Ok so here is how it works:

As you play HAWX 2 you gain XP, each time you go up an XP rank the game awards you two unlock tokens in the P.E.C Reward tab. Now it’s these tokens that you use to unlock new aircraft or weapons in HAWX 2. If you don’t use them you won’t unlock anything!

Now because the original HAWX was seen to be such a grind Ubisoft have created “tiers” in HAWX 2 allowing you to decided what type of aircraft and unlocks to select in HAWX 2. What this means is that you could potentially be flying your dream aircraft in HAWX 2 a lot sooner than you might have in the original game especially as you could potentially decide to skip the weapon unlocks altogether and simply focus on unlocking aircraft in HAWX 2

Also Read : HAWX 2 Aircraft List

Also new to the site this week are some great HAWX PC skins and the second of our interviews with top HAWX pilots Kada-Dix.

Finally we have an as yet unconfirmed HAWX 2 Aircraft list for you to check out. We’ll keep it updated as best as we can!

Finally while your here don’t forget to check out the great HAWX 2 unlocks via uplay

However HAWX 2 community developer Sorlim has spoken out about the way in which you unlock aircraft and their abilities.

Sorlim: Let me explain how the unlock system works. You earn XP by killing enemies (air, ground, sea), completing the P.E.C. Challenges (like Destroy 50 air targets with the cannon) and completing story missions. When the XP reaches a certain value, you gain a level. Each time you gain a level, you get 1 unlock token.
These tokens can be used to unlock special abilities (like Ground attack – Area of effect increase for Unguided Bombs) and to unlock new airplanes. Each unlock costs 1 token no matter what it is. These abilities and new planes are divided into several tiers (Air Supremacy, Ground attack, Damage, Evasion, Electronic Warfare). The best abilities and planes (like the F-22) are, naturally, towards the end of the tiers and to get them you must unlock all of the abilities and the planes lower in the tier.

Sorlim: In this case, to get the F-22, all you must do is have 14 tokens invested in the abilities before and including the F-22, which would mean get to level 14. This is not a daunting task. Through the campaign (which can be completed and then played on higher difficulty levels for more XP) and the additional single player game modes (Arcade, Survival), a player can easily reach level 14. In the end, it’s a matter of choosing what you want to unlock and when, and not spreading your points across several tiers (unlocking abilities you wouldn’t benefit from a lot considering your playing style) if your main objective is, for example, to get one of the best plane in the game, the F-22.

Sorlim: The way the tiers were constructed is meant to encourage you to keep on playing and gain something interesting each time you level up and spend a token. Also, you’ll find that you level up faster than in the first HAWX and the unlock system works much better than what we had the first time around.

Kada-Dix also popped in this question:

Kada-Dix: Thanks for clearing that up Sorlim, I think the misunderstanding was that there was some suggestion that we *had* to play online to access these jets. …

What your saying is that with different types of aircraft in different tiers it might be now much quicker to unlock our “ultimate” aircraft than it was in HAWX1 because we can concentrate on reaching one tier and one aircraft?

And got a swift response from Sorlim…

Sorlim: Yes, it might end up being quicker to get some top notch planes. It all depends on how you invest your tokens to get the best return-on-investment according to your goals and playing style.

Sorlim: You have much more strategic choices than in the first HAWX and this can make a difference in gameplay, for example, in multiplayer. You can just go straight for the best aircraft but you might still get blown out of the sky by somebody who has a less versatile plane but has invested in some nice abilities that, in the end, give them the edge.

Source: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3981007546/m/9761084088

So in a nice twist again its not always about the aircraft but also the weaponry and the abilities of the pilot! Also maybe i’ll get to unlock the SU-47 Berkut in HAWX 2 this time!

We’ll bring you more info about the tiers when we can!

If you can’t manage to understand the european accents you can read the review here too… though the text only version is seriously lacking in hot european models!

Hot Girls + HAWX = Win!

Kada-Dix’s most famous videos:

• Stunt Compilation
• Eurofighter stall-slide under the bridge
• Kulbit under the pipeline
• Fuji TV

Patch: You recently filmed a new stunt (your first in over a year) was it easy to get back in the virtual cockpit?

