Surprise, another multiplayer heavy game! A sequel to the cult classic Warhawk, starhawk comes in this time with an emphasis on RTS-like structuring within a shooter, has a singleplayer and co-op, and most obvious of all a sci-fi western theme. Does it score high among the many shooters out there, or does it fall harder than its space pods?
Story:
I really hate starting this with the story, because its fairly obvious that this game will follow the pattern of just not caring. Warhawk was a MP only game, and starhawk keeps just as much emphasis on its online, so unless they pull for a year more on development it's pretty certain that this is going to be one of those tutorial/multiplayer with a fixed path sort of campaign. However I've gotta review it so...
You are a man named Emmett. He is half mutated into a monster known as scabs. Scabs are monsters who used to be people before raw energy known as "rift" got into their bodies. Sadly this rift hazard is the equivalence of gold during a gold rush. Our protagonist, Emmett, was with his brother during a rift harvesting accident. He was saved by cutters, his engineer/pilot buddy. His brother was beyond repair, and was left behind. Later, however many years after this has happened, your gameplay starts you out as a bounty hunter-like figure who accepts contracts usually involving the safety of miners. This starts up a series of events against the scabs, and things get personal when your brother shows up with the scabs. Nothing ever really develops in the story. Your character is just another guy seeking to finish his contract while being angry over what his brother has become. Cutter is the only interesting person, and I only say that because of his accent and his chilled out tone. The cut scenes are done through an interesting comic style, which I usually hate, but this game does a really amazing job with it. However the story just has no substance within it. You fight scabs, your brother is a scab, you fight to finish your brother. That's about it. Everything is an excuse to kill these monsters. The motives are simply never put out apart from survival, and nothing develops. We're done.
Single Player:
*long sigh* I already told you. It's part tutorial, has a lot of the multiplayer feel to it (minus the fun that comes with MP's chaos), and you get pointed around by story-ish objectives. Now it's actually fun, and boring all at once. Out of 10 levels, the first half is full of useful basics that you'll need to know unless you go blindly into multiplayer. The later half is a bit more fun, and making sure you can do everything right. There can be some boring moments, but some levels can be very entertaining to play. Especially the last one, with a surprising boss fight. The game can also be surprisingly difficult, despite how the enemies AI is just decent. The game often swarms you with enemies, gives you limited resources, and apart from pointing you in the right direction it doesn't hold your hand. The gameplay has a weird feel of being fixed, yet the question is whether or not you can handle the fix. Kind of like metroid prime, except without running in circles or back tracking for items. The enemies can fight pretty well despite their lack of good AI. Some parts will turn up frustrating, yet not too bad. In the second to last level I had ran into a death plenty of times only to find that I was building way too simple, and as soon as I did a proper wall, gun, and troop placement I was breezing by. The frustrating parts are about trial and error. If you fail and over, you are doing something wrong. Likely it has something to do with building.
I'll also count the survival mode as Singleplayer. It has you facing the enemy AI while defending the rift harvester. You get rift energy from kills, and can spend that on your defense. Your defending against about 7 waves of enemies including jet packs, super mutants, hawks, snipers, etc. Plenty of monster will go after your harvester, and depending on the survival level it can be very tough, and borderlines on insane. It becomes clear that it would be best to play split screen. Which brings me to the next section...
Multiplayer:
Yes, this is where the game shines, and it's brighter than most games out there. It destroys the traditions of most games, and just goes for match after match of destruction, teamwork, and fun. The game is set up as a normal 3rd person shooter with basic modes from a first glimpse. However it has so much more with its building system, the 32 player matches, dedicated server lists that anybody can create and customize, and some of the best balancing I've ever seen. Raiding territories in zones, speeding away with the flag in CTF, and out-fragging the enemy team in TDM has never been more entertaining in a 3rd person shooter. The build and battle system change so much alone. Have a hawk problem? Put up a beam cannon and force field, and you'll do some damage while being immune to it. Want to quickly swipe the flag? Build a coral and get ready to fly in and out of the enemy base with the flag on a speedy hover bike. Want weapons? Build a bunker with it stock piled with shotguns, and rockets. You get the point, you can do plenty of stuff based on how your building with your team. Perhaps it can ruin the team? Nope, if you have some idiots building up useless stuff just knock 'em back down. It was a risky move to include the reclaim feature for a whole team, but it works. I've almost never had somebody knock over a useful structure. The game gets people to either experiment or act responsible. Noobs wont stay noobs for long, otherwise the game would frustrate them to a quitting point.
