The first Warhawk game was a futuristic combat flight-sim game for the PlayStation. Made by Singletrac of Twisted Metal fame.
The second Warhawk game was a Continuity Reboot of the series on the PlayStation 3, also titled simply Warhawk. The game is reimagined as a Third-Person Shooter with heavy use of vehicles. Single player gameplay was abandoned entirely in favor of fine-tuning online multiplayer for up to 32 players. Like Team Fortress 2, the game eschews realism in favor of Rule of Fun and Rule of Cool.
Three expansion packs are available: Operation Broken Mirror, Operation Omega Dawn and Operation Fallen Star
Warhawk received a Spiritual Successor in Starhawk, which features robots that transform into jets and a strategic system that can be described as 'trigger-happy construction', where the player can call down vehicle spawn points, bunkers, turrets, etc to drop down like lightning on the location of your choosing.
Not to Be Confused with a War Hawk, an individual who is a proponent of war.
The first game provides examples of:
- All Up to You: The two pilots even complain about it during the cutscenes.
- And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: One of the good epilogues mentions one of the pilots retiring and selling baseball caps that read "I survived the Red Mercury War and all I got was this lousy baseball cap".
- And Now You Must Marry Me: The Big Bad forces the pilots' commanding officer into a marriage following his world conquest as one of the epilogues for losing the game on the third level, the airship convoy.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Red mercury.
- The Bad Guy Wins: You will be hearing a lot of Kreel's godlike Big Brother presence over Earth (including either a forced marriage to your commanding officer or a faux-Bible text) if you are unable to complete the game and get an ending prematurely.
- Battleship Raid: The third level, which has one large aircraft that can be entered and four smaller ships that can be blown out of the sky.
- Big Bad: Kreel, whose armadas are rapidly conquering much of the world without much resistance for no understandable reason, with Take Over the World being his end goal; some of the epilogues for losing the game have him succeed. The reason is he's using Red Mercury that was supposed to be shot into space, only someone didn't do it.
- Boss Corridor: The canyon level has some sort of small hall before each of the checkpoint bosses in the stage, all of whom must be destroyed to proceed further into the canyon (you'll know the first, third and fourth/last/main bosses are around the corner because you'll start hearing their rocket shots when you approach their positions). The "Gauntlet" level also has a hall before the mid-boss in the stage and the "Gatekeeper" monitor at the end of the stage, which plays a message of Kreel scolding and mocking you for causing him trouble and then turns into a death machine. Finally, a small hallway opens up at the top of Kreel's Tower after getting past all the barriers, and Kreel and the game's final Red Mercury canister is at the end of the hall; approaching them will start another cutscene of Kreel mocking you, this time to your face, then the Final Boss fight begins.
- Charged Attack: The Plasma cannon, though you'll eventually waste ammo if you hold on it too much.
- The Dragon: One of the pilots, Hatch, gets turned into this in one of the bad endings.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: The lead officer, Commander Jassic, has almost zero humor to her in the cutscenes inbetween the stages and shoots down a few snide comments from the pilots. She's much more respectful when you get shot down, and marries one of the pilots in one of the good endings.
- Face–Heel Turn: One of the losing epilogues has the bad guys using Red Mercury to brainwash one of the pilots into turning against his comrades and becoming The Dragon to Kreel.
- Final Boss: Kreel in a skull craft; a good deal of patience with the Warhawk's shield system and managing your ammo properly is required to even get a face-to-face with Kreel, much less defeating him.
- Flunky Boss: This is somewhat in effect for most of the game's bosses, seeing as you're in a wide open space in four of the stages and planes will continue to appear after the boss does. The ones that are not flunky bosses are the first, third and fourth bosses in the Canyon, and the Gatekeeper monitor at the end of the Gauntlet, stage 5. The random enemies in stage 6 will disappear when you engage Kreel, but he brings out three hawk machines to assist him.
- Flying Coffin: Mostly averted with the Warhawk's ejection system. Also averted by the fact that your carrier can teleport you out of action should you take enough damage to send you spiraling out of control. However, this is played straight on the third try. If you get shot down, your pilots end up a bloody mess as the craft goes down, indicating the game is over. At best, you can subvert this by ejecting; you'll still end up dead, but the epilogue may change.