Not at all! I stopped playing HAWX in June 2009. Loading it up and trying to do a new stunt was a huge learning curve. Aerobatic and Stunts in HAWX are not just about skill… a lot of it is educated guesswork about altitude and direction because in assistance off mode you cant see where you are going or how high you are… so you have to pre-plan and use objects in the maps to help orientate yourself. Learning all that again took me a while.

All in all it took perhaps an hour until I was ready to film. I just kept practicing stalls, kulbits and loops under and over things until I thought I was ready to put something together.

Patch: Out of all the videos you have made which is the one that you are most proud of?

I’m pretty proud of my latest stunt video. But the the hardest I’ve pulled off has to be the Fuji TV one. It’s three passes through the Fuji TV building in Tokyo… the first pass is quite vanilla and in “on” mode, the following two are in off mode. The reason its so hard to pull off is that its very easy to roll or bank and of course in assistance off mode you can’t really see where you are headed so you have to rely on instinct, preparation and steady controls: Passing through it once is easy, doing it a second time is hard because you have to be lined up right and you have to be 100% sure that your altitude and direction is spot on. It’s the same for any stunt that involves multiple passes.

Patch: Are there any other HAWX stunt pilots that impress you, is there much competition?

It has to be Zedex26, He’s pulled off at least two stunts that I said were impossible. Not only is he great at stunts but he’s also very lucky (watch the backwards through a bridge video) Luck+Skill=Master!

As for competition… yes I guess there IS. I remember when we first started filming stunts i’d be very excited about finding something new and hoping I’d be the first to upload it. But most of the people who make these videos are really great guys and through the competitions we held we got to know each other better and made friends.

Patch: Are there any of your videos that get less exposure than you think they deserve?

Definitely. Probably the Fuji TV stunt I mentioned earlier… I think because the first pass is in “on” mode people don’t realise that there is something much more impressive to come… I should probably re-edit the video and cut that bit! This is true of other people too, Zedex’s “backwards” video that I just mentioned has to be possibly the greatest stunt ever recorded… yet compared to the rest of his videos it’s not been seen that much.

Patch: Are there any stunts that you wanted to do but just couldn’t quite manage, if so why?

Oh yes! There are two that I can think of.. one I won’t mention because perhaps with the new physics in HAWX 2 it will be possible. But the other was a close horizontal loop around the space shuttle… physically very possible and very easy… unfortunately I could never get the assistance off camera angle to show the actual shuttle, so it always looked like i’m just mindlessly flying in a tight circle – completely pointless!

Patch: It looks like HAWX 2 has changed a number of things, is there anything in the new game that you think will make stunts easier or harder?

I must admit to being worried, the demo feels unresponsive to fly. And the fact that when you stall it switches back to “Assistance On” mode could possibly kill stunts… a stall slide under a bridge won’t be as impressive, if at all possible anymore. I can’t help wondering if the change is because people said they wanted the ability to stall in “on” mode… if that’s the case the developers have really misunderstood what the community was asking for!

Patch: What is the most difficult thing about performing stunts in assistance off?

Well there’s not much easy about it! Where to start…? first of all you have no instruments so you don’t know what your altitude or speed are. Then there is the fact that the camera can sometimes be unpredictable, especially if your under a bridge or close to buildings. Add to that you can’t actually see where your going.. this isn’t so bad if your just doing a kulbit under a bridge but gets very tricky if your then going to loop back round and do it again! Finally (and I mentioned it earlier) it’s the fact its so easy to accidentally roll or bank the aircraft totally throwing you off course – which of course you sometimes don’t notice at first. A really good example of this is my video of the Blackbird doing an upside down loop of the dam bridge, I accidentally put a massive amount of roll in the top of the loop and have to compensate big time!

Patch: If you could choose any aircraft to be included in HAWX what would it be and why?

Image via Wikipedia

I’d love to see some of the new Chinese fighters. But perhaps more than that I’d like to see the English Electric Lightning included. Outside of the UK few people recognise how important and astounding this aircraft was. Some Quick facts: First aircraft ever capable of supercruise, Top speed of Mach 2.0, it could reach 36,000ft 3mins after brake release on the runway, it could be in a vertical climb right after leaving the tarmac and climb (vertically) through Mach 1 and all of this from a plane that first flew in 1954!! It’s a real shame that it’s never really featured in a mainstream game… I mean how can the A-7 Corsair make it into HAWX but the Lightning cannot?

