The Story

In the future humans start to move out into the galaxy and do what they do best, harvest natural resources and cause wars over energy. Only issue this time is that the main and most valuable source of energy, Rift Energy, also has the side effect of mutating humans into something worse. Enter in the Graves brothers, Emmett and Logan who are Rift miners who get attacked and exposed with Emmett being saved from complete mutation. Emmet then begins to take on jobs as a Rift Salvager, a mercenary who clears out Outcasts for a price. These are the adventures of Emmett.

Hated

Let me start off by saying that I was a little disappointed with the story for the single player mode. While it doesn't hinder the game play mechanics of the game, it just wasn't that interesting or very engaging to me. In fact when one of the named characters in the story gets severely hurt or killed, I honestly can't remember, I felt nothing more than "can I skip this just to get to the next part of the game?" Something that is also not an option to do. If it wasn't for my professionalism when reviewing, I probably would have taken each cut scene as a nice little drink or piss break. It was really not all that engaging to keep my attention.

Story aside now, let's move into the actual game mechanics. Well more game modes and more along the lines of the multiplayer. For the most part they are all straight forward but it felt like some where a little under explained for someone new to them in this franchise. I had no issue getting the hang of them, but when I gave Zones a try with a friend who had never played in split screen mode; I had to explain to them more of what was going on than the on screen instructions. Maybe he was a dullard (Just Kidding), but it did take them a few goes before they understood the objectives and allowed for me to gain a few levels of rank in the mean time.

This brings me to the last item. Maybe it was a design flaw or a way to give bonuses to those who prefer to play more of their multiplayer at home on split screen, but why can people gain online rank during a home split screen game? Not only rank, but "perks" too. This seems like it would lead to a little bit of unbalance online real quick, if not already. In the above matches where I really didn't have to try to win I ranked up two levels and gained extra skills. Skills that seemed to pop over into real online play. What's to stop people from doing this for a few hours at home, and then hop online to reap the rewards? I didn't get too far into the multiplayer of the game, but in what I did, it seems like a way someone could quickly unbalance the online game.

Loved

So while the story wasn't all that exciting to me, I did find the core game play an awesome new twist to the third person shooter. Almost adding in a full RTS feel where you also have to manage resources and tactical set ups of the battle field. Sometimes it was really easy to set up and steam roll specific portions of the game and other it took a bit of strategy. It reminded me quite a bit of Brütal Legend with more focus on the hero attacks and more on the space cowboy theme over the metal. If you enjoyed that style at all then you are in for a treat in Starhawk.

Now while I started out hating the flight mechanics at the beginning of the game, my opinion quickly changed to the opposite by the end of the game. This actually goes toward all of the vehicles in the game now that I think back on it. They all take a bit of time to get a full hang of; once you do you'll quickly wonder why you would even want to travel by any non-mechanical means in the game. Granted that is kind of the point you can take away from just the title of the game, but they really hit it on the head here. It was one thing that made me want to keep playing after I hammered through the single player game.

Lastly, I absolutely loved the music of the game. As I joked in a previous article it is very reminiscent of Firefly. It's more of rustic twang as one would expect in a western over the more techno-trance that is very common in action games based in the future and/or space. It complimented the game perfectly.

Overall

So should you by Starhawk? If you were a fan of Warhawk you most likely have already. If not then I have a feeling that you will enjoy this game just as much as you did Warhawk. For everyone else, it really comes down to personal tastes. I didn't think I would enjoy much of the game from the start but I was pleasantly surprised. The game play and many multiplayer modes are really the better selling point in my opinion though, so take that into account when deciding. Also, while I wasn't at all engaged with the story, many others might.

If anything, Starhawk is worth a play through be it rented or purchased. The purchase I'd push a bit more if you find the mechanics of the game and multiplayer to your liking as it will hook you in and you'll get your money's worth. But if you don't this might not be the game for you to own.

Starhawk was developed by LightBox Interactive and published by Sony on May 8^th 2012 exclusively for the PS3. It currently retails for 59.99. A copy of the game was supplied by the publisher for review purposes. I played through the main game on Normal mode and tried out each multiplayer mode a few times, online and in split screen.