The game “Starhawk” is a great idea for an online-shooting game, but you have to overlook a few serious (non-fatal) flaws to really enjoy it. The game “Starhawk” is a great idea for an online-shooting game, but you have to
The game “Starhawk” is a great idea for an online-shooting game, but you have to overlook a few serious (non-fatal) flaws to really enjoy it.
You don’t need to know anything about the negligible plot except that there’s a war going on between a few species in space.
When you jump into an online match, there are two teams lined up on either side of a gigantic battlefield in the middle of a space colony. You are thrown onto one of those teams.
And then you engage in the usual online-multiplayer craziness — running, driving or flying over the battlefield to shoot rivals on the other team.
However, what is awesomely different about “Starhawk’s” online battles is they give you the option to instantly manufacture weapons and vehicles on the battlefield.
So let’s say you want to drive a four-wheeler. You simply press a button, and presto, a four-wheeler appears in front of you. You jump in it, then drive away.
Or if you want to drive a Transformer-esque flying tank, you press a button and make that vehicle appear immediately.
So there are two magnificent traits in “Starhawk.” Primarily, the game runs incredibly smoothly, without lags or major game play difficulty.
Secondarily, it comes with that great bonus of letting you manufacture (on the fly) weapons, jetpacks, land-based vehicles, flying vehicles and supply-fortresses.
Sadly, there are two reasons why I’m not giving “Starhawk” a four-star review.
Flaw No. 1: I keep getting stuck in matches with small teams of two or three gamers each. That’s not much fun for me, because the battlefields are so large, it takes a boring forever to move around and find rivals to engage in a firefight.
I have spent most of some 30-minute battles just running around looking for bad guys. And many of my matches have ended due to some sort of server error. That’s not good.
Flaw No. 2: On a few occasions, a rival teammate has been un-killable. In one match, two teammates and I emptied all our guns and grenades at one simple dude standing in front of us, but he wouldn’t die. Instead, he invincibly just kept killing us. So we all quit that match. That was a problem.
By the way, the game does come with an offline solo campaign. But the game’s makers reportedly added this solo campaign as an extra consideration. So “Starhawk” is really all about the online multiplayer.
Bottom line: If you own a PlayStation 3, it’s worth at least renting “Starhawk,” and maybe even buying it, just to tinker around with its smooth and unique online-shooter, as long as you stay calm during the flaws.
“Starhawk” by Sony retails for $60 for PS 3 — Plays fun online but less fun offline. Looks good. Challenging. Rated “T” for blood, language and violence. Three out of four stars.
Doug Elfman is an award-winning entertainment columnist who lives in Las Vegas. He blogs at http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/Doug_Elfman.html. Twitter at VegasAnonymous.
