Tom Clancy and I have a tough relationship. On the one hand, I feel it's almost my civic duty as an American to hold the author in high esteem. I gotta hand it to the man whose name graces the covers of classics like Splinter Cell and the Rainbow Six series. But as a gamer, I have to wonder: Exactly how many times are we gonna have to face off against radical nationalists from vaguely fictional nations? I'm down with the explosions, Mr. Clancy, but do we really need all this...story getting in the way?
It's a tough question, but thankfully, I'm not the only one asking it. Ubisoft has just released a new H.A.W.X 2 mini-game to get America's dogfighters ready for the real game's release date, September 7th. The mini-game discards most of the narrative baggage that typically accompanies this sort of military simulator and sends you into the fray with a delightfully simple mission: Shoot anything that moves. You don't even have to press any buttons to fire your weapons--the game kind of assumes you'll want to be doing that perpetually.
Of course, there's (a little bit) more to the 8-bit H.A.W.X 2 than just furious air-to-air combat. Before you deploy, you'll be able to plan your visit to the danger zone and choose from four different fighter planes--and just for the H.A.W.X elite, there's also one secret, unlockable aircraft waiting in the wings. See what I did there? Wings? Anyway. You've also got a bunch of power-ups to collect along the way and a temporary invincibility you can activate to get out of tight spots.
I'm gonna just go ahead and say it: the H.A.W.X 2 8-bit mini-game is more fun than the original H.A.W.X. But hey, this is America--check it out and make your own decision.
I'm still waiting for one of these dogfighting games to let you pick your own cheesy Top Gun codename.