My favourite story about this aircraft was that in a NATO test in the 1980′s it was the only aircraft capable of catching and taking over a concorde… the other planes in the same test F-15s, F-16s, F-14s, Mirages, F-104s all failed!

Patch: Your obviously an aircraft fan, what are your earliest memories of fighter aircraft?

It has to be the 1988 (perhaps the 1990) Farnbough Airshow, it was the first year the Mig-29′s came to the west, they had been at the Paris airshow a few weeks before and everyone was telling us they were capable of things other aircraft were not. I still remember waiting to see them, The British & US pilots put on good impressive displays but what the Soviets did was just truly astounding…. the crowds had ever seen a cobra or a tail-slide before, people were either gobsmacked with disbelief or gasping. Back then of course the Soviets were our “enemies” so they seemed very exotic to me. To this day I can’t watch a MiG 29 without feeling like a 12 year old and I’ve been a big fan of Russian aircraft ever since.

Also memorable was the first and only time I saw the Blackbird at a Farnborough flypast.

More poignant would be watching footage of the Harriers in the Falklands War, I was quite young so it left a big impression. Being in the UK obviously there was a lot of hype around what the Harriers were doing and the fact they were fighting against (technically) superior aircraft, but even though we now know that the Argentinean pilots only had minutes in the battle zone because of fuel capacity and that they had to come in low and fast to avoid detection the Harriers and their pilots still did an absolutely heroic job, I don’t think it’s fair to take away from what they did, they saved a massive amount of lives under really difficult situations and showed the world that the Harriers were air to air capable and that thrust vectoring maneuvers were practical in combat.

As an adult though I also feel for what the Argentinean pilots must have gone through… war is terrifying!

Patch: What’s your favorite ever aerial combat game?

I’m glad you said “Game” and not “Simulator” Well I just love flying… what I’m going to say is going to sound weird… but GTA San Andreas….(seriously) I’ve played a lot of simulators and arcade fliers, My first ever was a game called “Spitfire 40″ on an Amstrad. But I loved flying in GTA, it was strangely satisfying to be in the air above a very life-like and busy world. Driving to an airport, picking a plane flying to another airport as If I was on a commuter run was great fun. And then of course going bananas and doing stunts in a Passenger Jet, or landing the Mustang fighter or Lear Jet on top of a skyscraper (it is possible) A problem with a lot of simulators is that they are as dull as ditchwater… how often have you started a flight and then got bored halfway and done something crazy?

You know it’s important to remember that a lot of games are “games” occasionally people say my stunts are “aeronautically impossible” who cares? Its a game, HAWX isn’t a sim! In terms of combat though I’d have to throw in Battlefield 1943… that’s a game where a good pilot can really make a difference to the larger picture. Once you have air supremacy you can take out tanks, stop the bombers and suppress enemy aircraft – all of that makes a big difference to what happens on the ground.

Patch: Air combat games are not as popular as they once were, do you think this is because publishers are less inclined to make them compared to FPS’s which sell so well?

Well I guess a lot of publishers look at FPS games and just think of the massive amounts of money they could make. In general I think originality in the Next Gen consoles is lacking. For example I have games on my iPhone that are much more creative than those available for Xbox or the PS3. However I think things will change, I believe a lot of older gamers are getting bored of FPS for example; I’m in my mid 30′s now and playing FPS games (particularly online) is getting harder unless you’re prepared to put in a lot of time. However air combat games are different, its much more like chess where you have to plan ahead and predict your opponents moves. In an FPS so often its about having that twitchy trigger finger and getting to the spawn points – the only way I can play those games and win is if its a 2 vs 2!

Patch: Finally, Will you be running anymore competitions?

Well my private life is quite busy at the moment (getting married soon) but provided your still happy to host them on fastjets then I don’t see why not… I guess we’ll know more when the game comes out!

Kada-Dix’s most famous videos:

• Stunt Compilation
• Eurofighter stall-slide under the bridge
• Kulbit under the pipeline
• Fuji TV

The scores are not that high but to be honest I think that was to be expected, whilst us fighter fans love an endless turn chase with an bandit it’s not to everyones taste.

