By John Walker on February 10th, 2009 at 10:40 pm.
Tom Clancy’s HAWX (High Altitude Warfare… Xylophones?) is due next month, offering you lots of shooty-bang action, shown in the latest trailer from the cockpit of your futuristic jet. Set in 2012, apparently nation states are coming to an end, and countries are increasingly relying on modern-sounding initialisms like PMCs (Private Military Companies). The Reykjavik Accords further legitimize them, we’re told. And this means you need to shoot stuff with a plane! Good heavens, let’s get to it. New video, and predictions for future Clancy games, below.
It looks quite good, really. You don’t really see enough combat flight sims made by the big companies these days, and flipping crikey, the ground’s detailed. For more helpful coverage, I heartily recommend checking out our interview with the lead designer, Thomas Simon, from last year. There’s also a demo due on the 26th.
Coming soon from Ubisoft and Tom Clancy:
Tom Clancy’s MUTHAFUX
Set in the year 2019, gang warfare has replaced all the world’s governments, using technology and weapons with lasers on them. The governments are in hiding, and you’re their only hope. You must infiltrate the terrorist gang ruling Washington DC, the Mobilised Uber-Team Hardcore Ancillary Future Ultra-Xaviours (MUTHAFUX), using see-in-the-dark technology and guns with computers inside. It’s the future of war!
Tom Clancy’s LAUNDROMATS
Set in the year 2024, you’ve never been to the laundromat like this before! With terrorists running every location in the Washington DC area, it’s up to you to get your clothes clean and dry, and take them all out before the night is through! Using computers that can see in the dark, you must hack your way into the tumble dryers before strangling the terrorists with any item of clothing you choose. Laundry Augmented Until Nearly Dry Removing Odours, Mess And Tea Stains has never been like this before!
Tom Clancy’s TAXI
Set in the year 2099, taxi driving has developed into Washington DC’s most dangerous pursuit, as drivers are forced to give fares to probably motherfucking space robots from the future! Shit, seriously, these are bad-ass robots, and you’ve got to totally drive them to their destination before TERRORISTS GET IN THE CAB AND START SMASHING STUFF UP! I guess TAXI stands for something too! Using infra-red goggles and computers so small they fit in other slightly bigger computers, this is the future of the taximeter cabriolet!
IL2 Sturmovik>Any other combat flight sim.
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So… This looks almost identical to the Ace Combat series (which are great, if not at all realistic). What’s to set this apart from any of them, though? Other than having the Tom Clancy brand on it, of course.
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John Walker is a better writer and… philosopher… than Tom Clancy, confirmed.
Get Ubisoft on the horn, stat!
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Most of the game isn’t actually in the cockpit view.
KG
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Cool, Ace Combat 7.
Nighthood, it’s silly to call this or the Ace Combat series “flight sims”.
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Whassat? PC pre-release demo? How very 2002. No one does demos for the PC anymore. We all know they take away valuable development time, especially now that no one releases buggy games anymore. In addition, every game is too preciously complex and open-worldy to be able to be limited to a demo to show to an audience. It’d be like picking your favourite from the whole litter of fuzzy mewling kittens you’re trying to sell.
Also +5 respect points for the alt-text.
Tom Clancy’s PANTS (Pre-emptively Assaulting Nocturnal Tactical Squids). Errr. Some time in the year 2020, the stars align and the submarine Great Elder ones send an elite triple goggled gas-masked cephalopod strike-force back through time to the early 20th century to assassinate a young serial short-story writer named Lovecraft from revealing the true nature of the Universe. Who needs akimbo handguns? … When you have EIGHT LIMBS (…tentacles)!
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IL2 is a fantastic game (so much fun with the I16 attached to the bomber) but by comparing a game 10 years newer and based on modern air jet combat, you’re making yourself look like the worst kind of elitist :)
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Tom Clancy’s HAX – Set in 2009, punkbuster is coming to an end. The world is ruled by a group of unassailable scriptkiddies, griefers and cheaters. As a member of the elite, black-ops unit HAX (wHolly Awesome Xtreem) you must infiltrate this corrupt clan and bring to justice those who wait by the planes and steal them before anyone else can get a go.
