The Review - Hawken (Open Beta)

Game Name:    Hawken (Open Beta)

Developer:    Adhesive Games
      Engine:              Unreal Engine 3

Platform:     Windows

Genre: FPS, Free to Play

Release Date: December 12, 2012 (Open Beta)

The Quick

Short description: Open beta, free-to-play, multiplayer mech based FPS set in a dystopian human-colonized world that has been heavily industrialized. Four game types: FFA, Team Deathmatch, Assault, and Siege (beta).

The Good:

• Graphics and general aesthetic are a beautiful sight to behold.
• No automatic HP regen! You have to strategically use your ‘repair’ ability in order to last more than a fight or two.
• As far as micro transaction models go, Hawken’s is pretty good, and while not ideal, it is not a blatant pay to win system.
• Dodge mechanic adds a nice change of pace to the cookie cutter FPS format.

The Bad:

• Very little customization with the mechs. When you think about mech games, customization is the first thing that comes to mind, and Hawken misses the mark by a sizable margin unfortunately.
• Very few maps available. They get old pretty fast.
• Seems to have a small player base right now. More often than not the teams are unbalanced or you are alone with one other person in the game.
• While the micro transaction system doesn’t use a pay to win model, it could be improved. Everything can be attained without paying, but you will definitely be doing some grinding.

All in all, should you play this?

• If you’re a fan of the FPS genre, and you like the idea of a mecha style FPS, there is really no reason not to give this game a go. It’s by no means a bad game, and any fan of the genre will be able to appreciate what it does right. Also, it’s free!

The Long

I think 100% of the reviews I’ve posted so far on this blog have been regarding single player games, which is a bit misleading, because I really do love multiplayer games, both co-op and competitive. With this in mind, I thought it was high time I write about some of the multiplayer games I’ve been playing, whether it be reviews as I’ve done before, or more informal thoughts about the games, which is what this post will consist of.

I’m going to get the ball rolling with Hawken. This is a game I’ve been super excited about since I saw the first gameplay video a number of years ago. At PAX Prime 2012, I was able to get my hands on the game and play around a bit, and it seemed extremely promising. There was a ton of hype about the game at PAX, the excitement was palpable among the attendees.

For this reason, I was expecting this game to make a huge splash in the PC FPS multiplayer space upon release to the public. Strangely, and maybe it’s still too early to say, but it doesn’t seem to be nearly as popular as I had imagined it’d be.

To be fair, the game is still in open beta, but come on, where’s the hype?! I didn’t hear a peep from anyone when Hawken opened up their beta servers to the public on December 12, 2012. Even to this day, I have seen very little press on this game, and I like to think I keep my ear pretty close to the ground in the gaming space.

This, of course, didn’t stop me from downloading the game and giving it a go. Initially, I was more or less doing a test run, as I couldn’t find any friends to really dive into the game with me. After putting a few hours in, I thought the game had some value to it, and after enough badgering, I eventually got some buddies to agree to give it an honest go with me.

Since then, after putting 8 or 10 more hours into the game, I’ve put it to rest, at least for now. So, I will take this opportunity to give some thoughts about what I thought the strengths and weaknesses of the game are, what I think the developers should do by the go live date to bring me back, and other general opinions.

  The Model

The developers, early on, made the claim that Hawken would not be a pay to win game. This is something I was fairly skeptical of since I was tricked into thinking the same thing with Tribes: Ascend, and ended up being sorely disappointed with that outcome. Much to my surprise, Adhesive Games has done a pretty good job in straying away from the pay to win model.

Looking through the micro-transaction shop, you’ll find that the model is very similar to that of League of Legends. You have two types of currency, one that is only available by purchase, and the other attained through play. The only enhancements that are exclusively available using real dollars are all cosmetic. You can buy new mechs and some of the equippable items using real money, but these are also available for free, using the currency gained by playing.

If you do plan to go the "pay" route, you'll be pleased to know that it's only $5 to unlock a mech class.

While the game still feels a little grindy due to the fairly steep prices to unlock mechs, it’s not unreasonable. Again, I think it can be best likened to League of Legends free to play model, which in my opinion, isn't too bad.

The Game

Okay, so it’s not pay to win. Good! But how’s the actual game? To generalize, Hawken is mech game that employs the mechanics of an FPS. It takes place in a dystopian human-colonized world that has been heavily industrialized. I will say that the aesthetic of the world, and the mechs, is really beautiful. The graphics are top notch and do a great job of making you feel immersed in a gritty, fix-er-upper, mech inhabited world.

There are 10 different mechs available right now, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses. The mech classes range from slow and tanky to quick and light, varying with both short range and long range weapons. Each mech has 2 primary weapons unlocks, one of which you get very early on (around level 5), and the other you unlock at max level (currently level 25). You’ll also unlock an Offensive item slot (e.g. turrets, EMP, explosives) and a Support item slot (e.g. shield, repair booster, radar jammer). Some of these slots can be filled by default when you purchase the mech, otherwise you have to either spend real money, or a sizable amount of your in game currency to get the items. One thing that is fairly obnoxious about this is that you can’t share items between your mechs, so if you want a rocket turret for all your mechs, you have to unlock that item for each mech separately, making the cost add up fast.

The prices on equippable items like these are a little steep for my taste.

Running and gunning is quite slow and clunky... probably pretty accurate to what it would feel like in a real battle mech. There is a dodge mechanic to speed things up a bit, which allows you to quickly strafe from side to side, using up some of your booster fuel. This is a really nice addition, making fights far more interesting than they would be without this feature. Timing your dodges correctly will almost always decide whether or not you win a battle. Overall, I thought the combat felt very good, even if a little slow.

Another mechanic that I found to be very worthwhile in Hawken is repairing. It’s become almost commonplace for multiplayer games to enable automatic life regeneration when not in combat. This can be infuriating, as you can get an enemy down to 5% life, and if they can stay away from you for X amount of time, their life will fill back up. Not in Hawken! Each mech has a repair ability that can be used to refill your life points, but this ability will take you out of combat completely, and you’ll be left defenseless while repairing. This adds a nice bit of strategy to deciding when and where to retreat to repair.

By now, you’re probably asking yourself why I stopped playing this game, as almost all of this review has been positive. Well, unfortunately, the fun is... fleeting. One of the big reasons for this is the lack of customization on the mechs. Aside from the few unlocks I mentioned in the first paragraph, there’s really nothing else to play around with. You’re limited to those 3 primary weapons (starting + 2 unlocks), and the fairly general offensive and utility items. So after you get to level 5, you’ve really seen most of what your mech can do, and the way that it will handle (at least until max level). Because of this, and maybe it’s just my short attention span, but it gets boring.

The game does utilize a general tech tree system (basically identical to League of Legends’ Mastery system). This tree is the same for everyone, and offers very basic, exclusively passive benefits. These are divvied up into 3 categories (offense, defense, and movement) and are made up of miniscule attribute perks (e.g. 0.33% movement speed). This element of the game seemed extremely generic and, to me, didn’t feel like it added any depth or sense of progression.

Lastly, the map selection is quite bleak at the moment. There are only 3 or 4 maps spread across the 4 game types, and while they’re fairly large, they get old pretty quickly. I assume that this is an issue distinct to beta, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Overall, Hawken is fun, but lacks depth. The absence of truly worthwhile mech customization is probably my biggest complaint. The customization level tops out way too early to keep me engaged for a long period of time. Couple this with the weak map diversity, and you have a fun core gameplay experience that eventually leaves you feeling sort of bored. These are the core elements that I feel need work before the game is pulled out of beta. I’m optimistic that they will make some changes to remedy this, but alas, only time will tell.

The Vids