User Review : Chromehounds

Genuine's Chromehounds Review

Chromehounds is a team based tactical mech shooter with a MMO touch. It should be said first and foremost that Chromehounds is largely an online only title. If you don't have XBL then you might want to try something else. There is a single-player mode, but in essence it is simply a training tool for the online multi-player.

The online portion has a light MMO flavor to it. There are three governments all fighting for control of Neroimus in a persistent online war. You must choose which country to swear your allegiance to. There is the Sal Kar, who are similar to the kingdoms of the middle east. The Tarakian who seem to be similar to the capitalist nations of the world. And the Morskov, who have a likeness to the communist parts of the world. Each country has equipment exclusive to that region, and each country has a set number of territories when the war begins. Players can attack enemy territories adjacent to their home countries territories. The goal is for your country to battle it's way to the opposing countries capitol and crush them. The wars can last a maximum of 30 actual days, in which case the war is restarted. Most of the wars that I have participated in lasted on average a little over a week.

You can go into battle alone, or you can team up with up to 5 more squad members for 6v6 combat. To win the battle you must do one of three things, a squad must destroy all enemy Hounds, destroy the enemy squads base, or have captured the most Combas Towers when time expires.

Combas Towers are key to keeping your squad coordinated. Until a Combas tower is captured, voice chat does not work. Even when a Combas tower is captured, voice chat only works while teammates are in it's broadcast vicinity, which is visible on your map. Capturing adjacent Combas towers greatly increases the towers communication area. The Combas towers make opposing squads battle just to keep communications, it's genius.

Getting your Hound tweaked can take some time. There are loads of Hound parts and weapons. This leads to thousands of variations when building a Hound. I have clocked over 150 hours into this game and I don't think that I have ever seen two players with identical Hounds.

There are six Hound role types to choose from when buying or building a Hound. You have Soldiers, this type usually has medium speed and medium armament. Snipers have decent speed and are equiped with long range sniper cannons. Heavy Gunners are slow speed with artillery cannons. Commanders are medium-fast, lightly armed, with radar equipment that acts as a mobile Combas tower. Scouts are fast, lightly armed Hounds primarily used for capturing Combas. Defenders are medium-slow speed and are heavily armed, they are used to defend your base. This should give you an idea as to why a squad must work together to achieve success.

Chromehounds isn't a bad looking game. The Hounds look fantastic, the lighting is nice, aswell as the explosions. My only real gripe is that some of the enviroments are kind of bland. It's still a decent looking game though.

The gameplay is solid. Coordinating attacks with teammates never gets old. Some "twitch" gamers would say that Chromehounds is too slow. I say it's just the nature of the beast. Your driving a 5 story, 1000 ton mech, not a Ferrari Enzo.

If your a mech fan with XBL and don't already have Chromehounds, you should give it go. I was suprised at how much this game had to offer. Best of all, Chromehounds can be picked up at a bargain price now.