On paper, Warhawk may not seem all that special. The game includes only five maps, after all. Only four game types. It may sound fairly limited, actually. And if you were paying 60 bucks at retail for the game itself (rather than the game plus a Bluetooth headset), you might justifiably feel like you were missing something. But for the — admittedly pricey — $40 you’ll pay to download the game, you’re getting a better deal than you might think.

That’s because the addictive mix of on-foot, vehicle, and airborne combat makes for so much variety that those five levels and four game types feel like a much bigger game. You can specialize in airborne offense, or man a turret and defend your base. You can roll a tank into enemy territory, or sneak along a ridgeline with a sniper rifle and a good eye. Even better: You can grab a sniper rifle, hop into an aircraft, and fly yourself up to an ideal sniper spot. The fluid transitions between all playing styles are what make Warhawk work, and work quite well.

SOCOM, It Ain’t

But don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll have much time to put into complex strategies. Warhawk is all action, all the time — and forget about anything but the most rudimentary tactics, on the level of “you guys guard the base; I’m going to grab the flag.” That’s not really a criticism; after all, some of the greatest online games in history have consisted of nothing more than 1) grab gun, 2) shoot dudes, 3) die, 4) repeat. Warhawk is at least more complex than, say, Quake II.

And you’ll certainly see flashes of depth. Take Capture the Flag, for example: By default, it takes 20 seconds to reclaim your flag when an enemy has dropped it. This tends to set up four major focal points of conflict on the map: wherever your flag is, wherever your opponent’s flag is, and each of your bases. And with such a long retrieval time, it becomes essential for your team to work together. (If this doesn’t sound like fun to you, don’t worry; you can adjust the flag-return time when setting up a game, to anywhere from zero to 30 seconds.)

Or consider the relative size of controlled territory in the capture-and-hold-style Zones matches: In order to maximize your controlled territory, you need to link your zones. If the enemy breaks the link, or captures territory too close to yours, it decreases the size of your zones. This makes for protracted, see-sawing battles where communication and a willingness to work as a team become absolutely paramount.

Of course, we’re still not talking about SOCOM levels of strategy. And sure, it would be nice to have something with a little more substance, since even these CTF and Zones matches tend to devolve into infinite-respawn, arcade action that doesn’t differ too much from team deathmatch. But let’s face it: There’s not much room (or need) for strategy when the penalty for dying is almost nonexistent.

Equal and Opposite Forces
You’d think that all this madness, combined with the unusual variety of vehicles and weapons, would make for a profoundly unbalanced game. But I have to say, I’m seriously impressed by how balanced Warhawk is. Even the most basic weapons can be immensely powerful if used properly, and even the most powerful weapons have notable weaknesses that the enemy can exploit.

Let’s take an example from either end of the spectrum. When you first spawn, you’re equipped with a pistol, a knife, and two grenades. You’ll definitely want to pick up any other weapons within range, but even this piddling arsenal can do serious damage to the enemy. The pistol is positively devastating at close range, for example (even more so if you’re aiming carefully and not just relying on the generous aim-assist); the knife can instantly kill enemies if you’re able to get a clean, close-up shot; and the quick-toss grenades can get you out of a surprising number of tight spots.

At the other end of the spectrum are the binoculars — or more accurately, the exquisite damage they can bring from above when you use them to call in an airstrike. Few things are more satisfying than catching a cocky enemy out in the open with an unexpected airdrop of highly explosive ordnance. But you need to lock on to an enemy for three seconds or so to call the strike…and during that time, anyone within view can see a very clear, very obvious laser beam stretched between you and your target. This makes you every bit as much a sitting duck as the poor fellow you’re preparing to squash.

This balance extends between different classes of combat, too: Tanks, 4×4s, aircraft, ground troops, and turrets can all go toe-to-toe if the people using them know what they’re doing. A tank has the edge in power, but a 4×4 has the speed. Turrets are devastating to aircraft but vulnerable to ground attacks. Ground troops are easily mown down by 4×4s and tanks, but they’re small enough to dodge all but the most careful aircraft fire. And so on.

Even more impressive, the balance seems to remain consistent throughout all the half-dozen variations of each map, which is a testament to the careful level design. Move from a 32-player match on the entirety of the Eucadia map to a claustrophobic eight-player shootout in the central fortress of the Badlands, and you’ll find all the weapons and vehicles that would affect the balance removed — or at the very least, adjusted to reflect their new importance.

We’ll see what happens once the gaming community at large has a month or two to hunt for weaknesses and exploits, but at this point, I’m prepared to commend the developers for an impressive job of balancing this unusually diverse arsenal.

Hitting All the Bases
In fact, Warhawk is an impressive job all around. We can run down a “competent game design” checklist, if you want: Sharp graphics? Check. Smooth framerate? Oh yeah, check. Low latency? Big check: I have yet to encounter one single moment of lag. Easy-to-use online interface and solid community support? Check and check. User-friendly control? A slightly reserved check, only because the novel — and entirely optional — motion controls take an awful lot of getting used to. (True, getting used to them is arguably worth the effort if you plan to focus on flight, since it frees up the analog sticks for more precise aiming in the air. But this is counterbalanced by the fact that motion control is an all-or-nothing affair: Enable it for aircraft and it’s enabled for tanks and 4×4s as well, which is quite simply a pain.)

It’s not easy to create a multiplayer game that’s utterly accessible to first-timers and yet varied enough to have serious legs. Sure, it has its share of flaws, and enough areas for improvement to look forward to a sequel or expansion. And paying $40 for a game that lacks any single-player mode whatsoever certainly feels a little…much. It feels like half a game, but it costs more than half the retail price of a PS3 title, and it’s hard to ignore that. But you’re paying $40 for a game that should provide dozens — perhaps even hundreds — of hours of frantic, addictive, online-shooter fun. That’s more than a lot of games offer.

And what about that $60 retail version? That one’s easier: The inclusion of the middle-of-the-road Jabra Bluetooth headset makes it a reasonably priced package — if you don’t already have a headset (USB or Bluetooth) you’re happy with. Otherwise…look, understand that Warhawk is engaging, addictive, reasonably long-lasting fun. It’s just not quite $40 worth.

Originally from 1UP