http://store.steampowered.com/app/271290/
You will need a Meteor Account (Hawken Account) to play:http://www.playhawken.com/enlist
What is Hawken? - Hawken Steam Page wrote:
- HAWKEN is a multiplayer first person shooter for PC that places you inside a mechanized war machine on the battlefield of a dystopian world called Illal. With strategic, fast-paced gameplay, HAWKEN features incredible alien landscapes, customizable and upgradable mechs, and dynamic experiences across multiple competitive game modes.
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In Hawken, you begin with one basic Mech. You can buy new ones that fit various roles for various prices.
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These are the currently available mechs, with more to be added later.
Mechs are divided into six classes. Assault, your general offensive based mechs, Suppression, your general skirmishers/mid-line supporting fire, Assassination, your get-in, get-out hit and runners, Ranged, your longer ranged snipers, Defense, your mid-line/backline defensive mechs, and Support, which contain the one mid-combat medic and Incinerator.
Other than classes, Mechs are also divided into size, Small, Medium, and Large. Small mechs have an average smaller HP pool but highest average mobility, Large has largest HP pool and lowest mobility, and Mediums are as usual, in between.
With the exception of the Assault G2, which can be unlocked after leveling the Classic Assault (G1) to max mech level, every other mech can either be purchased with in-game money or real money. Meteor Credits are real-money credits, Hawken Credits are regular ingame currency, similar to RT versus UC.
Gameplay:- Spoiler:
Gameplay is divided into three main classes. Regular versus is your standard public matchmaking, with Siege, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Missile Assault, and a playlist for all gamemodes. Coop is a wave based survival where you fight of AI of increasing difficulty. Squad Match is similar to VS Matching but is limited to full parties of six.
Gamemodes:-Team Deathmatch: Your standard two teams frag race. First team to X number of kills wins.
-Missile Assault: Similar to Domination, where two teams capture and hold objectives. Each objective will deal passive damage to enemy "base", first base to no health loses.
-Deathmatch: Free-for-all standard frag race.
-Siege: Collect Energy from points, bring it back to base, launch your battleship, and control the Anti-Air at the center to protect your ship as it destroys the enemy base. First base to zero loses.
Customization:- Spoiler:
Most mechs have one unchangable secondary, locked to right click, and a default main weapon, left click, and two other ones that can be unlocked with real money or leveling up and then buying with ingame currency.
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Items are ingame consumables that self-replenish after death. This runs on a six slot system, allowing you to put whatever you can fit. These are generally grenades, EMP/IMS throwables, turrets, deployable shields, etc.
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Internals are mech "upgrades, things such as increased energy collection speed, converting x% of sustained damage into instant fuel, the ability to do a fast 180 in midair, etc. Same six slot system. Either take a bunch of basic internals, or a few higher tier ones.
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Consumables are for Coop Bot Destruction and help you to survive the waves.
Other customization includes aesthetics, eg. your mech appearance.
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Under Cosmetics, you can change the paint pattern, colors, and parts of your mech. These are all visual only and have no effect on gameplay.
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Under Cockpit, you can change the various colors for specific things along with your reticles. Mostly preference with little to no impact on actual gameplay.
Leveling:There are two main leveling aspects to this game.
Pilot Levels: Pilot levels are sort of your pilot rank. This will be used to provide clearance to higher tier items/internals for mechs. These unlocks will be universal across all mechs.
Mech Levels: Isolated to that one mech, this will provide clearance for alternate primary weapon options
for that one mech. This is not universal. To unlock alt. main weapons for another mech, you have to level that one individually. This is where the brunt of your time will be taken up, for each new mech you get will need to be leveled again. This is also where most of the replay-ability value is.
You have to have purchased a mech in order to customize it, and in the event you don't have a mech but want to try it, every month or two there is a change in the rotating Test Drive lineup. Three mechs will be available for use without purchasing with some pre-upgraded things. As of now, purchasing from Test Drive will not include said upgrades, but later may be incorporated into the game.
Subjective Commentary:My recommendation of this comes with the once common theme between Cosmic Break and Hawken, customization mech based combat. Other than that, the similarities disappear. Unlike Cosmic Break, Hawken's real-money credit system is based on a ratio of time-saving, charging you X amount of dollars to access something early based on the average time it would take for you to unlock with purely in-game currency. That said, anything influential to gameplay, eg. weapons, mechs, items, and internals, can be purchased with both ingame currency and real money. Secondly, this game is first person, six versus six based, rather than the large 15 vs 15 and 30 v 30 rooms of Cosmic Break. Both these games require some aspect of balanced teams, as in you'll need tanky mechs, assault and assassination, and general skirmishers to complete objectives. Sticking together, unlike in Cosmic Break, is very important as it will keep the entire team alive with the mass damage output of an entire team together. However, assassination classes are built specifically to whittle away at teams, killing them one at a time with their high burst damage potential. However, this means if your team is incompetent at working the objective or sticking together, you will likely lose. The customization is certainly lackluster compared to Cosmic Break's raw customization potential for mech units, along with lacking variety in weaponry, as many classes share similar weapons. However, most of Hawken's gameplay customization comes from your Items and Internals, which you cannot directly see for the most part. Most aesthetic items cost real money or are unlocked through leveling your pilot. The grindy aspect of this game will not come from gathering materials for mechs, are there are no tune-ups or anything of the sort, but in mech leveling and credit gathering. For the most part, this game is extremely friendly to the completely
freemium player, which makes it much more healthy on the wallet. The learning curve is a little difficult to explain. First, you get used to the controls and how the turning mechanic works. After that, the game is relatively easy to pick up and go as long as you understand the function of your mech. Afterwards, if you want to become really good, the curve spikes, as mastering this game is not an easy feat.
Since Beta:Since closed and open beta, this game has changed quite a bit. They experimented for a time with a sort of tune up progression, pseudo-MMORPG style, which was abandoned, and for the most part, ramped up the graphics quality, increased the movement speed for everything, and had rebalancing and new maps in order to make the gameplay faster than it was in beta. If you did not enjoy Hawken during beta due to gameplay being slow, you may want to revisit it now. That and the graphics have improved a lot.
