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I'm not much of a flight sim guy. The games have never really been forced in front of me, so I've never really had a reason to get into them. As you might imagine, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 is mostly foreign territory for me, as the title straddles the line between flight sim and arcadey flight game. With the exception of The Sky Crawlers and one of the Ace Combat games, I really have little experience with the genre and I have few expectations of what it should be. With that being said, H.A.W.X. 2 didn't make a convincing argument for me to invest more time in the genre. Unvaried objectives and out of place, filler UAV missions truly drag down the experience in the game's single player mode.

Players start H.A.W.X. 2 in the cockpit of a fighter jet, as a soldier who is embroiled in a conflict between warring nations. Perhaps it's a side effect of being featured in the Tom Clancy universe, but H.A.W.X. 2 is extremely heavy on story, which plays out both during missions and in between them. Honestly, it seemed like your atypical war story, complete with betrayal and twists, but it's been done a million times before, so I found myself skipping through the cutscenes to start my next mission.

After getting beyond the overbearing story, players have two distinct mission types which are alternated throughout the game. When not flying a plane, the obvious standard mission type, players are controlling a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to perform a variety of different tasks. Primarily, players will fly it over certain locations to spy on enemies, but in a select set of missions, they will be able to use a variety of weaponry to attack enemies from the sky. Of the offered UAV missions, these tend to be the most interesting, but they still aren't horribly exciting as they are slow-paced and long-lasting. Ultimately, the UAV missions, which were undoubtedly included to bring some variety to the game, fall flat and feel more like filler between the truly enjoyable parts of the game.

Piloting fighter jets is clearly the purpose of H.A.W.X. 2 and players can do this with the help of a variety of flight sticks that have been released for use with flight simulators. The problem: most gamers don't own a flight stick, myself included. As such, players are stuck controlling the game with the default system controller. This unfortunately isn't nearly as easy as it should be, especially when the plane is moving at high speeds. While I don't care to go into all the minutiae of control, it is worth explaining controlling the jet's movement. The left stick handles both ascending and descending via movement of the nose of the plane. It also handles left and right roll, wherein lies the problem. It feels natural to try and totally control movement of the plane with just this stick, but it can be frustratingly difficult because left and right roll is not quite suitable for making slight movements. Instead, players must use the L1 and R1 (LB and RB) buttons in order to shift the plane slightly. As mentioned, because it feels natural to control the plane with solely the left stick, the left and right buttons are rarely used, thus making the overall control awkward and unnatural.

These control imperfections manifest in their worst form during drills where players need to take-off, land, or refuel in the air. All three functions require precision control, which is not truly available from the default scheme. Once players can get past the controls, they can take a shot at completing the variety of flight missions in the game.

These missions will have players performing a number of different tasks, including dogfighting with enemy pilots, providing air support to ground/sea troops, and destroying structures with missiles. Regardless of the task, the missions always seem to be quite hectic, at least once they get going. Part of the problem with most of the missions is the lead up to the actual fight. In most instances, players start on the other side of the map for no perceivable reason. This can often result in needing to fly for several minutes over nothing just to hop into the fray. If players happpen to die or fail a mission early on, they can get stuck flying a portion of that trip over again, which becomes incredibly frustrating.

Upon actually getting into the mix of things, players will initially be quite impressed with the experience. Almost all encounters feature massive simultaneous dog fights between friendly and enemy AI, as well as a number of enemies who will solely focus on eliminating the player. Excitement and adrenaline will naturally kick in and players will find themselves using evasion tactics to outmaneuver missiles, and navigating their jet behind an enemy plane then locking on and eliminating the high-speed target. This excitement only increases when other types of targets are added into the mix and players need to balance what they are pursuing in order to be the most effective.

Unfortunately, the game becomes formulaic and tedious about halfway through because the dogfights are so frequent. Even worse, missions in general become frustratingly difficult due to the large number of concurrent targets that must be eliminated systematically so that the mission is not failed. This is seemingly due to the inclusion of an up-to-four player co-operative mode that allows players to conquer the missions in the game with a group of friends via the internet. Clearly Ubisoft is expecting players to approach the game with others, making the game unbalanced when playing as a single player, especially with an improper controller.

To the credit of H.A.W.X. 2, with others playing along, the game is far more interesting since it fairly balances the experience and integrates some strategy. What's even better, the various missions in the game can be played in a variety of ways outside of the campaign, most notably, in an arcade mode. This reduces some of the realism and changes the goals around, making for a somewhat unique, new experience.

While H.A.W.X. 2 won't blow anyone away, it can definitely be fun with the assistance of a friend. Those who are serious about their flight titles won't want to approach this one without a flight stick, as the controller seriously detracts from the experience. Unless you are already a fan of this pseudo-flight sim genre, it's unlikely anyone else will get much enjoyment from H.A.W.X. 2.