With that said, the game isn’t perfect in some areas. Specifically, the problems with the initial game lie within play progression, ranking and UI. And while you can take these categories as something a reviewer like me would complain about, the fans also voiced their concerns about them.
Thankfully, Adhesive Games listened to the good folks of the interwebs (and maybe the critics) and have been working on what could only be described as a brand new way of doing all the things above to improve the looks, feel and gameplay of HAWKEN. We had a chance to sit in on a live-gameplay discussion with the developer and find out what exactly they’ve been working on. What we came away with was nothing short of impressive.
First and foremost, the UI has completely changed. There is a helluva lot less confusion with what you see on the screen. Most of what you get is located on the left side of the screen. The left side categories consist of Home, Garage, Market, Training, Career and Settings/Exit.
What’s remarkable about this new vertical layout is that it completely makes sense, especially when you start choosing the categories and the layout becomes a bit more attractive to the eyes. The categories are revealed horizontally to show off a fresh amount of choices. For example, the ‘garage’ sprawls out to reveal several categories that break down elements of the mech, which include an ‘internals’ category. The ‘internals’ category refer to things that make the internals of the mech work better (the actual insides of the mechs). Think of it as an ‘what’s under the hood that can be improved’ option. You have six slots to put upgrades/improvements into this particular sub-category. Each mech gets six slots for each individual sub-category, which expands the amount of customization the players can do. Think about that for a second. If you have five sub-categories within one main category then you have six slots to play within each other. That’s a lot of choices to make.
Neat stuff, eh?
Staying with the Garage category, there is also a subcategory called ‘Style’. Players can customize their mechs and see those customizations in real-time as they’re made. For example, if you want your mech to be blue, then you can change the mech to blue. You can stylize your mech to meet your creative needs. The styling can also represent the rankings the player has achieved. As the players rank up and gain more XP, more style options are opened up. That means if you see a particular color of mech in a game then you might be able to identify where that player ranks. It’s a pretty nice improvement.
By the way, did you catch the ‘player ranking’ part of the above paragraph? Yep.
On the top of the screen you get a bevy of information about your XP, meteor credits and player ranking. Part of the new upgrade to player progression is the inclusion of rankings for players. The ranking helps players unlock more mechs and provides more opportunities for players to feel appreciated by their HAWKEN efforts. The rankings for players range from 1 to 30.
All in all, the improved layout of the above categories is far less of an eye sore than the original layout, and that’s a huge deal. Adhesive Games did one helluva job reworking the UI, so much that it looks completely like a different game. It’s not simply a tweak; it’s a full out reworking and redesign. You gotta love it. It shows a lot of love and passion for their product, as well as their need to improve items that their fans want improved. There’s nothing quite like a company listening to its audience. That makes for a beautiful relationship in the long run.
UI aside, other items of improvement with HAWKEN include the following:
– Six person party system available.
– Ability to earn XP for a new mech through a maxed out mech (and you can only earn/move the XP if the previous mech is maxed out).
– There are five tiers of mech levels.
– The cockpit view has been reworked to make it easier on the eyes; more simplified.
– Skill trees have been replaced by ‘Tuning’, which is far easier and less WoW.
– Training/Help system is much easier to figure out thanks to an ‘always on’ helper in the upper-right hand side of the screen.
– New maps coming, including one called Last Ecco, a forest-based map..
Again, it’s great to see a developer listen to its fans on potential improvements. These improvements are significant, not at all small potatoes. The inclusion of the player’s ranking is enough to make a mathematician nuts, which makes it all the more impressive to a free-to-play game incorporate such a thing.
If you’re a fan of HAWKEN, look for all these improvements by the end of August. It certainly makes the gameplay experience that much better.
