close to the edge of control. This was a must during dogfights against some pretty cunning and agile enemies. They evaded my missiles, would often outmaneuver me and seemed to find those sweet spots where I couldn’t get a lock on with the heat-seeking missiles and I had to chisel away at their planes with the cannon.

Even with a more cunning AI, I still got many opportunities to use all of the missiles, rockets and bombs in my arsenal throughout the scenarios. In some missions I got radar guided missiles with which I safely took out enemies from afar. While in other missions, I quickly cleared out entire tank squads with some cluster bombs. And I had some FPS-like fun with the stand-off missiles that I could guide right up to the impact point through their onboard cameras.

As a change of pace, the game also had me fly silent Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) in covert surveillance missions. I marked the ground targets and later on I got to take them out from high in the sky. Those insurgents never saw my precision bombs coming. And in other missions, when the allied ground troops were in trouble, I was dispatched to provide close air support in the AC-130 gunships from which I was operating some very powerful cannons and clearing paths for the advancing squads.

And the more I played, the more I got in return. You’ll know what I mean if you join me in a Team Battle multiplayer match and see how I customized my plane’s weapon loadout through the new Plane Mastery system. The demo’s out already for the PS3, so get it now and practice a little! The game will be cleared for launch in 2 weeks and I’ll be waiting for you in the game lobby.