New info on their website, looks like they've got playtesting going on. Heh. Live-action cutscene. Just like 'Mechwarrior used to make. I'm almost nostalgic. That is one thing that's missing from MWO. Cheesy live action.
Thought we had an old Hawken thread around here somewhere. Rise forgotten thread! So Hawken went Open Beta the other day and I was able to finally check it out. I was pretty excited for this game after the first teaser trailer was released, back when there were about nine guys working on it, but then MWO stole the spotlight when it was announced later on. Sadly, it is apparent now that Hawken was never really a true mech game from the beginning, but it's clunky movement and cool HUDs do make it feel very mech-like. Movement took a bit of getting used to, and I still forget about the handy side-dash maneuver, but once you get used to it scooting and jump-hovering around is a lot of fun. Only two maps right now (both well designed), but with four game-modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Missile Assault, Siege) its enough to keep things fresh in my opinion. The map Origin is especially fun with its verticallity. As for the grind, once MWO's reward system revamp goes live later today, Hawken now has it harder on new players. Earning around 80 to 110 Hawken Credits a match playing completely for free it will take me about 70 games to buy a mech. Fortunately, the mech all new users are given, the TV with legs (C-RT Recruit), isn't half bad and I've even taking a liking to it. Long run customization options for the Recruit are limited, though I can see the economic reasoning for that. From what I've seen of the other mechs so far, chassis customization is rather sparse, especially when compared to any MechWarrior title. Each mech, Recruit excluded, has at least three options for each weapon system, all tied to chassis XP earned through matches, in addition to two equipment slots (deployable Turrets, RADARs, Jammers) and an ability slot (Shield, Cloak, Heat Dissipation). I like the options of equipment given, but the prices on all of them are too high in my opinion; half the cost of a mech. After playing around five hours yesterday I still don't have enough HC to purchase one, and I'm not sure if I really should considering that would delay purchasing a better mech by quite a bit. Tempted to put down 10 bux just to get a new mech and a piece of equipment, though the allure of upgrades well earned through gameplay alone is strong here. Until PGI nerfs ECM I will probably be spending my time on Hawken. I have not used it yet but it appears there is an option to invite Friends to a match so we could get a team of SoR together. Fortunately there is a built-in voice chat so communicating with pubs is much easier than in MWO.
I played Hawken once... no thanks. If I want to play CoD I will go play CoD. No real strategy or thought in that game other then twitch shooting. In my opinion MWO and Hawken are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Sad that people are leaving because of ECM instead of trying to adapt and form new strategies, but to each their own.
I played it in closed beta, not bad, not my thing though. Its a twitch shooter with a mech theme, if you like that then you'll like Hawken. The mechs are reeeeal ugly though, fits the theme though of the world they built.
I enjoyed Hawken a lot. It's a pretty, mindless shooter that doesn't require much effort to just jump into and have some stupid fun for a couple hours. However, it can't live up to a MechWarrior title.
To be clear, Hawken in no way compares to MWO other than featuring giant combat robuts. The gameplay is completely different, the "CoD of mech games" being a somewhat apt if tired description. MWO is still my go-to game when it comes to mechs combat. Just thought I'd resurrect this thread with my opinions of the game in Open Beta in case anyone else might be interested. As for ECM (read: Stealth Armor), for reasons already well defined in another thread I don't see TAG being an effective counter to the current ECM-induced Blob and Cap warfare prevalent in 8-man drops currently. Effective and fun strategies to combat the cheese have been few of what I've seen, and I'm not particularly optimistic on that front given there is only so much that can be done that hasn't already. That said, I am looking forward to seeing whats been changed with today's patch.
Hawken mechs are, what battle armour is to Battletech mechs. You can almost treat it as BA pseudo simulator.
