They may look like some pipes of steel welded together, but Hawken’s war machines are surprisingly agile. Meteor’s free-to-play shooter gives you control of a twenty-foot-tall mechanical warrior, but it’s not another MechWarrior: the maps here are small, and the combat fast paced.
It’s all about the movement.
As my Mech walks around shaking rocks on the ground around, the cockpit wobbles and dirt flecks the windshield. I hear the mechanical clank of each heavy footstep, and when I fire my weapons I can sense the vibrations shaking my chassis. When I move the mouse to turn, there’s a slight delay and the whir of a motor as my torso swivels around. I haven’t felt as physically connected to a first-person game since Mirror’s Edge.
Ever since I got my hands on the Alpha way back in 2012, I’ve been absolutely hooked to Hawken
Hawken is an excellent first person shooter in the tradition of games somewhat along the lines of arena shooters like Quake or Unreal Tournament, but with a nice mech flare that gives Hawken a very unique feel.
There are well over a dozen mechs in the game, all with their own play styles, strengths, and weaknesses, and with quite a bit of customization for each one, from the way they perform to the way they look.
Maintaining Free to Play Blanance
they’ve limited the pay-only stuff to the cosmetic options like camo, thrusters, and repair drones that all have no effect on game play
You can unlock these customizations simply by playing a Mech, or by buying them with the in game currency. Free cosmetic customization options unlock as well as you level up the individual Mechs (mech level) and your overall earned experience across all Mechs (pilot level).
When I first got into it, I was a little worried since, as a free to play game, the possibility of pay-to-win rearing its ugly head was always a possibility, but my fears remained unfounded. Like all developers, these guys need to make money, but they’ve limited the pay-only stuff to the cosmetic options like camo, thrusters, and repair drones that all have no effect on game play.
You of course have the option to buy new Mechs and such straight away, too, but it’s never a requirement. All the Mechs and weapons are balanced very well overall, and there has never been a single must have mech or weapon that gives you an advantage over everyone else.
I did, personally, buy the Assault the moment the game entered open beta, as I knew from the closed testing it was the mech for me. However, every other mech, weapon, item, and internal in the game was bought with the currency I earned simply through playing – and I have them all.
There is a grind – but it is nowhere near as heinous as it is in plenty of other free-to-play titles out there, and I enjoyed every bit of the game play, I never once felt like I was having to grind out the equipment.
On top of all that, the community in this game is phenomenal.
I never wanted to get involved in an official community, or in a clan before
I never wanted to get involved in an official community, or in a clan before. It had always seemed stupid and pointless and bleergh. However, I was slowly pushed into it with Hawken, and it’s been a tremendous experience. So many of the players are extremely helpful, the developers are friendly and responsive, and my experience as a whole with this game was profoundly affected by my interactions with the community here. Seriously, it’s shockingly good for an online game.
“It’s a FREE TitanFall!”
Many like to assume at first glance that this game is a free version of the ever so hyped TitanFall, but I’d like to counter that
With my experience on both games I’d say that each game has its own play style. For a starter in Hawken if you don’t stick with your team you become easy meat for anyone on the enemy team and winning isn’t all about your KD, you do not earn money from big killstreaks but instead whether your team wins or not. While in TitanFall you do not rely on your teammates as much and can easily run around getting kills while your team loses.
We also find a great difference in control and how you feel when controlling your mech, in Hawken when you turn and walk you feel a little less agile but yet more powerful while in TitanFall you find yourself vulnerable to a simple human jumping on you back, opening a suspiciously open weakspot and taking you down with a machine gun. They’re two different games with different style, so lets not turn this into a war similar to BF & COD.
In all Hawken is one of the best F2P games out there available with amazing level design-WAIT!
How could I possibly forget?
The maps on this game are just AMAZING!
No other F2P could possibly look like this game! Each map has the perfect mix of close quarters combat to long-range sniper-friendly distances.
Map – Prosk
But as I was saying I wont go into detail since you can always find out more on the website. Links below. Feel free to try this and hey! It’s free!
By the way I made some fan art for HAWKEN, you can check it out on my steam here: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Iderpedtoharderror69/images/
