I was initially very skeptical of how this feature (which looked hastily tacked on to a regular joypad without a rumble) would work, but after a lengthy playtest of WarHawk's 30 percent complete single demo stage, I can safely attest to the excellent maneuverable quality possible from the very first moment you pick up and play. The slight delay at the Sony press conference between Phil Harrison's pivoting, and the on-screen tilting of his rendered joypad meant I was expecting the same problems during my WarHawk piloting. Not so. This works flawlessly, and immediately, and allayed any fears I had that this was a last-minute gimmick designed to tear interest away from the Wii. No; this tilting joypad is a last-minute gimmick designed to tear interest away from the Wii that works.
Back to the dogfighting; after my gaming instincts to thumb the analog sticks was removed (there's no maneuvering like you're used to), I began to gently tilt the controller back, causing my plane to rise; then I thrust forward and sent the craft into a steep dive, straight towards some jagged rocks (fortunately, without jaggy textures - the game is among the most smoothly rendered I've ever seen), then twisted the pad 90 degrees left, and it veered away from the plummet, and out into a sparkling blue ocean.
With a quick flick of the L2 button, I was barrel-rolling (thankfully, there's no joypad acrobatics needed for that one) like the Red Baron, and once all of the three different pivoting techniques were combined, you essentially had the control of an aircraft you've always been expected. This was instantly intuitive, and the applications for future use (I'm thinking in FPS titles specifically) is mind-boggling. It took 15 seconds for me to change my jaded mind from slightly mocking to kool-aid drinking. I've experienced the way PS3 games control, and it's epoch-making. Well, if a certain company named Nintendo hadn't thought of it first.
WarHawk itself was in a very early state, and can best be described as Crimson Skies meets more Crimson Skies. The demo stage was a group of islands with super-deformed topography, interspersed with landing pads, and series of linked tunnel sections through the middle that really tested your tilting skills. You may have seen this stage before; it's almost exactly the same as the one in Crimson Skies. Flying about with limited AI were small scouting ships (which you could strafe with mini-gun fire or opt for a group of heat-seeking rockets), and larger motherships, which intermittently burped out missiles. Runs around and through these vessels were also well-handled, thanks to the control. In fact, what could have been a rather nondescript flight combat offering has turned into a fantastic and superbly controllable outing into the skies.
This was the demo in its entirety; the final game is promising on-foot scenarios with various land vehicles like tanks and jeeps making up the third way to play, hundreds of planes to attack in the skies (we only encountered six or so at close range), and a 32-player online dogfighting antics that promise you'll be pivoting and diving without being watched intently by the great unwashed at E3.
