Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X - PC Game Download

After tackling squad-based third-person combat in Ghost Recon, stealth action in Splinter Cell, and strategy in EndWar, Ubisoft's Tom Clancy brand takes to the skies in HAWX (High Altitude Warfare--Experimental). The game features intense dogfights, gorgeous scenery and planes, and an instantly accessible, arcade-style air combat experience. Multiplayer options are limited, and different planes don't offer as much variety as they should, but HAWX lives up to the quality of the brand and is a good aerial-combat game in its own right.

HAWX follows the story of the titular squadron and its leader, Major David Crenshaw. After you're transferred to HAWX as squadron leader, the group is disbanded by the US Air Force in 2014, following events in the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter games. (You get the cool task of rescuing Captain Mitchell and the Ghosts in the first mission of the game.) After this, Crenshaw joins Artemis, a private military contractor that works both for corporations and the Brazilian government. Artemis attacks US forces, causing Crenshaw to have a change of heart and goes back to what he does best: defending the US against hostile forces, namely Artemis. HAWX's story, like those in other Tom Clancy games, is presented via cutscenes, radio chatter, and video updates. The story is largely inconsequential, but it sets the scene well enough for your numerous engagements and keeps the game moving along at a brisk pace.

HAWX is instantly accessible and is a lot of fun to pick up and play in short bursts. The controls are uncomplicated and work well enough that even issuing orders to wingmen during a dogfight is easily accomplished. One of the major gameplay innovations in HAWX is the Enhanced Reality System. ERS is essentially a series of gates projected onto your heads-up display that, when you fly through them successfully, let you shake missile locks or catch up to challenging enemies. For example, in one mission ERS helps you fly a predetermined course to avoid radar detection, which in turn lets you knock out a base's air-defence grid. There are a number of scenarios in which ERS proves useful, but thankfully it's not a system that you can use as a crutch to get you through every single mission.

Tom Clancy's HAWX is a rewarding arcade aerial-combat experience that looks and sounds every bit as good as it plays. The controls, and in particular the ERS innovation, make dogfighting in iconic planes over famous cities as accessible as it is enjoyable. It's unfortunate that the multiplayer options are so limited and that the various aircraft all feel very similar to fly, but there's lots of fun to be had here for novices and top guns alike.