Contrary to the "casual gaming" trend everyone is talking about these days, Sony's WarHawk for PlayStation3 is geared squarely toward the majority of current PS3 owners; it's hardcore.

Indeed, you've got to be a pretty serious gamer to buy a game with no tutorial, no practice mode, no offline play and otherwise no way to ease into it -- save, perhaps, hosting your own online game and hoping nobody joins in while you tool around in the skies, or stomp around on foot or man a variety of machinery just to get the hang of it.

But that's also what makes WarHawk so seriously cool.

It's a 32-player, online-only, take-no-prisoners warfare game reminiscent of EA's Battlefield titles in that you're are thrown into live, team-based skirmishes with all sorts of airships, ground vehicles and plain old army boots at your disposal, where you attack or defend certain waypoints, capture flags and all that jazz.

It's very hard to get a handle on, but you'll soon discover that mastery of the fine Art of War-hawking is apparently possible as great gobs of great players swarm around and tear you a new one, time and again. Sure, there are little in-game helper prompts waxing at on-the-fly how-to guides, but those usually appear as you are dying -- and then disappear before you can read them anyway.

Regardless, there's little opportunity to blame game design for your woes; the motion-sensitive SixAxis controller is employed to brilliant effect when flying or hovering around in the various futuristic aircraft -- maybe a little too kinetic or physiotherapeutic about it -- while running or rolling and gunning is as familiar as any old shooter game. To wit: you can't blame the tools. In fact, WarHawk comes optionally bundled with a free, Jabra BT125 bluetooth headset, so you can always ask people to go easy on you, or give you some help.

Anyway, to get to such a skill level where the WarHawk is actually fun, you're talking a serious lesson in humility -- many lessons, actually --, yet it's hard to put down or give up because it all looks so darn dazzling, a rockin' representation of the PlayStation3 firing on all cylinders. A little patience, a lot of trial-by-fire, and it's all good.

TIP: By consensus, generally the best way to dodge missiles coming your airborne way in WarHawk is to barrel roll and loop at the same time. Basically, wank on the SixAxis controller like your life depended on it. It does.

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