Starhawk Public Beta Impressions

Xan Hisam – With the public beta for Starhawk opening up to all PSN members soon, we finally got our hands on the game. A quick overview of the game is in order, I suppose, since Starhawk is unlike anything you’ve experienced before.

Being a spiritual successor to Warhawk, developer Lightbox Interactive have improved upon the core elements found in the original; with much success might I add, while expanding upon the third-person shooter formula by adding the option to build structures ‘on the fly’ in the heat of battle, rapidly transforming a warzone.

Called ‘Build n’ Battle’, the ability to create structures wherever and whenever you want adds a great amount of depth and strategy, turning even the simplest of maps into dynamic, ever-evolving battlefields.

At its heart, Starhawk plays like any other third-person shooter. A logical comparison would be the Star Wars: Battlefront series, and of course, Warhawk itself. Two teams; Rifters and Outcasts, duke it out like they would in any team-based shooter with each team trying to fulfill their victory objectives.

The victory objectives for either team are dependent on the game mode. Game modes currently available in the beta are Capture the Flag (CTF) and Team Deathmatch (TDM). Both are pretty straightforward, standard versions of the popular game modes, without any unique features.

Two other game modes hinted at in the matchmaking menu are Deathmatch and Zones. Zones is all about capturing and holding specific places on the map, whereas Deathmatch sounds like a free-for-all.

It will be interesting to see how both these modes play out with the Build n’ Battle feature at the disposal of each player. At the start of a match, you’re randomly put into either one of the two teams and deployed on to the battlefield via deployment pods.

When on the ground, you have access to a wide array of weaponry ranging from pistols, to sniper rifles, to rocket launchers. Jet fighters from Warhawk are replaced with large mechs called hawks that are capable of transforming into aircrafts.

They’re mighty useful for taking out enemy structures and have a lot of mobility when not on the ground. You can drive around in Razorbacks, the Starhawk equivalent of humvees, as well as other vehicles such as jet-bikes and tanks (the latter aren’t available in the beta as of yet, but have been confirmed for the final version).

Apart from all the vehicles, jetpacks can be obtained and used when on the ground. However, jetpack thrusters have a limit and require a cooldown period to recharge making it impossible to fly indefinitely with a jetpack.

Upon death, you can; after a small respawn timer, redeploy anywhere near your base or a Pod Beacon (more on that later) using the deployment pods mentioned earlier. During deployment, you can control your pod. Landing it on top of an enemy instantly kills them.

Build n’ Battle is where strategy and tactics (along with ‘Rift Energy’) come into play. Pressing Triangle (default key) in game pops up the Build n’ Battle menu and from here, you can select whichever structure you wish to build by navigating through a radial interface.

On a side note, selecting and then placing structures happens in real-time, so don’t get too comfortable (I hope you weren’t expecting the game to pause every time someone tried to build a structure, just imagine the horror).

Building structures requires Rift energy. Rift energy is the game’s most basic resource. It’s required for deploying structures, vehicles and for getting jetpacks. Rift energy is acquired by killing enemies and destroying their structures.

Rift energy is also accrued when standing in range of your team’s Rift harvester/generator (an indestructible structure that marks the boundaries of your primary base) or Pod Beacons. The Rift energy consumed in the construction of a structure can be partially recovered by demolishing structures yourself.