Those of you who remember the days of U R Not Red E (Damn I feel old... I remember buying it and I was out of highschool), it was the time when Nintendo lost its hold on the gaming industry and Sony took the crown as king of gaming. It was the time of the PSX, or as many people know the Playstation. It was the launch of something new and fun (CD games instead of gawky, expensive pain-in-the-ass game cartridges). The Playstation had its share of amazing games. From titles like Destruction Derby to Final Fantasy 7 to Wipeout. It was the good old days when CD-based gamer were new and they rocked. Many tried (Atari, Sega, Hudson, CDI, etc...) but Sony set the trend and made it work. The original Playstation also had a killer flight game called Warhawk. This is many years later and the game finally makes a return to the Sony Playstation 3 system. It has taken on a different form since you last played it on the original Playstation system. And it is a good change, hell it was a great change! So sit back and get ready to read a review on one of the best Playstation 3 titles of 2007... Warhawk.  

In Warhawk, players experience the thrill of white-knuckle aerial combat with swarms of enemy fighters, bone-crunching armored assaults and high-intensity infantry combat in a massive, all-out war fought both on the ground and in the skies. Warhawk delivers high definition warfare and multi-modal combat exclusively through online gaming, allowing players to battle against and alongside the Warhawk online community. Through various gameplay modes such as Team Deathmatch, Territories Mode and Capture the Flag, players engage in cooperative online play or fend for themselves against a barrage of enemies in thrilling combat. During battle, players can take command of the most advanced war machine in the fleet, the Warhawk, capable of aerobatic dogfights at high speeds or hovering over ground troops providing tactical support. Players continue the battle on foot with an arsenal of weaponry including rifles, flame throwers, grenades and more. Furthermore, players can gain access to an array of ground vehicles and lay waste with powerful weapons mounted on jeeps, tanks and specialty transports.

Warhawk Returns...

There are 3 ways you can purchase Warhawk for the Playstation 3. You can buy the $60 version which comes with a Bluetooth rechargable headset. These headsets come with a USB wire that can hook to your PS3 (like the Sixaxis controller) and you charge the headsets. You can also use your own Bluetooth or USB headsets if you choose. This is where the $40 game comes in. You can now purchase the game only at some stores. The third choice is that you can go onto the Playstation Store for $39.99 and you can download it and to your PS3 Hard Drive...

We first saw the Playstation 3 version of Warhawk back when the system first launched at E3. It has changed dramatically since then. Everything you knew about the Playstation version of Warhark must be thrown out the door. While you can still fly around in cool hover-jets that is pretty much the only thing that is the same. The developers have now added an all-out new structure to the game. You basically can fight any way you want in Warhawk. Your character basically starts out on foot and you can go around collecting various weapons. These weapons will help you out while you are on foot. The weapon icons are spread out all around each map. Each weapon is limited in ammo so you will ahve to keep running around refilling your weapons with ammo. These weapons range from a knife (used for close-up attacks on enemies) to a basic gun and machine gun. You can also grab a flamethrower that will pretty much lite up your enemy. One of the favorite weapons in Warhawk is the missle launcher. This is the weapon that will help you take out tanks and hover-jets that are flying around in the sky. The great thing about the rocket launcher is the fact that you can lock onto a target (a hover-jet or a tank) and then it will send out a heat seeker missle. You can also grab a sniper rifle that will zoom in. You can pretty much find a nice spot to hide out and zoom in on your enemies. I found that the sniper rifle is really easy to use. I set up at my base and zoomed in halfway across the map and started taking out enemies by the handful. You have 2 sets of zooms for the sniper. The second setting works well when you have enemies miles away. There are also binoculars which you can zoom in and hold the target. Once you are locked on it is basically like having an airstrike and a huge rain of fire will fall down killing your enemy.

Let me get into the various weapons and vehicles that you can climb into. First I will start with the smaller weapons and work my way up to the big daddy weapons. The game has small gun turrets that are placed all around the maps. They are all stationary so you cannot rip the gun off of it’s turret. There are also large guns (4-cannon guns) that you can climb into and fire away. Other large-scale weapons are missle (2-cannon) launchers that will have you launching large missles at your enemies. Vehicles are also spread out across each map. One of the smaller vehicles that you can climb into is the jeep. You can fit three players in one jeep. One will drive, one will be a passenger and one will man the turret on the back of the jeep. Jeeps are faster on the ground and can be used to move across the larger maps instead of going on foot. Next on the vehicle list is the tank. You can have two people man a tank. One will drive and shoot the cannon while the other can sit inside and pop out from the top hatch to fire their weapon. The thing I love about being a passenger is that if you have a missle launcher or flame thrower you can use this anytime while you are riding along. You just pop your head out and start firing. The downfall about this vehicle (as well as the others) is if you are riding with 2-3 people and someone kills you thats 2-3 points and kills that they rack up on one hit.

Lastly is the Warhawk vehicle itself. This vehicle can pick up a variety of weapons that are littered across the sky. Weapons for the Warhawk range from heatseeking missles to manually-guided missles to monster bombs that can be dropped on a target. Your Warhawk anso has a regular gun that can be used in the heat of battle. I personally like the manually-guided missle. This is basically a missle that you fire and guide to the target. This is good if you are hiding somewhere and just hovering. You fire away and use your controller to guide the missle to the target you desire. You can control the movement as well as the speed of the missle. Another weapon for your Warhawk is lightning (electricity). You can also plant air mines. These just sit in the sky and some unlucky soul might fly into it and blow up. Finally there is a cloaking device that will turn your Warhawk invisible. This is good for ground attacks. Usually someone is always on the ground looking up to shoot you down. So this helps in some spots.

As you all know, Warhawk is strictly a online only game for the Playstation 3. There are no single player missions or offline modes. Your buying this game to play with other people online (or you can play at home with a few friends in splitscreen 4-player battles). Online gaming is pretty much the trend now so if you are buying this game I am sure you are aware of this. Warhawk consists of about 5 huge maps. Each has it’s own unique style. For instance one map is a large jungle island seperated by 2 main bridges. This is pretty much the basis for each map. Another map takes place in the clouds. Just think of Cloud City from Star Wars. These maps are huge! Some of them are nearly impossible to travel from one point to the farthest on foot. Modes are pretty straight forward. There is battle mode which is basically every man for himself. There is also team battle which is basically the blue team against the red team. Warhawk also features modes like capture the flag and zone. The whole basis of the game is like any other multi-player onoine FPS on the market. It is your team against the other team. The red base is on one side of the map while the blue base is on the other side. Scattered around the maps are smaller bases that can be overtaken. Once these smaller spots are overtaken by your team you can re-spawn at these spots after you die. Your points, kills, etc will all be tracked and you can see them while in the game menu (online). At the time I reviewed Warhawk the server was having some major issues. You could not save your kills and points. I am hoping they resolve this problem soon (there is a message when you log online that says they are trying to resolve these issues). Once you start racking up on points and kills you can edit your characters as well as the Warhawk designs (which is sweet). You also have the ability to start your own clan and invite people to join up. While there are no friend invites you can have a Buddy List and Favorites List that you can check to see if your friends are playing in a game (and join in if they are online). 

You can also use your Playstation 3 as a server. You can host and choose to play or just sit back and watch. There are many options when you set up your own server. You can set up a map cycle list and save them on your HD. You can also choose options like team balance, voice chat option, team kills, time limits, match numbers, etc. During the game if someone is getting on your nerves and not following the rules you can boot them from the game (as well as ban them). If you want to set up a match with just your friends you can set a password in order to get into the game. There are a ton of options for playing and hosting your own matches directly from your Playstation 3 system.