What a trip to memory lane! Hawken, which I played with all my friends back in highschool, had a lot going on: the aesthethics were phenomenal, the combat felt truly unique and every arena had their own feeling. I played a lot with the early game tv-box, but I was good at it. Flying over the enemies and zip-zapping around them, hiding behind corners and shooting rockets to destroy felt incredible -checks time- TEN years ago? It's been some time.

The game was yet sort of predatory with its monetization, right when the business model "cash in as much as possible and give nothing" was taking foot in the market, until it was no more. It couldn't take from the community it had created any longer so it disappeared. Just for Hawken Reborn to spit on its legacy.

When history witnesses a great change,
Hawken reveals itself...
first, as a great hero.

As a hero, it uses its power
to cash money upon the land,
and then it dies.

However, after a period of microtransactions,
Hawken returns, this time,
as an AI project.

With the announcement and release of the disastrous Hawken Reborn, it made me reminisce about the original Hawken a bit. It was everything I wanted in a shooter at the given time; it looked gorgeous for the era it was released in with a dense, captivating art style. The mech design was meaty and cool while allowing a level of customization that made every mech feel distinct to its player. And most importantly, the combat gameplay itself was both fast and had that weight to it that a lot of shooters at the time just couldn't replicate barring Titanfall: you felt like you were piloting a big, beefy mech.

The only real drawback to the game at the time was the rising plague of microtransactions in shops that felt like all the best mechs or weaponry or cosmetics were heavily gated behind grinding. I played a lot of the beta, but by the time the main game came out, I felt I couldn't keep up with the grind.

All in all I have a lot of fond memories of the game, being a showhorse in graphical power for its time with big fat mechs blowing shit up. The game to this day still has one of the most satisfying railguns/snipers I've used in a videogame. I might hunt down some private servers and reminisce some more.