HAWK: Airplane Space games

HAWK, Freedom Squadron, Force of an Arcade Shooter, or whatever you want to call it, is a reasonably standard 'shmup' game. That translates into maneuvering a plane on a downward scrolling track and churning out bullets, lasers, and whatnot at swarms of baddies who occasionally shoot back.

In HAWK you plane is shooting continuously, so there's nothing to worry about except maneuvering out of harm's way and launching some super weapon when the situation gets dire. Your trusted BROBots are another source of firepower who deal with sideways enemies and finish off weakened ones. You can employ up to two different BROBots, but first, you need to acquire the parts, not to mention the amounts of veckels that their upgrades cost, oy!

If we are to get a bit technical, each plane and BROBot can grow in level. You might want to check the costs and benefits of leveling both your craft and BROBots since the ratios are not always equal on all fronts (unintended pun). The plane can also accommodate several components that boost performance. These can be either picked up from the field or synthesized in the "black box," which lets you sacrifice four items for a random one of a higher quality.

You will be flying as one hero against the forces of the supervillain Authoritarian, who is bad, evil, bad! The campaign has a few side missions, which can help you raise more resources, but as far as I've noticed, it's standard freemium material. Each mission can be completed three times with increasing difficulty. You might want to revisit missions to get more rewards, but the difficulty scale is forcing you to advance instead.

You can also ask for help from online players, which is very helpful during tougher missions. The ally seems to be computer-controlled, but having another source of bullets is always welcome, even it behaves like a lazy bum out there.

But if you want to take matters into your hands, there is a plethora of alternative planes and BROBots, as well as Ace variants for each player craft. However, their entry cost is sufficiently steep for you not to be able to reach for a while, unless you're ready to turn out some cash. Even so, I found the game's mid difficulty to be very adequate. You can survive without spending help-me money and still have a jolly-good time in HAWK.

Final Thoughts

HAWK is well settled in the Top 100 Grossing apps on the Play Store despite negative reviews. People enjoy it and for a good reason. The action is a ton of fun, and I wouldn't be surprised if many users buy in-app stuff to support the developer team.