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With the Hawken closed beta kicking off this weekend, Adhesive have put out a couple of videos explaining the basics of their jet-packin’ robo-combat for beginners, which I suppose will be all of us. They show some tips about the garage, where robots are armed, tweaked, and deployed to the battlfield. Then there’s some explanation of how to not to die too horribly once you’re out there. All that means plenty of game footage, as you’d expect.

We’ll be giving away keys for a later round of the beta really soon, so keep an eye out for that.(more…)

#hawken There have been some secret alpha tests going on for a while now, but a much wider pool of people will finally get their hands on mech shooter Hawken when it kicks off a closed beta on October 26. More »

Despite what plebeians like us may think, shooting giant robots with other giant robots isn't something you can rush into all willy-nilly. In actuality, there are many, many factors to consider: What if this weapon is more effective than originally planned? With if we've accidentally created a deviously cunning artificial intelligence bent on eradicating the cancer that is humanity from the surface of the Earth?

Thankfully, most evil AI issues can be found through a closed beta test, which Adhesive Games' upcoming free-to-play mech shooter Hawken will be conducting from October 26 through October 29.

"The more that we find wrong now; the smoother open beta will go," said Meteor Entertainment CEO Mark Long in a press release available after the break, though no information was given regarding when that open beta will take place. Anyone interested in signing up for the closed beta can do so here. Just, you know, study up on your paradoxes.

Update: Meteor Entertainment has contacted us to clarify the statement made by Long in the press release. By "open beta," Long was actually referring to the game's previously announced release date of December 12, rather than an additional testing phase prior to Hawken's release.

Despite what plebeians like us may think, shooting giant robots with other giant robots isn't something you can rush into all willy-nilly. In actuality, there are many, many factors to consider: What if this weapon is more effective than originally planned? With if we've accidentally created a deviously cunning artificial intelligence bent on eradicating the cancer that is humanity from the surface of the Earth?

Thankfully, most evil AI issues can be found through a closed beta test, which Adhesive Games' upcoming free-to-play mech shooter Hawken will be conducting from October 26 through October 29.

"The more that we find wrong now; the smoother open beta will go," said Meteor Entertainment CEO Mark Long in a press release available after the break, though no information was given regarding when that open beta will take place. Anyone interested in signing up for the closed beta can do so here. Just, you know, study up on your paradoxes.

Jump-jets and chainguns are going to be tested to their limit between October 26th-29th as Hawken throws itself into the oily maelstrom of closed beta testing. The sign-up thingum is here. At some point thereafter there will be an open beta, I believe, before the game of robot-combat becomes a fully-fledged free-to-play affair. If you need reasons to be excited about all this then I’d recommend having a read of Adam’s Hands On experience with the game, and watching this game footage.

Entirely unrelated Daft Punk track posted below.(more…)

#hawken Like almost every other game set in the future, multiplayer mech shooter Hawken looks bleak. Pollution, dark skies, it just seems a generally unpleasant place to spend any amount of time. More »

Hawken is one of those things I get visibly excited about when I describe it to people. I flail and gesture wildly such that no glass of water or small, desk-adorning cactus within a 100 meter radius is safe. Somewhat coincidentally, that’s almost exactly what happens when I teleport my brain into Palmer Luckey’s mad virtual reality fantasy realm with Oculus Rift – only, you know, for entirely different yet equally devastating reasons. So I suppose it only makes sense that the two literal home-wreckers would end up walking down the aisle hand-in-hand.

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#hawken Hawken looks good enough as it is. But the prospect of playing the game using a virtual reality headset seems too bananas to be true. More »

The Oculus Rift may not technically be a tangible thing yet, but as of December 12 it can boast support for one more game: Hawken. It makes sense: every time we've seen something with mechs in it, the pilots are always wearing goofy goggles. Appropriate.

In an interview with Forbes, publisher Meteor Entertainment's Mark Long offered some insight on why Oculus Rift and Hawken make such a great match. "Why Oculus works so well is the sense of presence. You have to experience it. When the graphic world is all around you, it takes the experience to a completely different level."

"Hawken is perfect for Oculus because its environments are well-suited for the level of visual density and distances you're looking it," Long added. "The shapes that are close and far away lend themselves well to 3D. When you're in a typical first-person shooter, you're a slave to the direction your weapon is pointing, which is unnatural. Being in a Mech, this offers a more realistic virtual reality experience."

Of course, the question of lag is ever-present with VR headsets, but Long says Unreal Engine has certain things built in that alleviate that concern. "With Unreal we can dynamically change the point-of-view and make sure that the latency is as low as possible for the viewers to eliminate motion sickness. We're going to build out a cockpit that players can buy so they can see the inside of the Mech with Oculus for a more immersive gameplay experience. This is a subset of something we're going to be bringing to the PC game."

