hawx posts

It's been a fairly slow week for the first half but today things picked up with a number of new game announcements including a new Section 8 game that, from the looks of things, is being self-published by Timegate. Cool.

• New bug patches have been released via Steam for Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days, Tropico 3 and Tropico 3 Absolute Power, and the Counter-Strike Source beta.
• Until 1 pm Eastern time Friday you can get Blood Bowl on Direct2Drive for just $19.95 and Star Wars Battlefront 2 for a mere $4.95
• There's a new graphics driver hotfix for ATI AMD Radeon graphics cards that improves performance for H.A.W.X.

Tom Clancy may not have written a novel in several years, but that doesn't keep his insanely marketable name off of games based on "near future" events. HAWX is one of these, and the second one continues this tradition of politically-charged thrills mixed with high-speed explosions. Want proof? Just take a look at this launch trailer. It's so full of your standard political thriller stereotypes (terrorists, Middle East, modern weaponry, references to military figures), but as long as we get some awesome missiles and explosions, we're happy!

Download HD HAWX 2 Launch Trailer
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While PC gamers will have to wait a few more weeks to install H.A.W.X. 2 on their hard drive, publisher Ubisoft is making the wait a little less hard by launching a nice marketing web site for the upcoming flying action game. It's a Flash-based browser game that turns H.A.W.X. 2 into a full on retro 8-bit top down shooter.

The game itself is actually fun to play and Ubisoft has made it so the sometimes frustrating use of the arrow keys to control the flight of the plane is compensated by the fact that your plan can take more than one hit before it goes down. Hopefully the final version of H.A.W.X. 2 is as entertaining as its 8-bit version.

[Via Joystiq]

PC gamers who were ready to get in their virtual cockpits for the PC port of H.A.W.X. 2 may have to stay on the tarmac a little longer. VG247.com reports that the release date PC version of the Ubisoft flying action game has been pushed back a few weeks.

According to the article the PC version has been delayed until October 1. Since VG247.com is based in Europe that likely means the US release won't happen until September 28 which is a three week delay from its previously announced September 7 date. No reason for the delay was mentioned. Big Download has emailed Ubisoft's US PR contacts for a confirmation.

It looks like there will be more than one Tom Clancy-based game from Ubisoft this fall. Releasing alongside Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Ubisoft announced today their plans for Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 for the PC and other platforms. The sequel to their 2008 near-future flying action game will be developed by Ubisoft's Bucharest developer.

Ubisoft has revealed little info and no screenshots from the game yet, saying only that H.A.W.X. 2 will put players in the roles of "elite aerial soldiers in control of the world's most technologically advanced aircraft." A teaser site has already launched but it only shows today's press release and the above logo for now.

The OnLive streaming PC gaming service is in a closed beta test at the moment and we assume anyone who is accepted into the beta has to abide by a non-disclosure agreement. However, it looks like the author of an OnLive beta article at PC Percepective got around that issue ("a friend of a friend of a friend passed to me their login information"). We don't think that the OnLive company execs will be pleased about that.

In any case, the article goes over the author's experience with the beta, which he admits may be colored by the fact that his location may not be optimal for testing the technology. As we expected, the results are mixed. Streaming slower paced games on your PC like Burnout Paradise and H.A.W.X. seem to work decently with some slight graphics problems. However, shooters like Unreal Tournament 3 had both major image and latency issues running on the beta system. In addition, the current beta requires you to play games with a hard wired connection to the net and there's just one resolution that's officially supported for gameplay.

Of course all of this info comes from a system that's still in closed beta, so improvements are bound to be made before OnLive officially goes live. We don't think that will likely happen for a while, but in the meantime, you can check out some OnLive video from the beta after the jump.

[Via Engadget]

This patch fixes a number of gameplay issues with Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Steam customers are advised to use the auto-updater instead of the digital patch. Patch notes are shown after the jump.

Download Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. v1.02 Retail Patch (39 MB)
Download Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. v1.02 Digital Patch (83 MB)
Download the Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Demo (1.24 GB)
Check out all Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. downloads

This trailer shows the pilots of Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. flying into action. The action filled jet fighter game releases next week for consoles and the PC. The demo can be downloaded here.

Download HD Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Launch Trailer (50 MB)
Download the Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Demo (1.24 GB)
Check out all Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. downloads

This is the demo for Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. It includes the tutorial and the Buenos Aries area. Continue reading after the jump for system requirements.

Download Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Demo (1.24 GB)
Check out all Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. downloads

Some might argue that the "Kulbit Maneuver" shown in this Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. trailer might be a bit over the top in how it defies physics. However, there's no disputing the fact that a mid-air flip followed by 90-degree turn definitely has its advantages in aerial combat.

Download HD Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 'Kulbit Maneuver' Trailer (12 MB)
Check out all Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. downloads