- Four Is Death:
- There are four turrets around a suspicious pyramid top in the middle of the first stage that a few more hits than the other enemies in the zone. Once you blow up all four, you'll get a CGI cutscene of a full pyramid rising out of that area and charging up its superlaser; this is the boss of the stage and you have to destroy its eight power pods to destroy it and retrieve the Red Mercury.
- There are four bosses total in the second level; a rocket shooting machine on a rock pillar, a rotating cannon base with motorboats and a gun under it, a large panel with charge shots and a few turrets, and a double-sided large panel with four rocket launchers and two charge shot cannons. You have to destroy the major weapons on each of these to blow them up; it's not required to blow off the hanging turrets that are attached to them, but it helps.
- Finally, there are four sections of tower in "Stormland", the final stage, that have to be cleared to reach Kreel. The first three sections have four energy pylons and four bug-faced guns, while the fourth flings a bunch of stuff. Then you have Kreel and three bird machines.
- A God Am I: The Big Bad outright calls himself "God" if you're able to get to the end of the fifth level, which then plays a video message of him. Also, one of the epilogues for blowing the game in the fourth level, a volcanic island chain, gives him a Bible verse.
- Gory Discretion Shot: If you are shot down or eject on your third try, you'll see blood spatter the cockpit (shot down) or your vision (ejected).
- Have a Nice Death: Several times over. In one case, the villain laughs so hard at your failure that he chokes to death.
- I'm a Humanitarian: You may discover that Kreel, the Big Bad and Final Boss, is this in one of the endings for losing to him at the end of the game.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: Getting a Game Over will show a Scrolling Text (different depending on which level you lost your last life in) emphasizing how much you cocked up.
- Kill It with Fire: One of the ways the pilots die if they fail the first stage. They're trapped in the crashed Warhawk and the electronics explode and start a fire, eventually leading to "the smell of cooked meat".
- This also happens in the final area, except the pilots are actually being taken to be cooked for a banquet.
- Kill It with Water: Two of the stages (the third and fourth) take place over the ocean, and losing the game here leads to the pilots either drowning or falling far enough to die from the increased pressure in their epilogue.
- Live-Action Cutscene: The cutscenes with the commander and the pilots are live-action scenes in-between levels.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The swarmers, which are curiously less powerful than the single lock-on missiles.
- MacGuffin: The Red Mercury canisters; obtaining all canisters is the goal of levels 3 and 4 (levels 1 and 2 also have this rule, but it requires beating the boss of these stages, who will reveal 1 canister for the first stage and two for the second stage, so it's less pronounced here). Levels 5 and 6 do not have a canister to retrieve; there is one canister at the top of Kreel's Tower in the final stage and beeps on the radar like the others, but it's impossible to retrieve this canister, as it's right in front of Kreel and touching it starts a cutscene with Kreel taunting you, then deploying his skull machine with that canister and himself in it; the game ends upon Kreel's destruction and without ever getting this Red Mercury canister, which is destroyed instead.
- Make an Example of Them: Kreel does this to the pilots with their heads as one of the endings for failing the game in the Canyon stage.
- Multiple Endings: The ending changes depending on what happens on the final level. If you take too long to kill the villain, he will mock you in his death throes and then fire the Red Mercury upward, taking out your command ship. If you can open up his defenses, you gain a second option: fly your craft right into him and detonate the Red Mercury before he can launch it. Flying your craft in or ejecting with no more teleport saves left, and you wind up with a Heroic Sacrifice. However, if you still have a teleport left, you can aim your craft at the villain's and eject, causing both crafts to explode while you and your command ship are saved. This will generate one of at least two good endings. As stated above, getting a Game Over will also net you an ending that changes depending on where you lose your last life.
- Rule of Three: You get three lives period. Losing the first two lives sends you back to the mothership where your commanding officer comments on you being lucky. Three strikes, however, and you go down in red and the game ends right there with one of the epilogues.
