[Gamers' Day 2007] Flyin' High
Warhawk is concentrated awesome, and we got to play around with a new build. Wanna know how it went?
Published: May 17, 2007
Though we've only been able to play a mere 45 freakin' minutes of an early build of Warhawk during the press-only Warhawk Wednesdays, we've already been bitten. Luckily, we finally got to spend almost 10 whole minutes with the game, but were promised that we might just have us a little surprise come next week in the form of something you non-press folks can get in on too. The build we played at the event was apparently close to the same that we'll be getting in a little bit as an update (the build that we've been using for Warhawk Wednesdays was made in February and is but a single map), and it was nice and solid.
The first thing we noticed as we sneakily backed out of the game that was currently running was that the community features were in place now -- or at least were a little father along than our in-house build. Though we could customize our character and Warhawk craft with decals before, here it looked like we could finally check out our stats, though we couldn't see anything yet, nor buddy list implementation if it was in. With a giddly little giggle, we jumped back into the game and tried things out.
The name of the game here was Team Deathmatch, and it plays just as the previous builds have, though this time around you could actually hop into the opposing faction's flight vehicle, which is a little more stealth bomber-like than the Warhawks. We mounted a few turrets, noting that hard locks for the guided missiles still pulled in from fairly far away and watches with a menacing grin as they sought out someone back in the QA offices to kiss them with a little double dose of fire power.
In addition to re-balancing everything, Incognito says the game has been re-done visually as well, with updated textures and animations. We haven't played enough of the previous game sadly to grasp the nuances of the changes, but we're still impressed with the slight nudge everything has gotten. Though the controls are still basically the same, we noticed that the option to cut the engines while in a Warhawk to go into a couple-second freefall tumble has been taken out (apparently it could be abused a little too much), helpful little tutorial prompts the first couple times you pick up a weapon or get near a capture point have also be added to explain things a little more.
Other than some small tweaks and new maps, though, it seems the game is largely the same as we've had little time with, which is not a bad thing by any stretch. We'll (hopefully) be able to spill our guts a little more in regards to what hits next week with a proper update, but don't be upset if Sony ninjas silence us... forever.
The first thing we noticed as we sneakily backed out of the game that was currently running was that the community features were in place now -- or at least were a little father along than our in-house build. Though we could customize our character and Warhawk craft with decals before, here it looked like we could finally check out our stats, though we couldn't see anything yet, nor buddy list implementation if it was in. With a giddly little giggle, we jumped back into the game and tried things out.
The name of the game here was Team Deathmatch, and it plays just as the previous builds have, though this time around you could actually hop into the opposing faction's flight vehicle, which is a little more stealth bomber-like than the Warhawks. We mounted a few turrets, noting that hard locks for the guided missiles still pulled in from fairly far away and watches with a menacing grin as they sought out someone back in the QA offices to kiss them with a little double dose of fire power.
In addition to re-balancing everything, Incognito says the game has been re-done visually as well, with updated textures and animations. We haven't played enough of the previous game sadly to grasp the nuances of the changes, but we're still impressed with the slight nudge everything has gotten. Though the controls are still basically the same, we noticed that the option to cut the engines while in a Warhawk to go into a couple-second freefall tumble has been taken out (apparently it could be abused a little too much), helpful little tutorial prompts the first couple times you pick up a weapon or get near a capture point have also be added to explain things a little more.
Other than some small tweaks and new maps, though, it seems the game is largely the same as we've had little time with, which is not a bad thing by any stretch. We'll (hopefully) be able to spill our guts a little more in regards to what hits next week with a proper update, but don't be upset if Sony ninjas silence us... forever.