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SubscribeGame Title: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.
Publisher: Gameloft
Format: J2ME
Review On: Sony Ericsson w910
In 2012 all militaries are private. As a pilot your mission is to save the U.S. from terrorists.
If you have played and enjoyed the classic 1942 plane shooter, then you will definitely enjoy Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. With loads of new high tech fighter planes with different power and speed balances, the game has 9 different missions around the globe with lots of shooting.
The controls are pretty simple and straight forward. You use the standard key pad (or d-pad), to move up, down, left right and diagonally. Center 5 button is used to fire. 0 is to launch the Mega Bomb and * (star key) is used for some special missile attack. By deafult auto fire option is set to on, so you don not have to keep pressing the center key for firing.
The game also supports motion sensor gaming, if your handset has a accelerometer in built. Since I tried this game on a Sony Ericsson w910i, I got a change to play the first few levels using motion sensor completely. I do not recommend playing this game via motion sensor, since there is heavy loss of accuracy in controlling the plane. Controls using motion sensor are pretty simple. Tilt the phone left or right to move the plane in that direction. Shake the phone to release the Mega Bomb and so forth. I actually found it very difficult to play with motion sensor and was getting killed very frequently. I prefer racing games like Need for Speed which have much better motion sensor controls.
The mission are typical old school with a few new additions. Besides your old style shooting over 100's of enemies the game offers some odd slow motion gameplay later on during the missions. You need to manuevar your playing during this slow motion along the path indicated making sure you collect as much as powerups, medals and other bonus and avoid hitting the side walls.
Another thing different about H.A.W.X compared to the typical games in this Genre, is the credits system. When starting a new game you get a difficulty level to select. Easy gives you unlimited credits, normal gives you 20 credits and hard gives you only 5 credits.
Basically these credits are the number of times you can re-start your game from the saved checkpoint if you loose all your lifes. At any point of time you can have a maximum of 6 lives. If you die six times you loose a credit, and you can start playing from the same level with your previous powerups and bonuses.
If you are playing this Genre for the first time, the game give you an option to play a tutorial as well during the first mission. I have not tried the tutorial yet, so I cannot comment anything on it for the moment.
Boss fights are common. Since there are nine levels, there are nine big bosses you get to fight at the end of each level. Killing each boss takes some time, and the difficulty increases with the level.
You get to choose 4 planes in the beginning. They are:
1. MIG - 31 Foxhound (Speed:4, Power:1)
2. Rafale C (Speed:1, Power:4)
3. Eurofighter Typhoon (Speed:2, Power:3)
4. Saab 35 (Speed:2, Power:2)
5. ? (gets unlock when you finish the game. I do not want to spoil the suprise for you)
Each plane has its own pros and cons. You can try the game with each of them. This does bring in some replayability.
Screenshots:
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Conclusion:
The graphics are quite neat for the genre, however sometimes a lot is happening on the screen. During later missions you would be concentrating more on dodging enemy bullets rather than concentrating on where and whom to shoot. This kinda defies the shooting game play. The slow motion game play does not sound right over here. I would definately prefer a different kind of slow motion gaming to go with this game. For example, earn slow motion for few seconds via a power up. Then clicking a button enables this power up slo mo, helping me to shoot enemy planes in slo mo, rather than navigating a route avoiding obstacles / walls and collecting bonues in slo mo.
Graphics: 8/10
Environments are very detailed. Graphics are very good overall.
Sound: 7/10
Sound effects are pretty ok.
Gameplay: 7/10
Standard keypad gaming is recommended, avoid the motion sensor gaming. Controls are very simple and easy.
Over all Score: 7 out of 10
(screenshots are taken from Gameloft)