First Impressions: Starhawk

So you slam down to the ground from a drop pod from outter space crushing an enemy in between space metal and dirt. You see a guy who orders a hawk for you, and then you take off with your super jet punching through the enemy rival hawks, bomb their base, steal the flag, and have a team mate pull up with a razorback jeep to escort you back to base with a point more closer to victory. That's not what actually happened to me, but that totally could if I had the skills and team in this cool game called starhawk! My first day of starhawk never fell below exciting. And no, I'm not talking about the excitement of set pieces or events. Starhawk is the good type of game that builds itself from the ground up around an organized chaos, just like section 8, halo, timesplitters, and any of the old FPS multiplayer arena games. That's what I adore about starhawk. You're thinking, adapting, and fighting in a game made for truly interactive action.

After the insane amounts of loading, installing, and waiting to get everything ready I played story first. The story mode is, much like you'd expect, a fun way to play a tutorial. I played the first 3 missions, with the first two covering basic combat from land and hawk, and the 3rd felt like a level to test what you've learned from the last 2. The story is decent, but nothing to keep my attention so far. The cut scenes are surprisingly well done for the 2D style that they went for. I was disappointed hearing about their choice at doing the low animation 2D style at first, but when I saw it for myself I was actually impressed. They animate more than most games would, and the color and detail within them are great. Best of all, there was no waiting done at all. I'm not one to talk or think much about loading times, but this games was amazing in its 0 loading screens for campaign.

The multiplayer has 3 modes of interest to me. CTF, Zones (which I have no clue about how it plays, but it's fun), and Team deathmatch. Survival is okay, but nothing special, and I still need to try deathmatch although it doesn't sound too fun fighting for a team of 1 in this game. Team deathmatch is fun, but makes building and teamwork a little more random. Zones seems to have one team swarming the other, which means if you're losing you're probably not having fun, but if you're winning it's quite amusing. CTF seems to be the central mode that gives you a good grip over everything and every type of player. Team play so far is awesome, and not nearly as frustrating as most people expect from team games. The game has a perfect sense of balance, fun vehicles, and you can learn everything fast yet mastering seems to take time.

Overall the game is good so far. I need to experiment more, improve my skills, and rank up. My complaints fall down to silly stuff, like XP taking forever, or just the idea that the game needs more of everything because of its entertainment. It's just a great game so far, and I'm looking forward to reviewing it eventually.