StarHawk for those who don’t know, is made by the same guys who did warhawk one of the first early games for PS3. I never played it myself so I can’t comment on that.

StarHawk is a 1.3ish gig download, but currently is only available for PS+ members, and those who received a dlc code in their copies of Uncharted 3.

My experiences with the game haven’t been the greatest. I really struggled to get into a game, sometimes it caused my PS3 to lockup or be booted without getting into a game, but I guess that is the reason why developers run betas, to streamline code and ensure that server-end software is working up to scratch.

GRAPHICS

It’s pretty, the maps are pretty large, and some parts need the title’s ubiquitous Hawks to reach. The character models are fairly detailed and I didn’t notice any glaring screen tearing or pop-in as you moved around the map.
Speaking of which, the main map I have played on is called Space. It features multiple routes and some good choke points, but since the game I played was only 8 on 8 they never really were used as choke points and when someone did try and set up one, people just went around it. In fact, I barely even saw any of my team mates, and occasionally an enemy. The maps were too big for the game size. A good game was if you killed 4 enemies. I think the highest I saw was 6 kills and the guy got something like 6000 points.

GAMEPLAY

Starhawk is a 3rd person action title, but for the beta there was no (at least I couldn’t find any) instructions on how the game worked – no controls in the setup screen – other than change up for down when flying.

It has the standard R1 = shoot, L1 = aim, L2 through grenades, R2 = can’t remember, maybe melee.

The build mechanic is kind of interesting and I saw some innovative uses for it. For example, one guy I saw, during a CTF game broke into our base, ran out, built a buggy depot, right outside the base, and took off and won the game. Innovative use.

Triangle brings up a radial menu to build all kinds of things from sniper towers, to jetpack dispensers, to landing pads and has a cost. The frustrating thing about it is that I found it next to impossible to figure out where a valid placement is. Being colour-blind I had real issues the yellow and light green that were used for invalid and valid placement. Another thing that really urked me, is that if you build a landing pad and then someone gets to the hawk before you (it happened to me several times) you cannot ‘buy’ a new one, until the hawk for that platform has been destroyed.

I found the shooting mechanic to be really crap. Weapons are super unbalanced. 1 game which involved wide open spaces degenerated into a sniper war since snipers seemed to kill with one shot, the standard rifle terrible. Often I would be shooting a guy – takes forever to kill someone often 2-3 clips (about 30 rounds each), and they’d just run straight at me and insta-kill with a melee attack and then walk off. Frustrating as anything.

The Hawks are pretty cool – either as a walking robot or (when I finally figured out how to transform) a flying ship, but incredibly fragile and no way to repair the damn things, no mechanic skill that I saw, no regenerating damage after a set time period, same with the buggy as well, though the buggy seemed a lot tougher and cost 75% less than the hawk.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

Overall, Starhawk didn’t grab me. For a 3rd person action title, it doesn’t match up to the fun of an Uncharted MP game, the maps didn’t scale for game size and the weapons either aren’t powerful enough, or far too powerful.
The ability to build anything anywhere on the battlefield is a great idea, but generating enough points to do so takes an age – maybe 5-10 minutes to reach the maximum points value to buy an energy dome. In a 20 minute, 25-50% of your time is just hanging about in your base (seems to be the only place you generate building points) while you wait to build something is a little too long.

I’ll give this a 6.5/10.

Yes, it’s only a beta, and maybe weapon balancing will be addressed as the beta wears on. Perhaps I’m being a little too hard, but I have so many really good games I want to play, that I’m not going to worry about an average game that I got bored playing.

I was the ones that played Warhawk when it was released way back in 2007 and I enjoyed it immensely because it was like Battlefield except played from a 3rd person perspective. Starhawk on the other hand doesn't match up to my expectations. The fact that they moved away from their previous core mechanics such as the ability to construct buildings remind me of the Red Fraction series. I have yet to try Starhawk but needless to say they have build up a fan base. Thanks for your review cas

The ability to build things on the the fly was the one thing that really grabbed me, but it takes soooooo long to earn enough 'points' to be able to do it, and then someone can swoop in and take it before you get a chance to use it, really bugged me.

Yes, I know that "building" mechanic hooked a lot of people into the game... because it was different... but as a result it had a lot of impact on other core mechanics that were essential to its previous success. I haven't played the game so I can't really comment but judging from your reviews and others around the world, it seems that the gameplay is not favoured upon really well. And as a result I'm speculating that this is influenced from the "building" gameplay because the "shooting mechanics" previously on warhawk was engaging. But you said it was "crap" lol so I'm suspecting they had to adjust it to fit into the "building" criteria and environment.

By the way, have you seen Big? He hasn't been on for two consecutive days, that's unlike his nature haha

I didn't realise that other people were reviewing similar to me. I just wrote what I felt when I was playing it, and it didn't grab me enough to keep playing and keep it on my system.

I found the shooting mechanic to be really bad, but yeah, you may be right - possibly too much concentrating on the building mechanic and perhaps the core game play fell under the radar.

To anwer the Big question, I heard from Squirrel I think, that his internet is down until Tuesday, so I expect he will be back sometime tomorrow.

They won't reviewing, they were just previewing the game haha. Some of them commented that it may be a mediocre game upon release.

lol big hasn't gave his award acceptance speech yet

I just read 'em as play 'em. If they don't fix/change a lot of the thing I commented on, I'd have to say the same. I doubt it'll have a long mp life and the hardcore warhawk fans might stay with it, but it honestly bored me while I was playing. Not a good sign in my books, and I like to think that I am a good judge of games.

Yeah. I think biggy went offline just before I announced the winner.

Nice review bro, I bet things'll get tweaked given it's a beta. I'm certainly disappointed though, I liked the whole concept. That said, there is still Singleplayer! Yin'll be back, stop worrying =P

Tezzac wrote:By the way, have you seen Big? He hasn't been on for two consecutive days, that's unlike his nature haha

Bless you Tezz. didnt know you cared so much