Warhawk

Now land it.

Source // PlayStation

The 1001 book contains a lot of pictures, and it usually brings out a chuckle when I find that the imagery chosen was one of the first you could find with a basic image search. What puzzles me from time to time, though, is imagery that doesn't quite represent the game that it's attached to.

You see, I'm lead to believe that Warhawk is about flying a fancy looking futuristic jet fighter through the skies as war rages below you. At least that's what the box art shows me. And doesn't 'hawk' lend itself to aircraft more than tanks?

A multiplayer exclusive game for the PlayStation 3, whose single-player content was supposedly cut for lack of quality. Ooh. This is going to be tricky.

Source // PlayStation

Frustrations

When I started going through this 1001 list, I knew some games just weren't going to happen. Even in 2015, when I began, the thought of being able to play a multiplayer-only PS3 title was close to being silly. People had moved onto other games, other consoles even. Nobody had time to keep an ageing game alive. And besides, no game is truly safe from the dreaded server shutdown. By the time I get around to the PS3 in X years time, there's no chance I'll be able to play. I don't even own a copy of Warhawk yet.

As I was looking around charity and second-hand shops trying to fill out the library, I'd come across Warhawk sitting on a shelf for 50p, and that wasn't even in a charity shop. That's the going rate. It's closer to £2 if you get a copy with a headset. Everything about that price was telling me not to bother with it, rather than this is a bargain.

So I kept not buying a copy for 50p whenever I saw it, assuming it was long dead and I'd missed my chance to play. Well, actually, that's not quite right.

Source // PlayStation

While I assumed it was dead - and officially it was, though it clung on until January 2019 - I also couldn't shake my first impression of it, a now-infamous E3 tech demo showing off the PS3's motion controls in action.

The new Sixaxis controller would give players an incredible degree of precision control in flying these fancy fighters, opening up entirely new ways to interact with a video game... Let's just watch this delightful clip once more.

Yeah. The game might have looked alright, but if I looked like that while playing it, I'm just going to steer clear.

The controls would, of course, be optional, but as I continue reading the Wikipedia page, I learn that server connectivity issues would hamper access to the game after its release, and all signs pointed towards an experience that just wasn't what I'm sure was intended.

Source // PlayStation

But apparently, there is still life in Warhawk. There is offline multiplayer, split-screen even, for up to 4 players. For some reason, the Wiki entry then reads "(without bots)", ensuring once more my 50p stays firmly in my piggy bank. Does Warhawk even want people to play it?

The dedicated fanbase does, with apps that hook up to your PS3 to feed it server IPs from whoever is running it these days, and people are. You can find recent YouTube videos of the action, and could, in theory, join in yourself.

Source // PlayStation

What could you be getting up to? I suppose it's best described, at least to me, as kind of like a third-person Battlefield game where you can roam the map on foot, in vehicles, or through the skies in multiplayer modes we could all likely list without too much effort - team deathmatch, capture the flag, some kind of domination mode...

I'll give Warhawk props for twisting some of these modes into something a bit different, not that I've played them to know if they're any good, of course. It's a multiplayer-only game, you have some idea of what you're getting into.

Source // PlayStation

Or rather what you're not getting into. Or I'm not getting into, certainly. Even at 50p, the hassle of getting Warhawk up and running for a game to see what was briefly popular 13 years ago doesn't appeal to me, mostly because Warhawk doesn't appeal to me.

Source // PlayStation

Final Word

Thanks to that tech demo, I was out of there even before the game was released, and if I've no real interest in something, it's going to be hard to muster up any all these years later to see if I was wrong to have done so.

Warhawk could be a fun time. I was seriously considering nabbing a ROM of the PlayStation original title to play in place of its PS3 remake, for the joke of it being the closest I was going to get to playing Warhawk. Just look at how similar it is.

Source // PlayStation

The aircraft design isn't too shabby. Focus on that and I might have had more of an interest, even with motion controls - as long as they were reigned in a little more than that demo.

I clearly can't say one way or another what Warhawk is like, and I don't think I ever will. Not until a price drop. 25p?

If you enjoy Warhawk and feel I've kicked this game for no reason at all, I apologise. I played the hell out of MAG and was sad to see it go after just 4 years. Warhawk managed 12 before an official shutdown. I suppose it was serving up a much smaller player base, though...

Anyway, cherish online gaming while you can, because after that, all you'll have are frustrations and memories.

Fun Facts

The servers Warhawk were running on were actual PS3s used for the sole purpose of hosting 32 players in a Warhawk match.

Warhawk, developed by Incognito Entertainment, first released in 2007.

Version watched: PlayStation 3, 2007 (bookshelffury)