Take command

Set in the same imagined world as Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter* and just about every other Tom Clancy game is Tom Clancy’s HAWX*. The scenario for this refreshingly frantic aerial combat game is this: nation states can’t afford to maintain ever-more-expensive military infrastructures, so they come to rely on Private Military Corporations (PMCs). In HAWX, one of these PMCs attacks the USA, which calls upon its most experienced and unconventional fighter pilots (the High Altitude Warfare Experimental – or HAWX – squadron) to defend them.

So what you’ve got here is a state-of-the-art flight combat game that quite realistically models the flight handling characteristics of some of the world’s most advanced combat aircraft without really being a flight simulator. And if you think aerial combat games are difficult, think again. HAWX comes with Assistance Mode. Players can switch this on or off at will but it’s there to help novice pilots make it to top gun status in no time.

In addition there’s an Enhanced Reality System (ERS). With the ERS switched on, players get on-screen help with interception trajectory plotting, handling incoming homing missiles, anti-crash systems, damage assessment and a whole bunch of other goodies. Players can also use the ERS to issue orders to and interact with ground units that form a critical part of many scenarios.

A jump-in/jump-out multi-player option is sure to prove exciting with gamers, as experience points and other awards can be transferred back to the single player game. Victories can also unlock new weapons.

As you’d hope, you’ve got fifty aircraft to choose from. The terrain uses the most expensive and accurate Google map data civilian money can buy. Then it plants down city centre skyscrapers and finds reasons for you to fly between them at street level. Nice but where the game comes into its own visually, is when you use the ERS and your view flips out to a well-judged third-person camera angle.

HAWX is a game designed to fly on multi-core processors like the Intel® Core™ i7 and fly it does. You can almost feel the afterburners.