And in the end, the cost for Adhesive Games to add Oculus Rift support was minimal. "The cost of an Oculus Dev Kit with two systems will be less than $300," Long said. "The technology uses a DVI connection and USB to do head tracking off a PC," so with some wires, a headset and a fairly nimble neck, it was a fairly inexpensive feature to implement.

If anyone was keeping count, they’d probably tell you that I died a lot more often than I killed at Gamescom. Whether having my head knocked off by a hammer or huddling around a fire and failing to survive the Eastern Front, I spent a lot of time meeting makers. Let it be known, however, that I was actually quite good at Hawken, but that’s not the only reason I’m an admirer of the multiplayer deathmech delight.

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Ah yes, escalation. One game gets a live-action trailer, then all the games get live-action trailers. And now, Hawken‘s taking things to new heights with its very own live-action series – a series being headed up by Warner Bros, no less. And it stars Edi Gathegi, who’s played major roles on everything from House to X-Men: First Class. It’s set to kick off in 2013, but the first trailer – which, if it were really staying true to the logic of these things, would only come in the form of a paperback novel – is now available for your viewing… pleasure?

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#hawken Directed by Gears of War art director Jeremiah O'Flaherty and starring the guy that played Darwin in X-Men First Class, this teaser trailer for the 2013 web series based on indie mech game Hawken is nearly as impressive as the actual game. More »

#hawken When indie multiplayer shooter Hawken burst onto the scene last year, people went bananas. They're still going bananas. But here's the thing: it's just a multiplayer shooter. Most of us haven't even played it. So why all the excitement? More »

#fineart Khang Le is the boss of Adhesive games, the studio behind the promising Hawken, a multiplayer mech shooter on PC. But he's not just the boss. More »

Blaze through the streets of Andromeda in Hawken.

Light up your enemies throughout the dark alleys in Hawken.

Dodge and duck around this dusty arena to dismember your mechanical foes in Hawken.

Nothing but chaos and explosions as this mech stomps its way through the city in pre-alpha gameplay of Hawken.

Create your very own Mech with Hawken's deep customization station.

As it stands, Hawken is the story of a few robots shooting a few other robots. Perhaps there’s subtext and pentameter and denouements underneath it all, but right now, this is far from the Black Swan of artfully destructive mecha-ballets – let alone the Nutcracker. A recent live-action trailer, however, suggested that – for probably the first time in history – there’s more than meets the eye to robots. And, if the folks at Adhesive Games have it their way, there’ll be even more where that came from.

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Brad has techs-mechs for lunch, as he sits down with Jason Hughes of Adhesive Games to try out Hawken.

Turn mechs into scrap metal in this gameplay montage of Hawken: Mech Combat FPS.

Turns out I didn't need to worry about finding the Hawken E3 party. First, it was in the Luxe, a grandiose hotel in the same plaza as the Los Angeles Staples Center. Second, the electronic billboard directly below the Luxe insignia read "HAWKEN" in bold white letters, a building to the north had the game title and Machinima symbols emblazoned in lights across one side, and a bumping party overflowing with people in Hawken swag spilled out onto the Luxe's second-floor balcony.

Welcome to the opulent stage of high-profile pseudo-indie development.

Hawken, its developer Adhesive Games and parent company Meteor Entertainment, are not representative of the standard indie community, but they carry that already nebulous label in a vague, but real, way: Meteor is the publishing arm of Adhesive and it has only one client and one focus, Hawken.

"First of all, we're no EA," Meteor Entertainment's Paul Loynd told me at Hawken's June 5 E3 party, hosted by Machinima. "And we only have one game. This is our thing. We're excited to be working on Hawken."

#hawken For more than a year now Adhesive Games' indie PC mech shooter Hawken has tantalized us with breathtakingly gorgeous scenes of giant robot carnage amidst dystopian cityscapes that combine anime sensibilities with Moebius-level intricacy and detail. The aesthetic has won us over time and time again, but what of the gameplay? More »

Giant robots wage war in a city

Watch giant mechs battle it out in this gorgeous gameplay clip for Hawken

Launch missiles to try to take down a capital ship in this clip from Hawken

Mechs explode in this explosive pretty gameplay clip from Hawken

We take a closer look at Hawken, the free-to-play indie game that's turnings some heads.

The first of a series of live-action digital shorts in the Hawken universe directed by Jeremiah O'Flaherty, whose past work includes Gears of War, this teaser trailer has no shortage of destruction - and that guy we saw in that thing once.