Boring gameplay, and no singleplayer game holds back a game that could have been great.
Unfortunately, the first mech-combat game on the 360 doesn’t live up to the hype. Chromehounds is a fun game in it’s own right, and does some new things for the genre. But at the same time, it does a lot of cliché stuff that holds it back.
GAMEPLAY
I expect my mech games to give me a strong sense of just how huge these metal beasts are. Chromehounds has this in spades. In fact, it does it too well. To the point that even the fast hounds feel slow and unresponsive. The combat just isn’t fun. Each hound has a health bar that you need to deplete to destroy it. Some weapons do this faster, but the bottom line is that fights just devolve into circle strafing.
There’s little skill required to pilot these mechs, and you aren’t rewarded for precise shots. It also becomes very annoying to have to constantly switch to the 1st person view since 3rd person doesn’t have an aiming cursor of any kind. There aren’t any other controllable vehicles other than the hounds. No tanks or planes. This means the combat gets even more boring.
Customizing your hound is great, and allows you to blend different “role types” instead of having clear-cut hounds. The downside is that all the mechs tend to look the same, and lack that artistic “wow” factor. At lot of the maps look bland, and empty as well.
GRAPHICS
This is a mixed bag. The explosions look great, and some other effects look nice. But the graphics are lacking in some spots. For example, what’s up with a hound disappearing after it blows up? It just looks bad. You can also walk through trees, but a simple wooden barn is an immoveable object for a 100-ton hound. Buildings just collapse into the ground, and leave no rubble behind when destroyed. Overall, CH is just not up to 360 standards
SOUND
Here’s another mixed bag for the sound department. The gunshots sound great, and the hounds have a nice thump to their movements. But there’s little else in the way of sound effects. Very rarely will you notice any environmental sounds, and the same applies to the music. It’s almost non-existent except for at the main title screen.
VALUE
Oddly enough, Chromehounds biggest draw is also its biggest problem. First, there’s almost a complete lack of a single player game. The “single player” game is nothing more than a series of training missions to get you familiar with the controls and each role-type. You can unlock parts from the training, but there’s little reason to fully play them. The story could have been great, but it’s all conveyed through your maps, and thus you don’t get attached to any of the characters.
The online play is decent, and has a persistent online war being fought. First you pick a country, and a squad or clan to join. Then you fight in battles to take over territory from the two enemy countries. Sounds good on the surface, but the boring game play holds it back. Combat is just slow, and repetitive when you’re winning. While ugly and frustrating if you’re losing. Like a lot of MMORPG’s, you need to devote a lot of time to playing if you want to get anything out of it. In addition, your fun with it is only as good as the people you play with. Get with a bad team, and you’ll not be playing for very long.
Single and casual players need not apply. This game wasn’t designed for you. That said, you could still have a lot of fun with Chromehounds if you’re willing to put time and effort into playing. But overall, you wont find a whole lot that’s new from other games in this genre.
The graphics and sound just aren’t up to 360 standards, and the gameplay gets old fast. Some faster movement, or other vehicles to mix things up would have been great. This might be addressed as patches or add-ons are released, but for now I wouldn’t jump right in. Rent it first if you’re dying for a new mech game.