If you’re like me you may have found yourself playing some
free to play titles lately. Especially if you have the convenience of hitting “Play
Now” on the game’s product page on Steam. One of the more notable freely
available titles is Hawken. Giant robot deathmatches. Giant Robot Deathmatches!
This time we use them to fight for sport!
Hawken is a multiplayer arena shooter in the vein of Quake
III or Unreal Tournament, only with giant robots that look like they were
hastily put together inside a junkyard. The look and feel of the game is pretty
spot on; I believe that in some sort of distant future mechs made from scrap
fight it out for some reason or another. I really didn’t bother to look into
the lore of the game, all you need to know is that some other mechs will have a
red indicator on your heads up display and you need to shoot them before they
shoot you. You will be awarded experience points for your pilot and separate mech
levels and Hawken Credits that can be used to purchase new mechs and weapons. There
are also Meteor Credits that can bought with real money that can be used to
purchase practically any item in the game if you desire.
This is the best looking free to play game I’ve ever played.
The graphics are on par with what a full retail release backed by a major publisher
but do suffer from the lack of color modern games tend to have. There is a
forest map that’s a nice change but everything still has the “grim future”
color palette that gets used to promote “realism.” The weapons are well
rendered and animate believably when fired. It’s obvious that a great deal of effort
was put into the development of Hawken and it looks great.
Driving your mechanical monstrosity (the “recruit” robot
looks like a CRT monitor, if you remember those) should be second nature to
anyone who has played a first person shooter in the last decade. Movement is
handled with WASD and aiming is controlled by the mouse, like God intended. The
real difference is in the actual locomotion of your heap of metal, the SHIFT
key is used to boost. Holding shift and moving forward will make you mech “run”
with boosts without weapon use but holding shift and hitting the left or right
movement keys will let you “strafe dodge” in a burst in the desired direction
while holding shift and backwards will make you do a 180 degree turn that is
extremely useful as these machines take time to turn. Don’t forget that you can
hover as well, your foes may not always look up. Once familiar with the
movement feel free to click on your enemies until they die. Each mech has a
unique ability that uses the F key and really helps to differentiate robots in
the same weight class by reducing heat levels, increasing accuracy, or turning
your heavy bot into a mobile turret. The slower, more mechanical movement makes
the game seem more methodical and less “twitch” than the more popular
competitive first person shooters out there and it is welcome.
The regular modes are here for your enjoyment: Deathmatch,
Team Deathmatch, and Point Defense (Missile Assault). The modes work well and
can be finished rather quickly with a Deathmatch style game lasting 10 minutes
which is perfect for any length of play session. Siege is a semi-unique mode
that operates as a multi stage point defense mode that splits your tasks from
collecting enough energy to launch a battleship and defending a single anti air
battery to protect or destroy airborne battleships. A Co-op Bot Destruction
(Horde) mode has been added recently and is a nice change from always facing
human opponents; it can take an hour or more to survive all 25 waves, so be
sure you have the time before you bail on your fellow pilots.
This is a free to play game that still wants your money.
Grinding out Hawken Credits to buy new mechs and weapons can take quite a while
so you need to pick what style of mech you want to pilot so you can spend your
hard earned points effectively. The grind may be a factor, but it’s a good
game. It’s better to think of these games as a “pay what you want” sort of
model, if they made everything available to you they may as well charge you for
initial entry into the program. If you like the game, throw them a couple of
bucks. I’m sure I’ll rant about the pay models in free to play games in the
future…
Playing Hawken doesn’t take any initial investment so you
might as well try it. If you love giant robots the concept art alone will get you
pumped. This is my favorite free to play game, the pay model is bearable
without having to spend heaps of cash, and there are big robots that shoot each
other.
