Indie Focus: Hawken

This week seems to be all about games featuring giant mechs and a healthy dose of multiplayer. While there is that one game that’s getting all the headlines this week, yes Titanfall, there is another game that lets players control giant machines to fight each other. That is Adhesive Games’ Hawken which recently went free to play on Steam, and it is also an early access title. I decided to give Hawken a go at the weekend and what I found is a game that has quite a lot of potential, and a solid multiplayer experience to boot.

When you first start Hawken, you create an account and are then taken to a tutorial mode where you learn the basics of movement, dodging, firing your weapons and using the thrusters to cover short distances quickly and hovering up towards different vantage points. It’s not a very long tutorial and it introduces the easy-to-grasp controls well.

The standard set up is WASD for movement, mouse to change direction, left click to fire primary, right click to fire secondary, space to hover and shift +W to thrust forward. You also learn about your fuel gauge which is used to power the thrusters, and does replenish. Mechs also have special abilities like instant cool down, which allows you to use your weapons instantly after they’ve overheated.

Once the tutorial is over, you get your first Mech – the CR-T Recruit – which is the most basic mech available in the game. Armed with an assault rifle and a rocket launcher you can choose to either take part in competitive modes like Deathmatch; Team Deathmatch; Missile Assault, which is like a domination mode and Siege, where energy has to be collected to fuel a battleship which goes on to bombard the enemy base. If the battleship is destroyed then the energy has to be recollected. On the co-operative side, there’s Bot Destruction where you team up to take out wave after wave on enemies. I’ve only managed to make it to round five of 25.

Hawken

As mentioned, Hawken is a free to play game so a lot of the extras will cost you credits. From certain upgrades, cosmetic changes and the mechs themselves – there are quite a few. Unlocking these can either be done through buying Meteor Credits with real cash, or earning Hawken credits through playing the game. While the latter is obviously slower to accumulate, it does mean you’re not at a complete disadvantage. In fact, as you level up you do get access to new items to customise your mech with, including weapons and things like shields or other internal units that reduce damage taken by falling.

Gameplay wise, Hawken is very good and you really do get into it. I personally consider it some of the most fun I’ve had in multiplayer for a while. It’s full of those special moments where matches can go down to the wire as the score is neck and neck, or when you get trapped by the opposing team only to see your team-mates appear flying overhead raining down bullets and turning the tide. Visually the game looks brilliant even on the low resolution settings my laptop can handle, with sound effects well incorporated, and the music well composed.

Hawken definitely has the same feel as a AAA shooter, though it is still in a beta stage so expect some bugs to show up on occasion. As someone who doesn’t really dabble in multiplayer I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Hawken. If you’re looking for a different multiplayer game to have a go on then I recommend trying it out, which you can do by downloading the client through  Steam.

4 Comments

  1. Such a shame it is not coming to PS3/PS4 (initially it was suppose to be a PS3 exclusive I think). Liked the idea from the first footage.

  2. Should come to next gen consoles (or at least PS4 :))

  3. Not usually my bag but it’s certainly the best-looking mech game i’ve seen.

  4. I bloody love Hawken, if it weren’t for the ever-so-slightly more brilliant Killzone Mercenary I’d be glued to it. Like Aran says It’s another one of these wonderful indie games that you don’t need a mutts nuts PC to run, which is great! I find the slightly sluggish pace (ala Killzone) works really well, especially since your, and your enemies, have quite a lot of health to chip away at so small teams naturally fall into run, hide and cover tactics. It’s got that magic formula that seems so illusive for developers, and its free!

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