If eyes could get cavities, Warhawk would send you running to your
optometrist with a root canal.  Simply put the game is visually
stunning, and I consider it to be one of the first US released games
that truly separates the PSX from the 3DO.  Warhawk makes Shockwave look
like a mere ripple in a puddle.

Since I don't have a great deal of free time and since much has already
been said about this game, I'll just break it down to what I consider to
be the good and the bad.

The Good:

As has already been mentioned the graphics and animation are superb, and
are probably the best that I've ever seen on a home console.  While the
overall package in itself is enough to make any gamer drool, the little
touches are what really make this game shine: from being able to see the
superstructer of your splendidly textured light-sourced craft when you
take damage to the brilliant reflections in the placid water of the
canyon stage to the functioning navigation lights of your plane in
Stormland.

Of course there has to be substance behind the glitz, and luckily
Warhawk has the gameplay.  Like many others I found the controls to be
quite frustrating for the first several minutes, but quickly learned to
master the multitude of contortions through which you can put your plane
and really began to appreciate the advantages of the numerous buttons on
the PSX's pad and SingleTrac's skillfull employment of them.  Learning
when to use the crafts "hover" mode versus its "flying" mode is key to
success (especially in tight quarters such as the canyon or gauntlet
stages.)  Also the balance of difficulty versus challenge is well
achieved with three levels of skill settings and codes to advance to any
stage.  (Of course you don't get the true/good ending if try to just
skip directly to Stormland. Hehe, *nice* touch!)

The icing on the cake has to be the magnificently orchestrated music and
sound effects that accompany the graphics.  They add another dimension
to the game lending to that final touch that gives you the feeling that
you are that lone bad boy out there saving the world.  The flame section
of the gauntlet especially comes to mind where the eerie melodies truly
give you the impression that at any moment your plane's wing tips could
brush the flames casting you downards in a fatal spiral of burning
death. (This, coming from someone who heads straight for the options to
turn off the music.)

I could go on and on about what I like about this game, but I'd be
merely repeating what others have eulogized.  Suffice it to say that any
game that rewards you for "needlessly excessive enemy destruction" gets
an A in my book!

The Bad:

While I love this game, it does have room for improvement, or additions
that I would have liked to see added.  First of all I really wish all
developers would allow you to configure the controller to your liking
(i.e. all buttons should be assignable to the functions you wish.) and
equally importantly allow us to *save* the configurations, difficulty
level, etc. to the memory card.  There is really no excuse for not
utilizing the PSX's save features.  While the graphics are stupendous
there are occasional clipping problems and seams between polys.  Also the
airship, volcano and stormland levels have popup on the main enemy. (Not
that I find it terribly distracting, I'm just refuting another post that
claimed there was no popup whatsoever.)  Another feature I would have
liked added would be a compass on the radar.  It would aid greatly in
keeping your bearings and would somewhat eliminate the need for the
artificial barriers (assuming that they were put in so that you wouldn't
fly off to no man's land, and not due to technical limitations of the
PSX ;) Finally I don't like the fact that you have to hit the reverse
button twice to actually go into reverse.  I find very little need to
sit absolutely still (since you get pulverized quite rapidly in that
position.)  Even if the reverse button had a 1/4 second pause at zero
velocity before you started to back up would have been preferable, IMHO.

Well actually I do have one more gripe, I wish the game had more stages.
While I feel that I got more than my money's worth, the game is just so
damn enticing that you want to play more and more.  Hopefully they will
come out with "mission" disks as the title implies.

But these complaints are the mere raindrops forming the rainbow that is
called Warhawk! Really looking forward to future title's by Jay and
SingleTrac.

Todd
--
{Net/Sys}Manager
Center for Innovative Computer Applications - Indiana University
Email: tagreen@cica.indiana.edu URL: http://www.cica.indiana.edu/~tagreen