How much do we love Warhawk here at TheSixthAxis? How about rating its spiritual sequel, LightBox Entertainment’s Starhawk, as our seventh most anticipated game of 2011 without even seeing a single screenshot of the game? Yep – that’s love for you.
Then again, isn’t that what anticipation is all about? Is it not natural, nay expected, that the less we know about a game the more we might anticipate it? And let’s face it, most people know diddley squat about Starhawk. We don’t even know if it’s called Starhawk!
We first heard the name back in April of 2009 when Superannotation spotted the registration of the title on behalf of SCEA. Sony, Hawk, we put two and two together and came up with awesome. Since then we’ve (mostly – see below) had to be content with frantically watching producer Dylan Jobe’s Twitter feed like a crack-smoking sniper. He’s been elusive at best, mentioning the odd time he’s travelled up to Sony to demo the latest build of their game (whatever it is) when he’s not giving some meagre insight into the studio’s proactively negative internal play-tests referred to as “Hate Sessions”; crucial review exercises that focuses on all that is not right with the game.
The source of our raw eagerness for Starhawk is, naturally, the hours we’ve collectively invested in Warhawk. A bold, some might say crazy, venture for Sony when the PS3 launched back in 2006, risk-takers that they are, Sony threw their support behind a game with no offline component whatsoever. They’d do it again with other titles such as Zipper’s MAG (and the upcoming MMOs) but, back then, especially considering the PS3 catalogue was (in)famously quite barren at the time, an online only multi-tiered shooter was deemed commercial suicide.
The naysayers turned out to be wrong, however, with Warhawk attracting a loyal – almost militant – following of players who could see past its sheer and intimidating vertical learning curve to appreciate what is one of the most nuanced and tactical games ever to grace a console. That said, Warhawk was not for the fainthearted. Warhawk was for dedicated souls with the patience of immortal saints. Some people really, really didn’t like it. After all, what newcomer likes getting owned for hours on end as they struggle to learn the controls? As a game it was a punishing, merciless, but ultimately finely tuned experience. Resist the urge to brain the dog with your controller, and when everything clicked in Warhawk it was one of the most enlightening and monumental moments in gaming you could have. Then you’d get owned for another ten hours straight.
Lucky for us, we know a few things about Starhawk (if that’s what it’s called) that are not public knowledge at the moment. Are we under an NDA? No. Did we assure our source that we wouldn’t talk about it until Sony were ready to unveil more about the title? Yes. Are we men of our word? Without falter. So, what can we say about Starhawk to get you, TSA’s readers, more excited about the game without breaking our promise? Well, there’s something about the game that immediately differentiates it from Warhawk, and we’re not referring to its location. Other than that, drumming up some excitement is actually easy: it’s number seven out of one hundred for a reason.
Trust us. It’s number seven for a reason.
Author’s note: Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas to everyone. This article wasn’t written on Christmas Day but we hope it finds you well, in good company and with some new games to play. I’m probably comatose right now, perhaps even collapsed into a Christmas tree covered in cake. Literally. Check back in tomorrow for #6.
tonycawley
I think you’re all misunderstanding here, i don’t think the 7 is central to what he’s saying, he means that 7 is a high position and there’s a good reason it sits to HIGH on the list. Think height.
Dan Lee
Exactamundo good sir.
hol
Hmm, high? height? above atmosphere perhaps? or even Mechs? whatever, really enjoyed warhark, still do on the odd occasion so looking forward to the reveal. ;)
ARUMIR
They just need to rip off Gundam Wing somehow.
Rob92
Ahaha!
Ive got it. We play as real life hawks, bare with me, in SPACE!
Um. Ok. I dont like this stuff where we dont know whats going on but you clearly do.
Come on TSA ;)
cheekyMcB
That is exactly what I was thinking….spooky…
Jay0Jay
7 Different Space crafts?
Jay0Jay
Oh, only just read the height thing :/ Ermmm I’d say HUGE planet mapss!
aerobes
Looking forward to this, mostly because it’s shrouded in mystery as much as anything else, but also because i really like Warhawk despite being awful at it, which, in my own gaming experience, means a lot.
AlexRoz
BUNGIE?!?
Because they love 7 as well.
teflon
They do indeed, 7 and 3 have been integral numbers to almost all of their games since Marathon…
tolkienfan
Seven of Nine?
Didn’t Jobe mention he was working on pilot AI??
AI wingmen would be AWESOME!
ebron
I love you TSA! you guys arent afraid to show love to this game. God bless you.
gordon_strange
This game means so much to me. First proper experience of online gaming. First experience of clans. Made loads of friends through the game. After three years I’m still plating just as much as I did at day one. Sure other games have come and gone, but due to it’s god damn steep ranking up system, there’s reason to play everytime I switch on the ps3. When it was first released it was full of bugs and glitches, stat padders etc ( renamed the invisible tank glitch?) On a related note: I need 119 air to air kills and I FINALLY reach the heady heights of general! No stat padding or cheating. Just three years of hard graft.
cc_star
Wow… That’s fantastic, hope you get them before Warhawk2/Starhawk is out.
I’m nowhere near despite sinking well over 500hrs in… I realised a few months ago that playing CTF on the full 32 player official servers ( as I’ve practically exclusively done for past 2 years) is no where near the point scoring opportunities of smaller servers and other game modes
gordon_strange
Haha. Yeah. It took me a while to realise that bigger games = less points!
That’s also something else about the game I love. If your a fan of massive battles, then you can get that, if you prefer,like me, smaller, more intense battles then you can do that as well. The diversity- don’t want to fly? Grab a tank and blast the bejesus out of everything in your path! Don’t like a slow vehicle? Grab a jeep ad try to outrun the incoming hawk!
If you ever feel the need to join in a smaller unofficial server then feel free to join mine mate. I can only host 8 so they get full pretty quick!