Halfway back to my base, two enemy Warhawks appeared behind me. Swerving to and fro, I managed to dodge their fire as I drove back to the base, but as soon as I arrived near my base and started sprinted towards it, they gunned me down with impressive precision. Fortunately, they made a mistake and flew off without reclaiming their flag. With only seconds left in the match, I snagged the flag from where I had dropped it and crossed the short distance needed to score, single-handedly winning the round for my team.

Of Warhawk's multiple gameplay modes, the one requiring the most strategy and team coordination is Zones, derived from the territory capture games common in modern team-based games. In Zones, the more bases a team has captured around the map, the more points it receives. The longer a player stays at a base, the larger its surrounding zone becomes, and the more weapons and vehicles spawn there. If the zones of two or three bases located next to one another are at maximum size, they touch, which doubles or triples the points received respectively. However, if an enemy occupies the base, the zone shrinks, breaking the multiplier and eventually becoming enemy-controlled.

Due to the ebb and flow of zones and the ever-changing location of battles, victory relies on team communication. An effective technique is to rush to capture the base at the center of the map, leave a player in a tank and, if possible, one in a nearby turret. While those players defend the base, a small group works its way backwards, claiming the bases along the path to the initial starting points and setting up the points multiplier. As the bulk of the team charges forward into enemy territory, ideally pushing opponents back and gaining even more bases in the process, the defending players need to be on the lookout for aerial and vehicular assaults trying to lower the point multiplier by shrinking a key zone.

The mode also highlights the effective use of vehicles. By jumping in a Warhawk at the beginning of a match, players can quickly reach that middle base. Jeeps carrying up to three other players arrive afterwards, followed by the hard-hitting tanks. By keeping in constant communication with the rest of the team, a lone Warhawk equipped with the right weapon, such as a cluster bomb, can easily wipe out a large number of players at a key moment.

With all this talk of on-foot combat, fans of SingleTrac's original flight-only Warhawk on PlayStation should be pleased to learn that Incognito has not squandered the opportunity for large-scale aerial battles. Each of the game's five huge maps has a number of different layouts available corresponding to different game modes or player counts. For example, the 4-8 player fortress layout of Eucadia features a very small segment of the complete level, containing only two large buildings and the small plot of land between them. Its 32-player layout gives players access to all of its terrain. Its Dogfight layout, available in both Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch flavors, puts every player in a Warhawk for pure aerial combat.

While most of the modes demand strategy and team play, Dogfight matches highlight the depths of the Warhawks' controls and one's skills as a pilot. Three different control schemes are available. The default scheme assigns tricks, such as barrel rolls and inside loops, to the right analog stick, which helps in the evasion of missiles and other attacks. Pro controls instead allows players complete control over the plane's pitch and roll with the right stick, allowing for far more advanced, but possibly nausea-inducing, maneuvers. Lastly, the motion control option permits players to pilot their planes by tilting the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller, freeing up the left analog stick for more precise aiming. Personally, I play on the pro setting, never having felt the urge to master the finicky tilt-based controls.

With full control over a plane's pitch and roll, aerial dogfights get rather intense. In one match, I was facing off against a player that had a blood red Warhawk. Since the game tracks a player's earned experience points across ranked games and provides more customization options the higher someone's overall rank, and since the blood red Warhawk is only available to the higher ranks, I knew I was probably outgunned from the moment I saw it. Still, I had to try. Coming up behind the Warhawk, it banked up and out of my sight. Pulling back on the right analog stick, I followed suit, and by following the barely visible vapor trails they had left behind, I was able to match the jukes move for move. However, I was always playing catch up, my opponent one step ahead of me and never in my sights long enough to acquire a lock-on or fire my machine gun.

Realizing that enough was enough, I switched into hover mode to put some distance between us and tried to acquire a lock-on. I had forgotten that my opponent had a friend playing with us--like various Xbox Live games, Warhawk allows up to four players to play from a single PlayStation 3, splitting the screen and assigning guests numbered versions of the system owner's nickname. Being stationary, it was only seconds until that friend sent a few missiles my way.

I cannot overstate the more advanced possibilities that pro control brings to the game. By rotating my Warhawk on its side, I was able to weave through some of the narrow passages of the Island Outpost map and shake off both a series of missiles and the pursuing Warhawk. A similar situation cropped up in the Destroyed Capitol map, which is set in the foggy height of a ruined city. As a player unleashed a salvo of missiles in my direction, I dove down and flew parallel along a building's length, the trailing projectiles unable to follow my lead and impacting the building instead.

The current build of Warhawk suffers from a few potentially easily fixable problems. While you can search for and organize games based on a number of criteria, map layout is not one of those options. In other words, while you can search for Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, or Zone games, you can't search for a Dogfight, as that distinction is determined by map layout, not game mode. Hopefully, Incognito addresses this for the full version.

When using a USB or Bluetooth headset, Warhawk features voice chat using a push to talk feature, requiring you to click the left analog stick down to broadcast commands. However, there is no on-screen graphic that indicates when you or another player is talking, which can lead to confusion, another issue that could be fixed by release.

Despite some minor qualms, Warhawk provides a multiplayer experience unlike that previously seen on consoles. With up to 32 players, a balanced variety of both exciting on-foot shootouts and aerial dogfights, and a nearly endless supply of "holy shit" moments, Warhawk is a title that multiplayer aficionados and PlayStation 3 owners alike should keep an eye on as its fall arrival approaches.

Developed by Incognito Entertainment, Warhawk will be simultaneously released through PlayStation Network and retail this fall.