Admidst all of the recent Mech games, Hawken rises to conquer all.
The overall aesthetics of Hawken feel extremely polished, without the visual mess of having unneeded textures thrown in your face and smeared over the environment. The Things you do see however, are necessary and integral parts of bringing the war-torn futuristic battlefields to life. The attention to detail is astounding. Even better, thanks to the Unreal engine 3 Hawken can be run on computers that may not be on par with the world’s greatest gaming-oriented computers. An array of settings and preferences at the player’s disposal allow a maxed out graphics powerhouse, or a basic notebook computer to run the game. The only real problem I found personally was the amount of cockpit that is seen onscreen. For some it may play into the simulation aspect, but typically it’s nice to have your field of view take up the entire screen.
The games audio is different than many similar games I’ve heard in the past while. Not because it was new or innovative, but because it’s what I’ve always expected in a Mech game but never gotten; your machine guns pack a driven punch far more satisfying than the flimsy almost cartoon-like stuff you hear in other Mech games. Explosions and missile impacts, with the volume up loud enough, can actually frighten you, hammering the realistic feeling of war into your head. Or, as close as a simulation can get you.
Overall, Hawken is a welcome addition to the brewing pot of free to play games, however I know it is better than 80% of those titles. Adhesive was able to meld Mechs, great community, stellar graphics and engaging audio to create one of the most intense games of 2012 I’ve played.
Score: 9.5 / 10
