One of the most high-profile PS3 games before release the console’s release was the remake of 1995’s Warhawk. First revealed in 2005, Warhawk became the first game demonstrated using Sony’s Sixaxis controller, a feature that seems to have been forgotten in recent years. The announcement that the single-player campaign would be removed was met with some disappointment, but Warhawk became another Sony first as the first game released simultaneously on both Blu-Ray disc at retail and on the Playstation Network. Those who made the next generation jump found Warhawk to be one of the best multiplayer games on the Playstation Network at the time, with large battlefields full of a wide assortment of vehicles that could be jumped into at any time, resulting in large scales on both land and in the air.
It has been almost four years since Warhawk first came out, and the servers are being kept alive by just a few hundred players, with Playstation owners flocking to newer multiplayer affairs like Black Ops or Uncharted 2. So publisher Sony, and developer Lightbox Interactive (an Austin Texas newcomer whose alumni include those who worked on Warhawk and Twisted Metal), have seen fit to release a new entry in the series, taking it to the next level both literally and figuratively.
Starhawk is (surprisingly) set in space, and will include a fully featured single player campaign. The protagonist, Emmet Graves, lives in a colony called the Frontier mining for an energy source called Rift. As in all sci-fi stories, exposure to Rift has some horrific consequences, turning miners into mutants known as Outcasts. One day, a band of Outcasts attack Graves’ farm, exploding the mining rig and infecting Graves and his brother with Rift energy, effectively turning them into Outcasts themselves. The brothers’ technical engineer, Sydney Cutter, is able to adapt a device that will suppress the homicidal urges, at the cost of branding the two as being only a technical mishap away from disembowelling the general public, causing them to become social pariahs. With no other recourse, Graves turns to the mercenary life and, along with his brother, travels to the colony White Sands on the planet Dust. While their help is desperately needed, the colonists are not entirely comfortable with their mutated saviours.
Building up to takeoff
The most promising addition gameplay-wise should be familiar to those who have played Section 8: Prejudice. At any point in the battle, players can use the “Build n’ Battle” feature to automatically drop in a support structure using any Rift energy collected. Armories, bunkers, and other defence structures can be called in and dropped in from the sky, providing a quasi-RTS flair to the third-person shooter proceedings. Bases can be set-up and fully operational within minutes, perfect for objective games like Capture the Flag.
