Hawken

[Zeether]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm7gEDhr ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD ... re=related

This is an independently developed first person mech game on Unreal engine, and it looks...fucking awesome. Cannot wait to see what this is like when it comes out, they plan on making it a downloadable release on PC/PS3/360 so I'm guessing they're shooting for Steam on PC and PSN/XBLA. For something made by such a small indie team it's got amazing environments.

[Elixir]

it looks good but what if the gameplay sucks

[Udderdude]

They used a pre-built engine designed especially for this kind of gray and brown shooter, made some gray and brown shooter assets and now everyone is creaming their jeans over it. Pretty lame, really.

[Jockel]

They used a pre-built engine designed especially for this kind of gray and brown shooter, made some gray and brown shooter assets and now everyone is creaming their jeans over it. Pretty lame, really.

Yeah It's easy for gamers to complain, go make a better ga--- oh damn, you actually did.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

What impressed me was how such a small indie dev team could make the game look so good, I believe they reused the background graphical models but unlike Dragon Age 2 in a good way.

I loved Mechwarrior back in the day but Ill still pass on this since its online only and no single player

They used a pre-built engine designed especially for this kind of gray and brown shooter, made some gray and brown shooter assets and now everyone is creaming their jeans over it. Pretty lame, really.

Imo much of this praise comes from PC gamers who see what such a small dev team has done compared to similar games that have much larger dev teams. I think theres hope that it will help usher in other PC games and bringing back the B class / middle budget games that are quite rare this gen.

[Udderdude]

What impressed me was how such a small indie dev team could make the game look so good, I believe they reused the background graphical models but unlike Dragon Age 2 in a good way.

Yeah you can definitely tell they re-used the same background stuff a lot. Especially in the run down futuristic city map. It's hard to notice though.

Imo much of this praise comes from PC gamers who see what such a small dev team has done compared to similar games that have much larger dev teams. I think theres hope that it will help usher in other PC games and bringing back the B class / middle budget games that are quite rare this gen.

It also took them years to reach this point. In which time a large dev team could have finished a game and started on another one.

PC gamers are pretty much desperate for any attention at this point as most of the major devs are now doing console first, PC second (with the PC ports being half-assed and missing a lot of features that made PC games what they are)

[Blackbird]

The environments looked a lot more interesting aesthetically than the usual fare. I liked how "cobbled together" the futuristic buildings looked.

The mechs themselves don't look bad, but the animation looked really twitchy/jerky. I hope they fix that up in the final version, because it's really distracting from what is otherwise a graphically impressive game.

[mortified_penguin]

People will complain about anything. Looks great.

[GaijinPunch]

Funfact: I was drinkin' w/ a friend named Hawken last night. True story.

[RNGmaster]

This actually looks really promising and over-the-top. I don't play that many FPS's, but to be honest I really love mechs.

[Cuilan]

It also took them years to reach this point.

They've been working on this game for less than a year. That first video shows 9 months of work.

[Udderdude]

I read somewhere it took years, guess I was mistaken.

Anyway, I can't imagine this lending well to anything more than a slaughter fest mech shooter. Virtual On is still going to be better. :3

[Ganelon]

No matter how good, the unfortunate truth is that western gamers won't buy it anyway. Mecha games haven't really been popular since MechWarrior 2. Still, this could support a nice niche scene if executed well and if there are interested parties.

[Zeether]

I agree on the twitchy movements...could be lag from the server they were testing it on but if not it would be nice if they fixed it.

Mech games do seem to have become unpopular recently since that new Mechwarrior game seems to be in development hell thanks to the bastards at Harmony Gold (again!)

[Siren2011]

Let's just hope they're creative about how the mech functions and moves, like in Steel Battalion. I'd hate to see this beautiful game go to waste by merely mimicking the overused Half Life 2 Deathmatch formula of "get your kill count as high as possible, and that's pretty much it".

Udderdude, it's supposed to look gritty. It's war. I think they could have done a lot worse, aesthetically.

The art direction kind of reminds me of Phantom Dust for Xbox (you know the particular city map). Gotta love those special effects, too.

Anyway, I can't imagine this lending well to anything more than a slaughter fest mech shooter.

That's the impression I got from the video...hopefully we're wrong.

[TLB]

Open beta

[njiska]

Installed it, but won't have a chance to play until I get home on Saturday/Sunday.

[GaijinPunch]

Umm.. where the fuck is Steven Hawking in this video?

[Hagane]

Installed it but I'm stuck at "syncing account".

[Specineff]

Wow. They get points for aesthetics alone. Looks like GITS (The movie) meets District 9. Hope it can be played in 3rd person.

[Jeneki]

Umm.. where the fuck is Steven Hawking in this video?

Installed it but I'm stuck at "syncing account".

These two are great when read back to back.

[Gozer]

Unable to play this.

I've got place holder text on the menus. Waiting for a fix.

[njiska]

Gave this a try tonight. Looks pretty, handles nice. Hopefully I'll be able to earn some cash and get some upgrades to see how mech design feels. Kind of bummed there was no real room for customization off the bat. It's have liked to have been given an initial budget instead.

[spadgy]

I interviewed the Hawken developer and publisher recently, and wrote a feature on it for Develop magazine.

And now it's gone up online. Here's what I wrote.

Also - I can't take credit for the headline - that was a colleague's work!

[Vexorg]

I've been playing this a little bit now, and I'm quite enjoying it so far. It is a little bit annoying that it looks like ALL the aesthetic parts for the mechs require paying actual money, but at least all of the functional items can be unlocked through gameplay alone (although it would take a LOT of playing to do it. ) The gameplay isn't particularly deep, but it doesn't really need to be.

I expect I'd probably play this for a bit, get bored of it and not bother going back, but it's not bad for free.