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Did…. did I just see it say ‘Target destroyed: +15 xp’?
If I did, umm…. why?
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It still sounds like someone coughing up sputum to me.
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@Poisoned Sponge:
I saw that too. Maybe Call of Duty 4/5 style multiplayer leveling?
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I’m not sure whether HAWX or HAWKZ would be more annoying.
Call me old school, but the last good Tom Clancy game was Rogue Spear and the last good Tom Clancy novel was The Hunt for Red October, so this is more like Tom Clancy’s YAWN.
Set in the year 2009, Yet Another Wargame Noooooooo… oh forget it.
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Comparing YAWNX with F4, IL-2, etc is like comparing consoles with PCs. They are two completely different kettles of fish.
My personal views on the respective virtues of each aside.
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Tom Clancy’s BOOX
Set in the year 2009, gun-fanatic and red-blooded American patriot Tom Clancy is given access to a typewriter and a publishing deal. What ensues is pure chaos as he spews gun-porn to an unwitting audience while spooky “ghost-writers” fill in the bits between his descriptions of weapons with semblances of a story, usually involving Russia or China. You must hunt him down and persuade him to peace in the only language he understands… hot lead!
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High-Altitude Warfare Xenophobes, surely.
At least that’s usualy the way these games go.
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“Most of the game isn’t actually in the cockpit view.”
Do you not get to pick then, does the game force certain views on you at certain times? Hmmpfh!, if so.
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This is being done by the same studio as developed the Blazing Angels games, right? Ubisoft Romania?
It looks great, very entertaining and suitably shooty for my can’t-tolerate-difficulty tastes. All I want to know is whether this will be any fun to play with a joystick.
Because it looks like it might not. And the Blazing Angels games had terrible, terrible joystick support.
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Wikipedia says: Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. (“High Altitude Warfare eXperimental squadron”). I say: HAWES.
RE: +15XP – From, official site:
In PVP mode, players can challenge each other in intense dog-fighting sessions and find out who’s the top gun. Winning players are rewarded with experience points and money to unlock more weapons.
Sounds similar to the CoD system then. Will have to wait and see if this game is actually worthwhile then.
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The pc needs a sequel to Crimson Skies! Best (arcadey) flight sim imo and was genuine barnstorming fun back in the day. I think Microsoft still own the rights so its possible, even if its a port and uses GFWL it would still be nice to see.
*adds to list of wanted sequels just below Freelancer 2*
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Looks rather dull. I shall look foward to not buying it and abusing those who do behind their backs. Or possibly to their faces.
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It certainly looks explody enough to warrent a demo try. If it supports trackIR, that might be the thing to put me over on one of them (expensive as they are).
After this trailer, I heartily look forward to some shooting down of stuff as opposed to my current F4 learning curve that mostly consists of being shot down. From the ground.
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Btw locking onto targets is for pussies. Real men use machine guns and dumb fire missiles
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Real men use their fists.
And maybe, in extreme circumstances, 45 caliber Thompson SMGs. No ammo of course. Just beating people to death with them. While in a plane.
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I would kill to play Tom Clancy’s LAUNDROMATS.
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I’m enjoying the globalist propaganda. Get me some conditioning.
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Superb Mr. Walker, superb. To (mis)quote an old PCG.. ‘LOL? I nearly ROFLed!’
@Rei – that sounds a lot like Tom Clancy’s WHORES.. which I would probably buy out of curiosity.
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Blasted internet is faulty I tell you..
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craptastica.
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Tom Clancy’s PENIX
Set in the year 2029, “vagina dentata” no longer signifies fear of castration, but actual FUCKING TEETH growing from female genitalia! It’s up to you to charge your hi-tech COX with radioactive semen (RSX) and blast those abominations back to hell. Wake up, soldier, you got some fucking to do!
