Hawken

[mmettin]

HAWKEN is a free-to-play, online, multiplayer, mech-based first-person shooter that puts you in the pilot seat of a giant robotic war machine.

Customize and upgrade your mechs the way you want, then join your friends on the battlefield to rain destruction across HAWKEN's beautiful and immersive alien landscapes. Best of all, HAWKEN is FREE!
"Mech Warrior meets Counter Strike ... what more could you ask for?"

A few of us "regulars" are playing this during the open beta. (Brandito, O-Dog, Zman, Frogmeat & Myself)

http://www.playhawken.com/

Seems to me to be as fast paced as UT2004...But it has some customizations for "your" mech; speed,damage,armor, etc.

It's a fun time if you get on a side that believes in teamwork, otherwise prepare to be dominated.

[Activate: AMD]

I'm enjoying it. I think the level design is interesting because some of them are very vertically oriented, while others are more traditional. Visually they're kind of same-y which gets a little boring, but its not a major drawback to me. It does have that kind of UT2k4 feel, with robots and customizations.

I do have some issues with it, of course. The amount of damage it takes to destroy a mech makes full health 2v1 confrontations impossible to win unless you're incredibly awesome and they other 2 people are total noobies. 1v1 contests require skill and can be entertaining, but the fact remains that you just can't win 2 on 1's, even if you're pretty good. Thats a big turnoff in random matchmade TDM because you NEED teamwork just to survive. Thats great, but as Brandito said last night "you can make a smart game, but you can't make smart people play it". Idiots will inevitably abound, and considering its F2P, I think you'll always have a fairly high proportion of noobs who are just giving the free game a shot. There also really needs to be a party or matchmaking lobby system for friends to play together. Its currently a BIG omission

My other biggest gripe is that its a solid game in the assinine F2P format. Being a F2P game, the "free" way to unlock stuff is to play and earn blue money. An average 15-minute TDM round nets about 100-150. A new mech costs over 6k. Thats a lot of rounds.. about 10-15 hours before you can even unlock a non-standard mech without buying it. This is why I hate F2P games, you have to grind grind grind to unlock anything unless you want to pay for it.. and then if you DO pay for it, it winds up costing a TON more to get all the content than it would to just buy a brand new AAA release for $60 that contains all available content from the beginning (DLC notwithstanding). Not only that, but a lot of these F2P games are released in very rough beta forms that belie how damn expensive they are to actually pay for. Hawkin is so far away from the worst offender out there, and the "beta" feels reasonably solid. The problem is, I like messing around with this game so far, and it irks me that I'll never have the time to grind to experience all the different mechs, and I won't spend the exorbitant money to get them all. What if I spend my 15 hours of game time and get a new mech and decide it sucks? I'm SOL. People around here have railed against the unlock model in games like BF3, but the truth is that its vastly preferrable to the F2P model, and its what I would prefer for this game.

I dunno, in terms of total text, I said a lot more negative stuff than positive, but thats not really my overall impression of the game so far. I'll keep playing it for a little while.

[mmettin]

Brandito, O-Dog & Myself tried 2 other game modes last night.

Missile Assault - Kind of a "king of the hill" game mode (capture points)

Siege - Gather energy to "launch" your battleship at the enemies base.
Ship gets destroyed, repeat the above process.


Both modes are significantly more points than TDM.

I enjoyed the Siege mode more than Missile Assault

[Activate: AMD]

Brandito, O-Dog & Myself tried 2 other game modes last night.

Missile Assault - Kind of a "king of the hill" game mode (capture points)

Siege - Gather energy to "launch" your battleship at the enemies base.
Ship gets destroyed, repeat the above process.


Both modes are significantly more points than TDM.

I enjoyed the Siege mode more than Missile Assault

yea, I think the Siege mode has a lot of promise. Only 2 maps to play it on, one of which is noticeably better than the other IMO (desert map). We had the good fortune of playing together and/or with teams that understood the game mode. I think it works, but with a few more maps it could be even better.

Agreed as well that Siege mode is more enjoyable than missile assault, the whole KOTH thing requires more conscious coordination on the part of the team to succeed at due to the fact that there are 3 control points. I think the Siege mode kind of forces people who don't always consciously play with the team to take part in the team activity, and its much more successful than Missile Assault.

[Lenny]

I played my first round of TDM last night. It was fun. You certainly do learn really fast that teamwork is essential.

[Lenny]

My other biggest gripe is that its a solid game in the assinine F2P format. Being a F2P game, the "free" way to unlock stuff is to play and earn blue money. An average 15-minute TDM round nets about 100-150. A new mech costs over 6k. Thats a lot of rounds.. about 10-15 hours before you can even unlock a non-standard mech without buying it. This is why I hate F2P games, you have to grind grind grind to unlock anything unless you want to pay for it.. and then if you DO pay for it, it winds up costing a TON more to get all the content than it would to just buy a brand new AAA release for $60 that contains all available content from the beginning (DLC notwithstanding). Not only that, but a lot of these F2P games are released in very rough beta forms that belie how damn expensive they are to actually pay for. Hawkin is so far away from the worst offender out there, and the "beta" feels reasonably solid. The problem is, I like messing around with this game so far, and it irks me that I'll never have the time to grind to experience all the different mechs, and I won't spend the exorbitant money to get them all. What if I spend my 15 hours of game time and get a new mech and decide it sucks? I'm SOL. People around here have railed against the unlock model in games like BF3, but the truth is that its vastly preferrable to the F2P model, and its what I would prefer for this game.

I agree. After playing a couple hours tonight I now have a feel for how long it takes to earn the 'blue money' (does it have a real name?). I need just a bit more to afford a new mech but there are some interesting upgrades I wouldn't mind trying for the Recruit mech. The upgrades cost way too much. I think most were 1900 or 3800 which would take a fairly long time to earn. You need to be extremely careful about how you spend your money but even then you might not be happy with your purchase and you're SOL as you pointed out.

I think as time goes on the hard core players who are putting tons of time into the game are just going to outclass the casual players (like me) to the point where I won't even want to play. The game is fairly fun so I guess I'll enjoy it with you guys while I can and then move on.

[frogmeat69]

Sounds like too much work for too little reward.

[3dfxrain]

I've played a wittle of it. Not bad. The graphics could be more refined than previously.

[Lenny]

Also, as has been mentioned before teamwork is vital since you can't realistically win a 2-on-1 battle. And when I say teamwork I mean having your team stick together really close like a pack of dogs. In my last round last night the opposing team destroyed us and that was partly because there was 3 or 4 of them practically holding hands as they moved around the map. Every engagement was an exercise in futility for me because it was 3-1 or 4-1 and even though my teammates were nearby they were still a several seconds away and by then it was too late. My initial impression is that if your team doesn't stick really close together you are going to struggle, at least in TDM. The other game modes like Siege seem to be a little forgiving in that regard as having different objectives to accomplish you can't realistically all travel around together.

The other annoying thing I encountered were people using light mechs playing the game like UT constantly using left/right dash in engagements basically circle strafing around me. Yeah they were good at it and they outclassed me but that sort of combat just didn't feel right for me in a game in which you are piloting huge mechs.

[Keven]

Yeah, this game is being talked about everywhere. I'll have to try it (along with Chivalry, still need to try that). The F2P stuff sounds like a major bummer, though.

[Activate: AMD]

The reaper and sharpshooter mechs are available to test drive for the next ~2 weeks. Kind of nice that they let you mess around with some of the unlockable mechs