And yet this game made it easy enough to pick up the controller and get into the groove fairly quickly. For those that are more experienced, the game offers multiple levels of difficulty (Recruit, Regular and Expert) as well as assistance systems which can be turned off. It gives a boost to the plane’s maneuverability and makes it easier to stall. When in assistance OFF mode you can also use normal and expert controls. In expert you must adjust the plane orientation without any assistance. But Assistance OFF mode is insane as you’re fairly far outside of the plane in the camera view.

Through the campaign you will take on the roles of 3 pilots in multiple parts of the world (UK, US and Russia). This gives you a bit more variety in the planes you’re flying as each has their own specific type of crafts.

The world maps themselves are based on satellite footage from GeoEye which adds a sense of realism not normally seen in many flight titles. There are some pretty intense visuals, that is, when you have the time to do a little sightseeing.

HAWX 2 also features several interesting mission types including night missions (IR assisted), in-air refueling (grrr...), re-arming (via landing at an airbase) and the aforementioned UAV missions which generally require you to either mark things of interest or target them with weapons fire. One of the other features of the game I really like is the fact that in the main flight missions you must both take off and land. In a lot of flight games you simply start the mission already in the air and when you achieve a goal or reach the end of a level it simply ends. In HAWX 2, you must land your plane to finish the mission. Don’t worry, there’s also an assist for that and I’ve only crashed once, by missing the leading edge of the runway... like I said, not a seasoned pilot.

The weapons include cannons of various types as well as missiles, bombs and rockets. You’ve got heat seeking missiles that can be locked onto a heat source and fired, generally to be forgotten, but you’ve also got stand-off missiles which you’ll need to direct to their target. As well as your air-to-air missiles you’ve also got air-to-ground ordinance when you need it. In certain missions, at certain times, you can also have your wingman go and take out enemies when you’re busy doing other things. It generally requires you to target the enemy in question and hit the A button, but it’s still pretty cool.

Outside of the single player campaign mode you can also play through it in Co-op with up to three friends. You can also do the story missions separately in any order you like. Extra missions have also been included for both single and co-op play in arcade and survival modes. The arcade missions are the same story missions but with new twists to make them more challenging. Survival pits you against swarms of enemies asking you to survive as long as you can, up to wave 10, I’ve managed to get to wave 10 but got shot down by a satellite laser, can you believe it?