Mech-lovin’ developer Adhesive Games has published a new trailer showing off their new map Front Line. As ever, it’s a jaw-droppingly stunning design, with beautiful skies and detailed metal sheeting. A symmetrical map design, Adhesive promises a multitude of opportunities to surprise other players.
How do you make a level set in a desert seem to take place on a distant world? Adhesive have opted for making a couple small boulders float a meter off the ground. It’s a cunning approach, if a little on the lacklustre side. Otherwise, Facility is looking like a pretty neat map. In the video below see how lots of wide open spaces welcome mech-on-mech action.
Hawken’s stomping grounds just became a little more numerous, today’s update added a new map: Facility.
Other changes include upping every mech’s base armour, making taunts longer, and the submachine gun is no longer partially invisible (though, thinking about it, they don’t say whether it is now completely invisible).
I’m pleased to report that, if anecdotal evidence from my colleagues is any indication, playing Hawken has been a rewarding experience for quite some time. Our mad post-Xbox culture dictates it must also be meta-rewarding, however, and since last week’s Technician Update it’s been just that.
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This Friday on April 18th will see one of Hawkens biggest updates go live, adding its first support mech, the Technician. If that’s not enough, then you’ve also got the new Front Line map, new cosmetics, a ton of balance tweaks, an overhauled radar minimap and the Service Award achievement system.
Without further ado, lets get stuck into this one shall we?
Hawken players rejoice! Meteor Entertainment is adding a new map for you to tear up this month, dubbed “Front Line". A large-scale map with an open area suited to open warfare, while also riddled with alleys and tunnels to sneak around those deadly firefights. We’ve received a gallery of snaps of the new battlefield, so do as Meteor Entertainment says and do your homework.
For science!
Yeah, this is what we like: getting into our mechs and making a mess that somebody else will have to clean up.
As well as yesterday's pretty impressive Hawken April Fool, Hawken developer Adhesive Games have been showing off a new demo trailer that demonstrates levels being torn apart. Walls explode, ceilings collapse and floors give way.
With a Geocities-style web design so convincing I almost rebooted into Safe Mode to run a malware scan, Hawken’s fake April Fools mech store, KHANGsMECHS.COM, is pretty much what I imagine the internet will look like in our glorious giant battling robots future.
When Hawken first launched its open beta we felt like it was a little short on content, there were only a couple of levels to play about in and very few mechs with which to do so. The latest patch hopes to rectify that by adding both a new mech, the Raider, and a new map, Facility.
The patch introducing the two is also packed with weapon balances and bug fixes too.
There's no better way to show your love of mechs and other people than by covering your big stompy metal suit with huge sloppy, lipsticky kisses. Till now such a thing has required a giant pair of novelty lips and, well, your own 60 tonne metal death machine. Happily for us Adhesive games have now allowed you to do such a thing in their free-to-play mech game Hawken.
We got our first look at Hawken’s Reaper nary a week ago, yet here it is stood at the front door with its slug rifle poking through the downstairs bathroom window. Well, if we’re going to be so forward about this, we may as well write a list of all the things this young mech has going for it. Let’s run through them together after the break.
Hawken’s open beta continues apace, and there’s a new face at the party. Assembled from what appears to have been the wreckage of a collision between a Toyota Yaris and a solar-panelled barn, ladies and gentlemechs: the Reaper.
It's just not Christmas without mechs dragging giant sleighs packed with motor oil for the good baby mechs and cod liver oil for the bad baby mechs (a far inferior mechanical lubricant). So it's happy, happy news that Adhesive games seem to be hinting at a Christmas themed map being released in time for Christmas so we can play on Christmas day when we're feeling all Christmassy.
Hawken's open beta has been going for several days now. We sent three of our finest pilots into battle to see what they thought of the free-to-play mech game so far. Does it stand tall, or is it likely to stumble under its own weight? Julian, Paul and Tim share their impressions.
PC gaming: it never stops. Yesterday, Adhesive Games launched Hawken - a ridiculously impressive stompy robot shooter. It’s a gorgeous looking thing: a game that shows off what the PC is capable of when tech is placed in the hands of talented artists.
But it’s a bit more than that. As one of a growing number of free-to-play FPS games it’s a potential contender for next year’s most popular title. It’s fast, slick and hefty - but with a smart progression system that rewards extended play.
On the eve of it’s launch, I sat down to chat with Meteor Entertainment's CEO Mark Long, to talk about the challenges ahead, and why just getting through the game’s first day would be a major achievement.
Hawken launched its open beta yesterday, the magical date with all the 12s in it, meaning you can trundle off and download the client right now before jumping into some hot, metallic, robot-on-robot action. The open beta follows a series of short closed betas in which the free-to-play mech sim was panel-beaten into shape, though a glut of features are still yet to come. Producer Jason Hughes describes the launch, as well as his plans for the game's near future.
We've been calling 2012 the year of the mech for, well, the past year - Mechwarrior Online, Warface, and Natural Selection 2 have all fed into this title - but the game that did most to forge the nomenclature has been Hawken. As I write this there are less than two hours until the free-to-play mech shooter is open for all to play, to tide you over till then check out this launch trailer.
That’s 12.12.12 in the US parlance, of course. Funnily enough there’s a lot going on that day, but by all accounts free-to-play mech messabout sim Hawken is worth clearing your calendar for. This time next week Adhesive Games’ opus enters beta worldwide - everywhere except China, where the game is being publishing at a later date by Kong Zhong.
Hawken’s third closed beta opens tomorrow! That is to say, it will remain a closed sort of beta, but is now open to those in possession of a beta key. We have 5000 of them; more than we need, frankly. Would you like one?
