Fun but short-lived multi-player blaster
If traditional vertically- or horizontally-scrolling shooters like The Reap or G-Darius are getting a little stale for you, then this obscure little multi-player blaster might be worth a brief investigation. It's similar in scope to the likes of Gravity Force, AUTS and V-Wing but is unfortunately not up to these standards thanks to a few annoying little niggles that make it less than a must-play. The game fortunately dispenses with any attempt at a story that shooters usually try to shoehorn into the action and instead simply tasks players with equipping their ship with a handful of weapons and then sends them into deathmatch-style arenas to do battle with either human- or computer-controlled opponents in a similar fashion to Assault Wing. That's about it really to be honest and there is little more to the game than taking on your enemies and blowing them from the skies. However, this doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing and as the aforementioned games have shown, there is a lot of enjoyment to be had from such multi-player larks. However, while Space Hawk has a few good things going for it, its faults slightly outweigh the positives and make it tough to recommend wholeheartedly. On the plus side, the visuals are decent enough for shareware, being crisp and effective if unspectacular, the interface is intuitive and easy to handle while levels are nicely varied and well designed. However, the controls are slightly sluggish thanks to the high inertia levels, while there simply isn't enough variety in the ships or the available weapons and together these issues mean that Space Hawk is worth no more than a brief look if you're after a multi-player shooter.
