Sony delivered me an early Christmas present yesterday by emailing me an invite code to the private beta which has started running. It appears that invites are going out on a rolling basis to a handful of Warhawk players and lucky randomly picked peeps to test things out before the wider beta for those with the Uncharted 3 access codes begins next month.
After its initial announcement Starhawk leapt up my 'to watch' list after absolutely loving Warhawk in the PS3's early days. The game immediately came across like a much bigger expansion of everything Warhawk did so well and after a few games last night my opinion is sadly somewhat mixed. Visually, the game is a big step up from Warhawk and despite not being a benchmark for graphics it's a solid and very smooth effort for an online title. The biggest area of improvement is the on foot combat which has been refined out. Controls follow the usual standard layout for the most part with L1 and R1 used for down sights and firing and X to jump. R2 handles running which can be done pretty much constantly. Your biggest friend however will be the triangle button...
Maps are broken up as before with each team having a base camp, the camp contains your teams flag (currently only CTF is available) and two energy vents. The energy vents constantly transmit energy to your character when nearby, this energy builds up the teams bar which is used to purchase items from the wheel that triangle brings up. With it, and for varying amounts, you can buy defensive barriers, Hawk bases, jeep bases, automated turrets, sniper towers, placeable spawn points, ammo deposits etc which you place as you like on the map. The idea is that it will promote team work as buying one of these takes energy from the whole team however the system is very generous so typically it's lone wolf friendly too.
So, the game is essentially the same, looks better than Warhawk, controls better than Warhawk... what's the problem then? The problem is limitation. The Hawks can switch between flight and mech modes which allows for quick travel around the map, they're faster than Warhawks too though have been nerfed quite a bit, the jeeps are fast as well which means you can get from one of the map to the other in seconds. This makes the game feel much smaller than Warhawk even though the maps are likely the same size as before. The Hawk and Jeep also represent the only controllable vehicles in the game (beyond a jet pack). Now that half the vehicles have been removed and all the turret types are automated it leaves the player to spend most of their time on foot. Whilst it plays well enough it feels like a step backwards design wise from the previous game.
New tweaks and updates seem to be coming almost daily at the moment with some features being activated and deactivated entirely so it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. From the look of it so far though, Starhawk looks to be a fun though straight forward game, more spin-off than sequel.
After its initial announcement Starhawk leapt up my 'to watch' list after absolutely loving Warhawk in the PS3's early days. The game immediately came across like a much bigger expansion of everything Warhawk did so well and after a few games last night my opinion is sadly somewhat mixed. Visually, the game is a big step up from Warhawk and despite not being a benchmark for graphics it's a solid and very smooth effort for an online title. The biggest area of improvement is the on foot combat which has been refined out. Controls follow the usual standard layout for the most part with L1 and R1 used for down sights and firing and X to jump. R2 handles running which can be done pretty much constantly. Your biggest friend however will be the triangle button...
Maps are broken up as before with each team having a base camp, the camp contains your teams flag (currently only CTF is available) and two energy vents. The energy vents constantly transmit energy to your character when nearby, this energy builds up the teams bar which is used to purchase items from the wheel that triangle brings up. With it, and for varying amounts, you can buy defensive barriers, Hawk bases, jeep bases, automated turrets, sniper towers, placeable spawn points, ammo deposits etc which you place as you like on the map. The idea is that it will promote team work as buying one of these takes energy from the whole team however the system is very generous so typically it's lone wolf friendly too.
So, the game is essentially the same, looks better than Warhawk, controls better than Warhawk... what's the problem then? The problem is limitation. The Hawks can switch between flight and mech modes which allows for quick travel around the map, they're faster than Warhawks too though have been nerfed quite a bit, the jeeps are fast as well which means you can get from one of the map to the other in seconds. This makes the game feel much smaller than Warhawk even though the maps are likely the same size as before. The Hawk and Jeep also represent the only controllable vehicles in the game (beyond a jet pack). Now that half the vehicles have been removed and all the turret types are automated it leaves the player to spend most of their time on foot. Whilst it plays well enough it feels like a step backwards design wise from the previous game.
New tweaks and updates seem to be coming almost daily at the moment with some features being activated and deactivated entirely so it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. From the look of it so far though, Starhawk looks to be a fun though straight forward game, more spin-off than sequel.
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