- Shifting Sand Land: The first level is a pyramid zone with tanks, guns, and a super-powered pyramid in the center.
- Shock and Awe: One of Kreel's attacks in his machine at the end of the game emits a high-powered lightning storm that will punch right through your shields and literally send you down in flames. Destroying all parts of the boss except for the mouth, which has Kreel/the Red Mercury canister and is the target, will disable the voltage.
- Smart Bomb: The rare Doomsday pickup.
- Subsystem Damage: Each sides of the Warhawk has its own shielding and parts such as the wings or the radar can be destroyed, with appropriate effect. Lose any side, and the ship goes down.
- The Cameo: A Warhawk appears as the final boss of Twisted Metal: Black.
- Unobtainium: Red Mercury, which is the cause of conflict. On top of being a compact power source, it can also be used as a powerful explosive. The main characters' role in the game is to retrieve man-sized canisters of this stuff from the villain's many war machines.
The second game provides examples of:
- Arrow Cam: A remote-controlled missile that boasts a thrust boost to make the rocket go faster.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Chernovan uniforms and vehicles are all grey and white. Eucadian uniforms and vehicles are all earth tones.
- Cosmetically Different Sides: Eucadian and Chernovan vehicles have their own distinctive models (and names in case of the Warhawk and Nemesis), but both handle identically.
- Cosmetic Award: To keep balance, the only thing players can unlock is a difference in uniform and boost in medal-count. Some clothes are even just previous clothes with the option to change the color of certain aspects.
- Crew of One: It only takes one player to both drive a tank and operate its main gun. Averted with the 4x4, which takes a second player to man the machine gun.
- Double Knockout: Most knife/wrench battles result in these, due to the melee weapons' comically huge range. In many cases dueling knife fighters will slump dead at each others' feet at the same time. Sometimes, it will be a triple knock out if one opponent stands out enough to gain the vengeful attention of two other knife-wielders.
- Excuse Plot: The Eucadian (blue) and Chernovan (red) armies are perpetually at war.
- Expansion Pack
- Hyperspace Arsenal: An infantryman can carry an entire arsenal including a machine gun, missile launcher, sniper rifle, binoculars, two types of land mines, a knife, a wrench, a flame thrower, a pistol, grenades, and ammo for everything. Additionally, if a player is killed they drop it all in a huge backpack about as big as a person which can be absorbed by anyone who gets near it.
- Jet Pack: Added to the game in the Fallen Star add-on.
- Kill It with Fire: The flame-thrower, which is perfect for taking down tanks. Once you're under the barrel, you can take it out in seconds. Its the go-to weapon in close quarters.
- Kill Sat: Those seeking an advantage-by-distance from the binoculars will be thoroughly satisfied.
- Made of Explodium: All vehicles, stationary guns, and jetpacks. Most objects lying around seem to just be hazards for shoot-outs. see Stuff Blowing Up.
- Magic Tool: The field wrench repairs friendly vehicles, destroys enemy vehicles, bludgeons infantrymen to death, and "disassemble" stationary jeeps, enemy tanks, and even damaged, low-flying planes all with the same animation. Because soldiers are small and easy to overlook, and the wrench lops off vehicle durability at a prodigious rate, this can lead to startling deaths for vehicle drivers in cramped, cover-rich areas. There's even a trophy to be earned for wrenching a tank to death.
- Medal of Dishonor: You earn PSN trophies for such dubious feats as stepping on 5 land mines, flying into your own aerial mine, or somehow having your plane destroyed by an airstrike.
- Mythology Gag: One of the music tracks is called "Red Mercury". The Red Mercury substance is a plot point of the original game
- PG Explosives: Explosions send bodies flying. They do not gib them.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Every vehicle explodes in a massive cloud of smoke and debris when its health runs out, even if it was from hitting it with a wrench. Vehicles will also explode if simply left unattended for a minute so that they can respawn at a team's base.
- Super-Speed - players can use the boosters just fine without being airborne and will still use the running animation as long as they're on the ground.
- Universal Driver's License: Any player can operate a Tank, 4x4, Warhawk, Dropship, APC and Jetpack, and have no difficulty using captured enemy vehicles.