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You know I initially thought Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Las Vegas was going to be a game about men in thongs dancing to hot house beats but I was wrong.
Turns out I bought that bloody silk kimono peripheral for no reason.
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So it’s a po-faced version of Origin’s Strike Commander, then?
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@Gillen is declaring that most of the game isn’t played in the cockpit your way of telling us you’re not very good at it?
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I’m fed up of the constant bleeping already.
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In theory I should be excited about this – I love me some arcade airplane combat, but it’s desperately thin on the ground (and in the air) these days. This one feels so deadly uninteresting, though, and the screen’s so full of furniture.
I maintain that Crimson Skies was not good barnstorming fun; rather, it is to this day good barnstorming fun. It’s aged very well so far, and I still love to play it. Instead of HAWX, I think.
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High Attitude Wankers (xylophonically).
Pilots are like that. Seriously. No exceptions.
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Tom Clancy’s DORMZ – Domicile Orbital Ravaging Mega Zeppelins! Fly at up to 20 MPH as you dodge* those tricky towers which make you go kaboom!
*Actual gameplay may or may not include dodging
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Looks fairly generic to me right now, actually.
Would totally pay someone money to mod it into a Yukikaze game, though *drools*
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Disappointing that you don’t see the missile hit the target on the target viewer.
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Mike: There’s a very good chance you can already buy that game in Japan.
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All I get out of HAWKZ is sadness that the combat flight sim genre is non-existant these days. :(
-and an apreciation for how many years the Clancy franchise has spent swirlng deeper in to the shitter.
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To be honest, there is lots of good clancey games. They might not be hardcore or realistic. But vegas is quite good in coop, and i would do anything for a true sequel to chaos theory (3 games in one). Even advanced warfighter 2 was a lovely counterstrike thing with more depth. I even understand (from my rts deity tom chick) that end war is “quite good”.
Clancey books however i associate with utter nonsense.
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May have to have a go at making LAUNDROMAT, bootleg demake stylee…
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“Flash out!”
…
“Shit! Calling in Persil!”
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“Rinse and clear, over(alls)”
“It’s like it just…Vanished. ”
[Pfc Jones holds up a pink bottle]
“Thanks Sarge!”
“…and that’s Staff Sgt Parker. He’s the big swinging dick around here”
“so I see — he must have taken those old Carling Black Label ads seriously”
/coat
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HAWKZ would be awesome. High Altitude Warfare Kills Zombies, obviously.
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@ Rei: From what I understand, it’s similar to the Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 setup whereby you can level up in both single and multiplayer.
To be fair to the game it does appear to be adding some new features to the Ace Combat formula, on top of simply replacing Japanese silliness with Clancy silliness. The assistance on/off gimmicks, and the dynamic camera in particular, look interesting enough to me that I’ll probably give the demo a whirl at least.
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RE: Tom Clancy’s TAXI
Space robots from the future? I’m sold.
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imo Clancy silliness > Japanese silliness, and therefore hawx rawx. i love shooty swirly jet gameplay. and frak you all elitist bastards who killed the fun in flight sims. F4 is great, and il2 is too, but do you guys remember the us-navy fighters series? that was pretty frakkin close to TCH or AC6. flight sim lite ftw.
and yay crimson skies. that begs for a reboot.
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I can see it already:
3 kills you get AWACS support, 5 will get you EMP blast anywhere on the airspace map so you will take down multiple bandits, 7 and you get to summon a SAAHS (Special Anti-Air Hunter Squadron) that would fly around shooting shit down. Also, hardcore mode with no HUD and you won’t be able to throw the rockets back to the sender. Level high enough and unlock the GOLDEN F22! sweet!
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Are you employing sarcasm to tell me you don’t like the idea of a golden F22? What exactly is not to like?
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Started playing the video, got totally distracted by the brilliant words beneath, way to steal the thunder from the game John.
More previews like this…
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