Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Great multiplayer"

Chromehounds is a mech simulator, and is the first Mech related adventure for the XBox 360. A little bit combat, a little bit strategy, it provides quick, fairly difficult missions and then involving online gameplay. It may sound obvious, but a lot of people seem to think it's the next BattleTech game. MechAssault (for x-box) was an arcade game that was simple to play and easy to learn. Chromehounds is much more difficult to play and the learning curve is very steep.

The graphics run from very good to pretty poor. Where other mech games go for arcadey non-reality, ChromeHounds tries to keep things real. Your mechs don't zip along at 100 miles an hour. They stomp with realistic weight and speed, leaving behind footprints and track marks. The detail on their glistening metal body is quite impressive. With the incredibly huge amount of customization available for your mech, you can spend hours honing the exact perfect mech for your gameplay style, and really care about its survival.

The world you inhabit didn't get this same level of loving detail. The missions are all very short and really don't need a plot. You are blowing things up while trying not to be blown up yourself. The environments you stomp through are almost an afterthought. Don't look for waving fields of grain or purple mountains majesty here.

The mech customization is really the key to play (otherwise equally powered mechs would just be strafing each other and whoever has slightly better aim would win). You can load up on weapons and armor, at the expense of speed. There are TONS of weapons, legs, and cockpits. You can carry missle counters, thermal vision, night vision, and other "assist" parts.

As in many modern combat games, the basic mission tree is really all just a training mission for the *real* challenge - facing other human beings. You want to replay the local missions several times, tuning your mech movement skills and your weapon / armor combination to get ready for the team based online gameplay. That is where the real fun and skill-testing begins. Can you coordinate your efforts with your friends to ward off attacks from other skilled players from around the world? You can't just run and blast away - that technique will get you killed quickly. You have to know your mech's limitations and advantages, and then plan joint attacks to achieve that victory. It really is a fun combination of hand-eye coordination and tactical intelligent planning.

X-box live featurs a "war" with three warring nations. Every player must pick allegiance to one nation (though you can change allegiances) and you can go on missions for your country. The goal of each mission is to destroy the enemy's HQ while defending your own. You also win, but get less points, if you destroy the other team's mechs.

X-box live also features ranked and unranked games so you can just try out your mech against other players before taking it on the campaign.

This game is complex and it takes a while to figure out how to build the right mech for the right mission. My only real complaint is going on missions requires you join up with your squad. If you've ever been in a "clan" on x-box live, you know how hard it is to link up with your team to play other teams. This game offers a unique mech simulator that assures players won't necessarily be beaten by trash talking 13 year olds with excellent hand eye coordination. In fact, if you don't have x-box live gold, you may want to only consider renting this game.

Well recommended for people who have online gameplay and enjoy that level of thought. For someone just wanting an arcadey fly-fast-and-blow-things-up-locally, you might want to rent this first to see if the realistic mech functioning will keep you happy.