By naming its flight combat franchise "HAWX," Ubisoft created an expectation of ... something more. Something to do with the letter "X." It wasn't "HAWKS" -- that "X" was a built-in promise, right there in the title, of something x-otic and x-treme. While the first game in the series attempted to make the genre a little more x-citing, its sequel isn't so much a thrilling melange of dogfights and bombing runs as it is a simulation of working nine to five for a missile and bomb delivery service.

Hey, a game where you pilot a flying UPS truck -- that could be pretty neat! Oh, sorry. See, I'm already forgetting HAWX 2. Let me get this all down before I move on to something more exciting, like a documentary on how they make packing peanuts.