So far the main criticisms of HAWX 2 from reviewers seem to be the plot (no surprise there), the fact you have to play online to unlock aircraft and the variety/originality of missions. One or two have also pointed out that the UAV/Drone missions are overused.

Go give it a blast!

SU 47 Berkut - HAWX 2

I know, I know you’ve probably heard all there is to say about the HAWX 2 demo, so why would you want to hear what I have to say? Well if you are anything like me you’re plane-crazy and you’ve been digging around the net for every bit of HAWX2 info you can!

Perhaps most importantly for us at Fast Jets is the handling, it feels different to the original HAWX, there seems to be less finite control. On first impression I thought it was twitchy… but rather its more mechanical, you bank left and the movement is almost “indexed” it will go no further than you have pushed it – theres no “slide” almost no momentum to things.

Most worryingly is the stalling. The community were asking for the ability to stall in “on” mode from moment the HAWX 1 demo was released. And we now have that feature… but in a bizarre twist Ubisoft have taken away the ability to stall in assistance off mode. As soon as you do stall in this mode you revert to “on” mode. The repercussions for stunt and aerobatic flying are huge, the vast majority of stunts that are “famous” involve some stalling maneuver, perhaps the most famous is Kada-Dix’s “Eurofighter stall & slide under Rio Bridge” it’s the stunt that arguably started the trend for HAWX stunts back in 2009 and has been seen by almost 40,000 people! But it doesn’t end there because there are a great many other fantastic stunts by other brilliant pilots such as Zedex26 who showed us it was possible to stall backwards under a bridge.

It seems perverse that Ubisoft would add the feature where it was needed and remove the feature where it was so successfully and famously used!

Of course this is only a demo and things might change with the final version… but I highly doubt it. That is of course what people hoped for with the original HAWX demo and as far as I could tell nothing changed there.

While I don’t think this means an end to stunts… it certainly suggests the nature of stunts is set to change!

HAWX 2 Demo in general:

I’ve run through the demo a few times now and have very mixed feelings. Take off & Landings are a nice addition though I feel that the action skips to a pre-rendered scene far too soon, in doing so it takes away from the immersion of the situation and you really feel as if it’s nothing more than a “mini-game” Re-fuelling suffers from this too.

In the second mission night vision was interesting but the bombing was as dull as ditchwater. Also I was a bit puzzled as to why I had to take out the two combat helicopters… not only because they posed me no real threat but also because I’d just been given a warning to not fly under the flak (AA) and as I had no missiles I had no alternative (and was indeed instructed to) take them out with my cannon. Needless to say flying into the flak was exciting… for about 20 seconds… because by then I had realised it was purely aesthetic and didn’t seem to do me any harm.

Good news is that the visual have definitely improved and the graphics seem crisper, though the aircraft do seem to have a little more “sheen” that while perhaps to my tastes probably does serve to make them stand out from the background more. In another odd move it seems the sound effects have changed from the original game… given that the launch of new missiles sounds like water rocket going off this isn’t good news… but for all I know this could be a genuine recording and its just that we are used to hearing a much more processed sound… jury’s out on that one!

To see the full list of HAWX 2 Uplay rewards visit our dedicated page here.

Top Tips:

1. You can unlock points in any Uplay enabled game – so get saving now!!
2. In our experience it’s best to avoid unlocking wallpapers and themes as these tend to “leak” out onto the internet anyway!
3. Visit our HAWX 2 Uplay Rewards page!

Editors note: If only I hadn’t spent all my Uplay points on Assassins Creed 2 rewards

Zedex’s most famous videos:

• B52 Looping under rainbow bridge (Tokyo)
• Kulbit under Washington bridge
• F22 backwards under a bridge

Interview

Patch: You’re one of the most well known aerobatic pilots in HAWX and your videos have been seen tens of thousands of times… what excited you most about creating new stunts?

What excited me the most? well, mainly it’s the challenge and the sense of achievements when I pull them off I guess…
the game wasn’t designed to do them, but I tend to play games in their unorthodox ways sometimes, which makes them more interesting.

