Warhawk is a simple-yet-brilliant online shooter. We’ve explained the premise of the game in multiple previews, but, we’ll recall it once again for old time’s sake: traversing a massive environment by foot, ground vehicle or aircraft, your goal is to take control of the battlefield in the fiercest way possible. That’s it. We just described Warhawk in 24 words, so we are well within our rights to conclude this review, pack it all in at this point and head home. It’s steak night, so we’ve all got an incentive to leave.

Ah, but that was mere folly! We haven’t even hit you with our sexy brand of loquaciously lexicographical Play opinion yet, have we? Warhawk is simple, yes, but it requires the most intense battle scenarios for you to get the most out of it. As we are reviewing it a country mile before release, we’ve been facing off against a measly six competitors. It’s still a lot of fun (save for the cowards we had to battle), but we’ve yet to get the most out of Warhawk. In spite of this, however, we still loved it to bits; a steady compliment for what is probably the most fun PS3 game so far.

The different fighting styles in Warhawk are near-balanced. Being on-foot makes you vulnerable, flight is fast but easy to hit with a rocket and armoured vehicles fall victim to overbearing aircraft. In a way, it’s like a giant game of Rock, Paper and Scissors; certain things work against certain enemies, and your reactions to the changing situations – ie, some bastard is about to end you from the sky – are key to your successes in Warhawk. Sometimes, it’s tempting to just sit there and rip the birds out of the air with a bazooka, but you are always going to be somebody’s victim, regardless of the situation you’re in.

At first, it’s best to stay on foot. This will allow you to take in the beautiful, vast landscape of each level before you jump into one of the aircrafts. Also, it’s pretty useful to be a dab hand with the on-foot aspect of Warhawk, since a lot of your kills can come from sniper attacks, or antiaircraft rockets. While the war machinery is a tempting prospect, you’d do well to experiment with the environment first. Each level is crafted with hiding places, bridges, cover and hilltops, so it’s good to find your niche right away. The controls of the thirdperson on-foot sections work really well, too. Although the animation is comically shoddy (you should see your character when he jumps), the controls are joyously easy to use. Everything is controlled in exactly the way you’d think it should be, which says a lot about Warhawk in general.

This isn’t some ingenious, carefully plotted tactical shooter; this is fluff. This is arcadey. This is big, stupid fun – when we called Warhawk “simple” at the beginning of this review, we weren’t messing around. It’s pick-up-and-play gaming for the masses, really, so Warhawk deserves to be a huge hit with every PlayStation 3 owner. It isn’t perfect, due to its often-frustrating balance and its lack of depth, but these factors are, in reverse, why it works so well.

It’s ridiculously accessible. After experiencing a lot of problems with our designated online server, we decided to set up our own; allowing a gaggle of our beloved contributors to join in via the four-player split-screen option (which can also be used online, brilliantly). This, it turned out, was a great decision. The dogfighting was a revelation as we all soared through the sky, taking each other out without a thought for anything else. The R1 button sends out a steady, but deadly, stream of machine gun fire, while the L1 button controls a variety of excessively savage weapons. These can be missiles, electrical pulses, bombs or chaff clouds, with the latter releasing a useful decoy for incoming missiles.

At its best, you have every player in the sky, locking missiles onto each other, while using both sticks to perform a number of evasive air manoeuvres. Meanwhile, each player is roaring around the five massive arenas at full speed, using a double tap of the R2 button to initiate a sound-barrier-shattering boost, taking them out of the reaches of the enemy, before spinning around, mid-air, to launch another set of missiles at their next victim. Warhawk is just exhilarating. It’s fun and simple to pick up, but the varying skills and tactics of each competitor makes it an addictive multiplayer prospect, and the idea of facing all of those unique online opponents is enticing. Amazingly, the frame rate is rock solid throughout, despite the extreme volume of online violence.

We can barely criticise Warhawk, really, since we had an absolute blast with it, and we’re convinced that huge amounts of you will echo that sentiment in due course. The dogfighting works far better than you would ever think it could, while the ground combat is solid enough to engage. If you’ve been waiting for the truest, most exciting method of online PS3 gameplay, then Warhawk was made for you.

Samuel Roberts