Besides building, there is still plenty to do. Each vehicle has a new feel to it to where it's like a new ocupation. Flying, biking, tanks, jeeps, jetpacks, and simply walking are nothing alike each other. Bikes are the fastest land vehicle, jeeps has a standard feel with good shooting and decent driving, while tanks are slow power houses of the lands, and hawks dominate the air with power-up based weaponry and dogfights. Walking alone opens up a world of options with building a defense, building a secondary base, sniping, taking a hike around to gun fight in the base, etc. However all these choices have one thing in common: You are not safe at all. Tanks can beat bikes, but not much infantry, bikes beat jeeps, but are dead on sight of a tank, and hawks and infantry can destroy or be destroyed very easily. Everything has paper thin armor when up against a rocket launcher, and this feels amazing. You can have all the benefits of a hawk, and yet when on land your not going to fear hawks due to overpowering. Instead your going to lob grenades and rockets at them taking them out very fast. Same with all vehicles. They are all perfectly balanced. The guns are as well, with all land weapons being a type of gun rather than a number or gun model. The assault rifle is just the assault rifle. There are not 40 of them, 4 rocket launchers, and 20 shotguns. You have one type, and nobody is overpowering you by using any of the weapons. Everything balances out, and it gives you loads of options and entertainment per match.
By the end of the day the only complaint I have for starhawk's multiplayer is "Why not more?". I wish I could upgrade buildings. I wish I could have more levels and areas to explore. I wish I could use more than 1 perk at a time. I wish my clan did more. You get the point, it's such an amazing game that my first wish would not be "Fix this" or " Tell me why you did that?" but instead it's "MOAR AWESOMENESS PLEASE!" With the developers promising that all map DLC will be free, I think I can count on my wish coming true. This multiplayer has the feeling of a fast paced tactical chaos that few games bring. It's truly amazing, and deserves the $60 just for that.
Graphics:
I don't know what to think. I believe it looks great as it is, and prefer not to go too far into detail. But I will. The character models are very well done, having a shiny gloss of texture, and interesting designs. Battle damage, blood, and explosions are clear and will keep you informed if buildings need reconstruction. The backgrounds, and maps can be beatiful, although I personally wish there was more beyond dusty desert and space scenes (Again, free DLC is bringing cool stuff like a jungle soon). Also I must give a special mention to the rift choice, because I absolutely love blue glowy stuff. The fact that you see it in scabs, and Emmett's veins is just awesome. However everything has simple feel to it in the gameplay. Nothing ever captures your eyes as too special, and the maps feel rather plain until you find structures or get distracted by battles.
Sound:
Music is surprisingly excellent. It's the typical score type of situation, except these guys made sure it was the forgettable crap that plagues every movie and the serious games. They even include a free soundtrack in the limited edition copy of the game. It really captures a western sci-fi world full of suspense, war, and general action. The music audio is also used in a drop in and out way to. If you're walking along a lone field, no music will accompany you. Lift off a jetpack, or pop into a mech seat and you start hearing the music like it's your own theme song. The music will try to encourage you, and it fixes the problem of fading because of its timing. Music is neither completely absent, nor is it dull when it arrives. I feel like these guys understood my complaints, and fixed it without removing the dramatic score from its audio.
Voice acting is amazing to. They chose the perfect actor for Emmett in campaign. His voice has far more character than the actual character. Sound effects themselves are rather generic and basic. Nothing too good there. Lasers, explosions, engines, they all sound okay but nothing too brilliant. Another problem is that the sound effects are the glitchiest. Story mode also has audio skips. Some matches had half of the sounds fade away completely. I was firing silent guns, not able to hear steps, engines only had sounds when they were too close, etc. Glitches aren't too common to break the game, but they are common enough to be really annoying. This needs a quick patch.
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Story: 3/10. Emmett, meet scabs. Scabs, meet Emmett. Oh, and the twist is one of them is your brother. Enjoy!
Singleplayer: 7/10 It's okay. I love the boss fights, the difficulty is weird but pleasant, and the game has its fun and boring moments. It's not a mode to be taken too seriously though. Survival can be fun, although I'm willing to bet it's better when your not alone.
Multiplayer: 10/10 I love It! Perfect balance, so much to do, excellent building system, and it's a general blast to play. Very clan friendly as well. I feel like this game was just built from the ground up with gamers and fun in mind, especially when considering the fact that there will be free map DLC for the game and you have dedicated server lists. Perhaps there could be more to it, but there is plenty to be entertained for a year or more.
Sound: 8.5/10 Everything except the effects are perfect. The voice acting is brilliant, and the music is nice as well as cleverly put in. I would love this game a lot more if they would fix the awful glitch of having key sounds disappear mid game. A half-mute game is horrible to play and makes me wish for a quick match end.
Graphics: 8/10 Simple, yet awesome. The detail in characters, and backgrounds is especially good. However you wont notice much going on throughout your play and nothing truly catches you eye, unless you count the blue rift in the blood of scabs. That never gets old to look at for some reason.
Overall Score: 9/10 This game is among the best. If you remove the extreme lack of story substance, the sound glitch, and had a campaign worth more I'd be giving this game a 10... or 11. The multiplayer is just amazing, and offers you plenty to do. Best of all it's the finest example of strategic chaos, and I adore those types of games. If you are here for singleplayer, you got the wrong direction. Keep praying for half-life episode 3. Meanwhile if you're here for fun, multiplayer, or an example of what we need more of, welcome to the party. Stay a while.