Just tried this out today. Hears my quick review for any who are interested. As a note, I only played DM and TDM game modes. The Good: Great art direction. I thought the scrap-metal/trashcan look of the mechs (or whatever they're called) was great, and fighting in ruined cities that look like they've been abandoned for God-knows how long was cool. The machines don't die too quickly, so I feel like they've got some decent armor on them. Makes them feel like vehicles instead of infantry in fancy suits. Controlling them isn't instant, so again, it feels like I'm driving something instead of running. The Bad: The sound design is horrible. Guns don't feel like they have any kick, and there is NO engine noise of any kind from your machine, just foot steps, plus hardly any music to make up the difference. Mid-battle repairs with a drone and energy-based shields feel out of place in such an otherwise low-tech environment. There is no ammunition or consumable management at all, but you rarely live long enough to notice unless you're very good. Death counters in some matches ran up into the seventies for EACH team, which feels kind of strange. The meh: I though the battles take too long, or at least feel that way. Its a 15-min timer with no limit on kills, so it's going to last the whole time no matter what. You can re-spawn as soon as you die in any machine you own, which doesn't give death any sense of punishment. The heat gauge was a nice touch, but I never once overheated my mech-thing (I blame MW:O for teaching heat-management), so I'm not really sure if its working as intended. As a final piece of weirdness, the cockpit in the 1st person camera doesn't seem to bear any relation to your mech-thing's outside design. Overall its an enjoyable game for what it is. I have NO idea why people are calling it Call-of-Duty with mechs. It felt more the unholy love child of Mechwarrior and Armored Core to me. The mechs feel realistic (more so than Battletech actually), but have boost systems and other weirdness that give Armored Core style responses more importance. I'll probably spend some more time in this just for kicks, but I'm sure if I would actually spend money on it.
I tried this out after some of our people suggested it... and I have to say I'm happy I tried. It's different, more fast paced mech-game than MWO but it stands proudly on its own legs. To be completely honest, I don't understand people who try to compare this and MWO. They are both mech games, yeah, but flow of the game and mechnics are different enough that comparing them causes lot of problems. These games are in different ends of a spectrum. EDIT: The only real problem at the moment is the bit random matchmaking that can create hugely unbalanced matches sometimes. I've been on both sides of this problem. Yesterday I played TD match with Assault chassis (TOW, P-D Vulcan) and alone got 25 kills with no deaths. All of our team were more or less leveled up not-your-basic-TV mechs. Other side was pretty much only starters with TV-recruits. It was a bloodbath. Other example was me with one another against three mechs (including Grenadier and Rocketeer heavy chassis). They just hunted us down all the time. And don't get me wrong, I understand people who find it hard to get into Hawken for one reason or another. What I'm saying, you really should give this game a try (it's free for the greater goods sake) and make your own opinions and not allow opinions of others affect you too much. And no offence to those others; We have different tastes. I will definitely be playing this. Especially now that MWO has its "problems". EDIT: And btw, speaking of sounds, my favourite sound for a long time: BBBRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!! (Point-D Vulcan shredding enemies)
Sounds like you had the same problem I did. First match went great and made me good about my ability to play, the next one taught me a hard lesson about online matchmaking
Hawken is transitioning to Steam! HAWKEN on Steam Its been a while since this thread has been posted in, and I am guessing it has also been a while since many of our members might have played the game. In case people were not aware, Hawken went through a couple major changes over the past year, most pertaining to player progression and gameplay balance, and I must say I have been very impressed with each update made to the game by the dev team so far. The Ascension update in particular was quite extensive. This upcoming update for Steam is looking like it contains some of the most radical changes yet however, so I'm looking forward to seeing just how well it turns out. I have not played Hawken much the past three weeks, however it was my go-to game over the Winter holiday. The game looks even better than it did last I played it almost a year prior, and the new maps Wreckage and Last Eco are gorgeous, not to mention very well designed and fun to play from my experience. My favorite game mode, Siege, was recently tuned for balance, and now most games often end quite close. As in MWO I've been a light mech (A class) specialist since I first started, previously playing Infiltrator and Scout the most, but coming back to Hawken I've fallen in love with the Technician and Reaper; both better classified as light support mechs, something MWO's state of balance often punishes harshly. If anyone else is still playing Hawken, or decides to give it a try when it launches on February 11th, and could use a dedicated repair-buddy, send me ( Catch_ ) a Friend request in game.
The Launch Trailer! Post-launch, playing A class is much harder (three-fifths as much armor across the board for the class) but I am very happy to see less un-killable burst-fire Scouts (now they are killable) and more people in B and C classes, which was sorely needed. I gave my only B-class mech another go; my old CR-T Fred, and found it much more enjoyable than before, plus its new Elite parts make it look pretty badass.
