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26 CommentsBrosie the Riveter's got guts: Pranking your CEO and pushing for gender equality
By Samit Sarkar on May 23, 2013 05.23.13
Adhesive Games' Hawken is a free-to-play shooter featuring mech combat, and one of its pieces of promotional artwork features a giant green robot suit. The mech, however, stands in the background, obscured by a shapely young brunette woman holding a welding torch and a flint spark lighter — and baring not just her torso, but the bottom half of her breasts. "You are free to fight," reads the tagline on the poster, for which artist Justin Hampton drew inspiration from World War II-era "Rosie the Riveter" propaganda. Mark Long, the CEO of Hawken publisher Meteor Entertainment, is a partner at Roque La Rue, an alternative art gallery in Seattle, and an avowed fan and collector of what's sometimes known as "chick art," he told Polygon over email recently. Long loved the Hawken poster so...
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3 CommentsHawken receives Service Awards Achievement system
By Jenna Pitcher on Apr 22, 2013 04.22.13
Adhesive Games' Hawken received more than 300 Service Awards in the Technician Update, according to a post on the game's official site. Many Service Awards come with Hawken Credits, the in-game currency, which can range from 50HC an achievement for performing a certain amount of assisted kills, to 2,500HC for playing 100 hours of Hawken with the On the Clock 3 achievement. Players can track their progression of awards by viewing Service Awards tab by clicking on their call-sign, and achievements are broken down by sub category, such as General, Game Modes, Mech Specific and Maps. The Technician Update, which rolled out last week, also introduced the latest purchasable mech, the Technician. Meteor told Polygon in an interview that the mech is designed to make Hawken more accessible...
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4 CommentsHawken's Technician mech opens the battlefield to less twitchy players
By Griffin McElroy on Mar 27, 2013 03.27.13
Hawken's next purchasable mech, the Technician, will make the game more accessible to new players when it launches with the game's April update, Meteor Entertainment producer Paul Loynd told Polygon in a recent interview. The Technician possesses a unique ability that promises to turn Hawken's mechanized battlefield on its ear: It can heal and buff its teammates. Using a gun reminiscent of that of Team Fortress 2's Medic, the Technician can channel energy through its weapon to heal friendly units, charge that energy to provide them with damage-reducing buffs or turn the weapon on foes to drain their health, and reduce their armor. It's a relatively simple weapon to use, whether you're targeting friend or foe. Loynd said that developer Adhesive Games has been planning on adding the...
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2 CommentsHawken gets new Raider mech and updates to balance and maps
By Tracey Lien on Mar 06, 2013 03.06.13
The Raider mech is now available in the Hawken Mech Shop, along with a slew of updates to the free-to-play multiplayer mech combat game. The new Raider mech lets players "close pesky gaps quickly" by allowing them to use speed boosts while also firing their weapons at the same time. It also comes with a ReFLAK-35 as a primary weapon, a T32-BOLT as an alternate primary weapon, a Corsair-KLA as a secondary weapon and an EOC Repeater as a prestige weapon. Its main ability is Blitz and its starting item is the EMP. A more detailed description of the Raider mech's weapon specs can be viewed here. The Raider update, which is also available now, adds the work-in-progress Facility map, reintroduces the server browser and includes balance tweaks to weapons, items, abilities and gameplay. The...
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1 CommentGDC Play 2013 announces 'Best in Play' winners
By Emily Gera on Mar 04, 2013 03.04.13
This year's winners of the new Game Developers Conference award program "Best in Play" were announced following the three-day GDC Play 2013 event that allows new developers to showcase their titles. The eight winners, decided upon by the organisers of the 2013 Game Developers Conference and Gamasutra editors, were chosen from over 70 exhibitors. They include mech-centric shooter Hawken by Meteor Entertainment, Spin the Bottle by KnapNok for Wii U, Impire by Cyanide Studio, Grooh by digiDingo ag, Monsters Invade: Oz by Little Box Apps, Krautscape by Team Krautscape, Mini Moto Racing EVO from The Binary Mill and Space Qube by Qubit Games. All winners of Best in Play will receive two All Access Passes to next year's GDC conference, in addition to special kiosk designations throughout GDC...
Culture
2 CommentsEmerald City Comic Con includes life-sized Hawken mech, playable game
By Megan Farokhmanesh on Mar 03, 2013 03.03.13
Emerald City Comic Con attendees will have the chance to play Hawken and take photos with a life-sized mech, Adhesive Games announced. Hawken is a free-to-play, online multiplayer first-person shooter where players customize and battle mechs on a dystopian planet. Convention attendees can purchase the game-based graphic novel, Hawken: Genesis, early; Genesis reveals the game's backstory. Participants over the age of 21 can also attend the Hawken Art Attack Show at Vermillion. Hawken went into open beta on Dec. 12, 2012 for Windows PC. Comic Con participants can play it in booth 3005 or on the game's website. Emerald City Comic Con ends today. The convention takes place at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.
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0 CommentsHawken demoed on Project Shield exclusive to Tegra 4, built in weeks
By Dave Tach on Jan 07, 2013 01.07.13
The version of Hawken demoed onstage at Nvidia's Project Shield console announcement was custom built for the company's new console, a representative from Nvidia told Kotaku. Adhesive Games received the hardware shortly before Christmas and spent the last few weeks creating a version of the first-person mech shooter to run on the console, which contains Nvidia's Tegra 4 system on a chip. According to Kotaku, "the Android version of Hawken" will be exclusive to the Tegra 4 and possibly to Project Shield. Last year, CEO Mark Long of Hawken publisher Meteor Entertainment announced interest in developing for Ouya. The Kickstarter-funded gaming console also runs Android, but sports a Tegra 3 processor under the hood. Nvidia unveiled Project Shield, its gaming device that contains both a...
Culture
2 CommentsA merry mech Christmas from Meteor Entertainment and Adhesive Games
By Dave Tach on Dec 17, 2012 12.17.12
Meteor Entertainment and Adhesive Games, the publisher and developer team behind Hawken, have gussied up a mech to wish everyone a happy holiday season. You can see the festive mech in full holiday attire below.
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18 CommentsSinful Robot developing 'virtual reality erotic encounters' for Oculus Rift VR headset
By Michael McWhertor on Dec 13, 2012 12.13.12
The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset has a new supporter in developer Sinful Robot, an Irvine, California-based start up that plans to bring "immersive virtual reality erotic encounters" to the headset designed with video games in mind. Sinful Robot announced its intentions to bring an "erotic adventure game" to the Rift — and "other similar technologies" — through its website and a post on Reddit by company co-founder and creative director Jeroen Van den Bosch. "I have been waiting for many years for technology to become immersive enough so it [tricks] your brain to accept the virtual reality as reality, but the Rift does really do that," Van den Bosch wrote on Reddit. "So now we can finally make an erotic adventure game that will actually be exciting!" Sinful Robot's...
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1 CommentHawken's virtual currency to be managed by Live Gamer
By Dave Tach on Dec 10, 2012 12.10.12
Hawken, Adhesive Games' upcoming free-to-play mech shooter, will use Live Gamer to process its payments, VentureBeat reports. Live Gamer will provide the back-end services to process the shooter's in-game purchases, accepting 49 currencies worldwide. The company manages a similar payment service for Station Cash, Sony Entertainment Online's cross-game virtual currency. "Live Gamer is the trusted industry solution and their global reach made them the obvious partner for our Hawken open beta event," said Mark Long, CEO of Meteor Entertainment. "Using their platform we were able to add robust features and functionality as well as payment coverage on a global scale in a short timeframe." Live Gamer also provides advertising through its adElements platform, in which players watch a video...
