Sony's pre-E3 press briefing ended with the unveiling of a handful of playable PlayStation 3 games, including Incognito's Warhawk, a sequel to an old PlayStation 1 game of the same name. The demo focused on flying around, shooting up stuff, and testing out the new PS3 controller's tilt sensor.
In Warhawk, you'll fly around in a plane that can convert into hover mode at any time. But a stationary target is a dead one, so we tended to keep on moving. The demo level showcased a level with plenty of nice-looking water below, though the bits of ground in the level also looked really sharp. The enemies in the level consisted of swarms of smaller drone planes that you could take out in a few hits and larger capital ships that could take several rockets. Your weapons consist of a primary machine gun and a set of secondary weapons. Three secondary weapons were in the demo, though the weapon selector allowed for eight or nine different weapons. One let you launch a swarm of rockets using a Panzer Dragoon-like paint-and-fire technique. One is a lock-on missile that requires you to keep your target in your sights until it achieves a lock. The last is a lightning bolt that you can use in quick bursts to take out smaller targets, or you can charge it up to launch a ball of electricity.
The control is really slick. The game uses the controller's internal tilt-sensing mechanisms to steer your ship. It works really well, and didn't feel jittery at all. If you hold R1, tilting the control rolls your ship. Double-tapping R2 kicks in your afterburners for a quick speed boost, and triangle converts you into and out of hover mode. The D pad on the controller is used for selecting secondary weapons, and square fires them. X is your main machine gun.
The game's running at a nicely smooth frame rate, and there are pretty good-looking particle effects and heat wash. The game's got good-looking clouds, water, and other environmental details too. Overall, it's a nice looking game that already seems to play well, even though the development team only recently incorporated the new controller's motion sensors. We're looking forward to seeing more of this one in the future.