Patch: Your videos are well known for featuring extreme aerobatics in unusual aircraft. A lot of these aircraft came from the PC modded game, Now that you have switched to PS3 are you going to miss the fun of having those aircraft in HAWX?

Of course, PC modding is one thing that is really interesting, and so far, there were only modders like lotsbiss, kaisa226 and impala88 who really worked on HAWX mods… *my 3D modelling experiences are close to none so can’t be of any help* and I wish more would be willing to work on HAWX2, but I’m not sure how it would turn out yet. I’ve seen a lot of amazing mods for Lock On and Flight Simulator, and if all those who worked on those games would make HAWX mods, it would make the HAWX experience better.

as for switching to PS3, I don’t worry about it much. I get to experience the game earlier, and I’m pretty sure I will get the PC version later on as well, because it is much easier to record videos on PC *and at a much higher quality as well now that I got a new system* and the mod support… *and I’m still more used to keyboard controls than thumbsticks haha =)*

Patch: Out of all the videos you have made which is the one that you are most proud of?

The video that I was impressed by the most is definitely the “upside-down backwards under bridge“… I am STILL amazed at how lucky I was able to pull it off, and it got recorded as well… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it again.
I’m also quite proud of the blind canyon run… the assistance off’s camera view without a target is VERY hard to use since you have no idea where you’re headed, but with a place with so many obstacles like in the canyon, it took me quite a number of tries to get it right, and it wasn’t even in 1 cut neither =( had to reload the second checkpoint a few times as well….

Patch: Of the other HAWX stunt pilots which videos/stunts impresses you the most?

About the other stunt pilots, Makasuro definitely has some flying skills, to do some of the stuff he’s done, I would have crashed 100 times… funkster thinks up of the craziest things to do first as well, but Kada-Dix I think is the other known stunt pilot that’s done some amazing things that I still am not able to do =).

Patch: Most of your videos get thousands of views. Are there any of your videos that get less exposure than you think they deserve?

I don’t really mind the low view count of some of my videos, but I’m always happy that people get to see them… what I like more is when people see them and try to do it themselves, and get an even more daring stunt out of it…

That being said, the few stunts I’ve done in Washington DC *especially the triple bridge-pass and the kulbit and stall under bridge ones are what I would call “low-exposure” because I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying and retrying them… they were quite hard to pull off… the bridges were only about 20m in height!!! and I haven’t gotten much feedback from them yet so… =( (PATCH: check out the videos Zedex mentions, they truly are amazing!)

Patch: It looks like HAWX 2 has changed a number of things, is there anything in the new game that you think will make stunts easier or harder?

I’m eager for the release of HAWX2. from playing the demo, I’m a little worried if the sensitivity and physics and how the stall would force back to assistance ON would ruin a lot of the stunts we can perform… but I’m looking forward to what new locations they’ve provided us to play with.

Patch: If you could choose any aircraft to be included in HAWX what would it be and why?

Chengdu J-10

If I could choose any aircraft, that would definitely be the Chengdu J-10 the reason is quite simple… being born Chinese, it is the “pride” of the People’s Air Force XD the one aircraft where they designed and built on their own… without having to “copy and modify” from another (J-11 vs Su-27 lol) and is capable enough to go head to head against an F-16. (or so they claim) I don’t really care about what they’re capable, but for one, it looks awesome *a bit like a single-engined Eurofighter* and that’s pretty much all it matters to me =)

I personally hope it will never have to actually go head to head against one of the other fighters outside a video game.

Patch: Your obviously an aircraft fan, what are your earliest memories of fighter aircraft?

I’ve always loved technology and machinery, and it’s natural that I’m a fan of both cars and planes.
when I was little, I used to only see planes as something ‘cool’ and didn’t know much about them, until my uncle bought me a plastic 1:64 model of an F/A-18 Hornet. ever since, it has been one of my favorite fighters because of that profound memory, and because it is the main aircraft used in the Canadian Air Force. (another national “pride”)

Zedex’s most famous videos:

• B52 Looping under rainbow bridge (Tokyo)
• Kulbit under Washington bridge
• F22 backwards under a bridge
• Triple bridge-pass
• Stall under bridge

More videos from Zedex26

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