Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 on PlayStation 3 Demo Impressions.

While it was hard to get a grasp for the narrative - one of our favourite elements of the first game - during our short play-session, we did have enough time to acclimatise to the gameplay.

Air combat games are different to most other games. You spend most of your time floating over luscious scenery and desperately trying to get a lock-on an enemy air-craft. What's immediately noticeable is just how much HAWX 2 has improved visually — it looks fantastic, using the similar satellite image solutions from the first-game, but to better effect.

The first mission we played saw us cruising over acres of luscious, rocky highland. The clouds wisped beneath our air-craft as we gently glided into our first combat operation. Dogfights felt largely similar to the game's predecessor, though we did notice the limited use of HAWX's guided evasion system. The first fight was fairly straightforward; we tailed the enemy air-crafts and picked them off one by one.

We were then urged to refuel our air-craft. This was perhaps the first sign that HAWX 2 is planning on packing variety into its campaign. The first game was a straight-forward affair mixed between fighting and flying to objectives; but the second mission we get our hands-on completely deviates from that.

After activating our night-vision aids, we're tasked with flying to an undetectable height and using zoomed camera technology to bomb a fleet of ships ported in the ocean. The pacing of this particularly stage is much slower than anything we've seen in HAWX before, as we hover carefully over the docked boats and try to fell them as swiftly as possible.

There's evidence that HAWX 2 could provide the much needed variety that the original game lacked, but we're still concerned about the lack of flight aids. What made the first game so accessible was the ability to turn on a visual blue-print in order to avoid missiles and get a flank on enemy aircrafts. We didn't see any evidence of this returning during our hands-on with demo. It's possible that Ubisoft are going for a more challenging experience with HAWX 2, but we hope the hand-holding's available for those who wish to utilise it.