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Xbox360
releases have hardly been numerous in recent months, so it comes as
little surprise that there are high expectations for July’s big
releases; Take2’s Prey
and SEGA’s ChromeHounds. Both these titles were previewed
by Electronic Articles back at
E3 2006 and showed some
promise, specifically in its online Multi-Player Modes. However,
despite its online features being touted as some of the finer parts
of the game, when it finally reached UK shores back on the 7th July,
2006, hosting problems at SEGA meant that most players found playing
online virtually impossible. Those issues have since been rectified
and ChromeHounds has gained it’s full functionality, but
does that actually mean that it’ll be any good? We’re dry on
Xbox360 releases at the moment but that doesn’t ever justify
buying a sub-standard game!
Released
first to the Mech-loving Japanese market late last month, Xbox360
gamers will almost certainly recognise ChromeHounds as the
impressive giant robot game that has been touted as the
Next-Generation Mech title since the launch of the Next-Generation
with the Xbox360. The game plays from a primarily third-person
perspective with the option to switch to a weapon cam for a
first-person view. You play as a mercenary in control of a large
robot known as a “Hound” and must earn money and Hound parts
through the successful completion of several Missions in
Single-Player and through winning battles online in the Neroimus
War: a persistant battleground that bears more than a slight
resemblance to the PvP Modes found in many Massively Multi-Player
Online Role-Playing Games.
The
Single-Player Missions act as a form of tutorial chronicling the
acts leading to the Neroimus War as the forty-two Missions are split
over six seven Mission Campaigns that instruct the player in the use
of ChromeHounds’ six different Hounds; the Soldier, Scout,
Heavy Gunner, Defender, Commander and Sniper. Completing these
Missions in a particularly quick time and performing extra Secondary
Objectives  will earn a player a higher Grade and extra parts for
their Hounds. Although a Hound’s type is defined by the game based
on the equipment used by the player, each Hound tends to lend itself
to a certain job. Soldiers take the role of the standard all-purpose
troop type, Defenders boast huge offensive and defensive abilities
but a slow top speed, Snipers use accurate long range weaponry and
Heavy Gunners can use long range indirect artillery style weaponry.
Scouts and Tactics Commanders fill less combat-orientated roles,
Scouts tend to have a higher top speed than the other classes,
although typically at the cost of combat ability and are primarily
used to capture COMBA’s. The Tactics Commander is the only Hound
type that allows detailed analysis of the battlefield, due to the
fact that the Tactics Commander has access to an enhanced Map that
shows the positions of Hounds within the teams Network Area, and the
only to broadcast it’s own Network Area. Once the concept of
COMBA’s and Network Area is clear, the importance of these two
classes becomes apparent. ChromeHounds makes a vague attempt
to explain that in this alternate world, telecommunications have
become highly unstable due to increased solar flare activity.
Because of this, long range mobile communication is very difficult
and short range communication towers known as COMBA’s are the only
way of communicating between Hounds. This means that  during play a
gamer may only talk to members of their team provided that they are
both within the Network Area broadcasted by captured COMBA’s and
the Tactic Commander’s Network Array. Think of it like Mobile
Phone coverage and you won’t be far off.
Online
a player can participate in the Neroimus War in individual Missions,
Deathmatch or as part of a Squad. Being mercenary, winning Battles
online earns the player Credits which can then be used in the shop
to pay for Mech parts and upgrades. As previously mentioned, the
Neroimus War is persistant and ChromeHounds asks a player to
declare their allegiance to one of the three countries, Sal Kar,
Morskoj or Tarakai, at the start of each round, with the ultimate
goal being victory for your chosen country, at which point the
servers reset and the battle restarts. The Neroimus War is quite
detailed and in-depth with many options available to the player,
such as the ability to donate Credits to your countries war effort,
and lots of spontaneous events such as the emergency defence of a
city or the attack of province, with bigger rewards for gamers quick
enough to get in on the action. In order to capture territory in the
Neroimus War, players must join a Squad. Squads function similarly
to the Guilds found in many Massivley Multi-Player Online
Role-Playing Games and allow easy communication between members and
allow the co-ordination of attacks.
Once
of the strongest features of ChromeHounds is it’s excellent
Hound Customisation options and Mech enthusiasts will love the
extensive level of building options available. Literally hundred of
different Hound builds are possible through the combination of small
and heavy arms, spacers, cockpits, chassis, generators and more.
There are also lots of in-depth personalisation options such as
camouflage and colouring. Hours of fun can be had simply messing
around in the garage.
For
all it’s ambition and options, it pains us to say that ChromeHounds
is definitely not as good as it could have been. Not due to any of
its innovations, but more because of some inherent flaws in the
basic game. Despite that fact that realistically, no fifty-ton
walking tank is likely to be particularly nippy, the Hounds,
especially the huge Heavy Gunner class, are excruciatingly slow.
This in itself leads to many inherent problems. Issue number one;
getting from A-to-B is a long laborious process that if concluded by
a swift destruction by enemy forces, becomes incredibly frustrating
very quickly, especially on the fairly boring Single-Player
Missions. The second big issue is the lack of difficulty in the
combat. Being so slow, Hounds are easy to hit and as such mean that
most battles are not determined by skill, but rather who has the
toughest Hound. This also allows some of the long range units to
become rather over powered, although tactical play can overcome
this.
The
Single-Player Mode makes few excuses for its obvious  tutorial nature
but also lacks the kind of user friendliness that a Tutorial should
be based on. If you miss what your instructor says there is no way
to review your Objectives, which can mean that you’ll need to quit
and restart a Mission just to see what you need to do. Obviously, this
is not fun. Instructions are also occasionally incredibly vague and
it is incredibly apparent early on that the Single-Player Mode was
added hastily.
On
Standard or High-Definition, ChromeHounds generally looks
great. All the Hounds have high-resolution textures the game make
good use of lighting, which becomes very impressive in the
night-time Missions. The game also has arguably the best looking
weapon explosions of any game to date. Unfortunately the graphics
are hardly without flaw. Some enemies and destructible buildings
explode or fall down or just fade away in a particularly
Current-Generation fashion and several Models are reused a little
too much, making battlefields seem bland and repetitive. There are
also noticeable Frame-Rate problems when there are too many
explosions on-screen, and also, bizarrely, occasionally when the
player is simply in first-person mode. The quality of sound in ChromeHounds
also varies.  While the guns and explosions all have a good meaty
sound and the music is composed above average orchestral pieces, the
Voice-Acting is flat and uninteresting and some sound effects can
start to grate, possibly due more to the slow monotonous nature of
Hound movement than the actual effect.
ChromeHounds
in not a game for the casual gamer, nor is it a title for those yet
to connect to XboxLIVE! The strongest part of ChromeHounds
is the online Squad-based Neroimus War, which can eat up a lot of
time, although not without it’s own merits and rewards. However,
the Single-Player Missions, both offline and online can be very
boring and lack any kind of charm or spark, a problem exaggerated by
the poor Voice-Acting and slow movement speed. Mech fans can squeeze
a lot of fun out of the Garage Mode alone and the thought of taking
your own highly customised Hound online may be enough for some, but
those looking for a pick-up-and-play Arcade Mech game will need to
look elsewhere.
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