Starhawk producer gives us a look at slamming down turrets and flying robot jets

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SCEA’s Harvard Bonin gives us a primer on single-player battlefield tactics

Adding tower-defense elements to shooters appears to be a creeping trend these days; so far, we’ve seen it in games like Trenched, Section 8: Prejudice and Gears of War 3’s new Horde 2.0 mode. However, none seem to be embracing the idea quite as fully – or quite as impressively – as Starhawk. Calling down barricades, turrets and vehicles is a key part of Starhawk’s gameplay, and to get an idea of how best to use them effectively, we met up with Harvard Bonin, the game’s senior producer, for a quick walkthrough.

Playing the single-player demo at PAX 2011, Bonin built a bunker, called in a transformable Hawk and used it to bring down enemy fighter jets while calling in automated turrets (which he could have also hopped into and controlled if he’d wanted to). Not shown were the squads of AI allies the game sometimes spawns, who will actually grab or control any weapons, vehicles and pilotable defenses left untouched by players, thereby making themselves a little more useful than common foot soldiers. So far, Starhawk’s looking pretty impressive – and it’ll probably look even more impressive as we edge closer to its release, scheduled for sometime next year.

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Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.