Shoot? Who??? Mission failed!!?!?! WHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!!!!?!?!!!?!?!
Graphics: Excellent except for ONE thing. I would love it if the vehicles you destroy didn't disappear into thin air within seconds. I mean, the explosions and smoke look cool, but then you see the shell of what you destroyed for about two seconds...MAYBE...before it's gone. Sometimes the smoke clears and you can still see the UNDAMAGED model of the enemy sitting there before disappearing. Um...Sega? Beta-testing owns you. ;). The hounds do look good, and the gunfire is realistic. Honestly, the cheesy disappearing carcasses are my only complaint. Environments look nice except for at night. Then, you can't see a dang thing...and when a flare goes off and you can finally see, there is no telling who you are looking at. Way to go.....have us all blasting our own team for no good reason and label the game "realistically challenging"....riiiiiiiiight.
Sound: Not too bad. Voiceovers could be better...but I've given up on that. Music is forgettable...I mean, as I sit here not five minutes after turning the game off, I can't remember a single score in it. Sound effects are passable, but I would have loved some major explosive sound effects.
Control: Surprisingly simple. At first glance, there's a ton of crap on the HUD that will have you scratching your head and asking yourself, "WTF does that mean?" if you are new to mech games like myself. But once you get going, it's a cakewalk to move around. Being able to click the right thumbstick and enter sniping mode is also a blessing. Not much to complain about here. And to all those who said the mechs are too slow: They are mechs. They're heavy. Deal with it. I've never played a mech game before, and I don't think they are too slow. Yes, sometimes you have to walk aways to get where you are going, but it didn't feel that slow to me. Oh, and the map in this game...not so bright. Think of it as a replica of the kind of map you use to play Battleship...F4...B10...coordinate-driven. Not such a good idea.
Entertainment: Please picture this: You are creeping through the night in your sniper mech. Your lead officer has ordered you to move into position to snipe an enemy patrol that is moving along the roadway. Quietly, you move into position. You ready your guns so that when the flare goes up, you can scope in and own. You wait.....you wait....the flare goes up, and you open fire on the mechs below. Three seconds later, GAME OVER. Congratulations. You just leveled your team. Thus the joy of Chrome Hounds. The even GREATER joy? Restarting the mission, moving to the same spot, and firing on the other group of mechs.....just to hit the GAME OVER screen a few seconds later. Seems those are your guys too. Which would beg the question......WTF is the enemy???! My major complaint on multiple levels in this game is that you never know who is who. You see mechs, but literally I found myself waiting to see if they were going to shoot me just to tell if they were friendly. That's bottom-end, sorry-excuse, bargain-bin game design right there. All that technology....and they can't make a map that points out the enemies from the friendlies..*ahem*Ghost Recon *ahem*. The single player mode of this game suffers from Battlefield 2 syndrome bad....it blows. Horribly. Not even mech junkies are gonna like this. Sure, the online is alright. But I didn't pay $60 for a so-so multiplayer mode and a god-awful single player mode. The formula for next gen games has finally been figured out. Less Game + Less Monetary investment (why bother? We don't have to make it good...we've got the only new game coming out for THREE WEEKS) + $60 price tag = Happy corporations and disappointed gamers. When I shut off my $400 triple-core console with a $60 software disc in it to go play my $130 Nintendo DS and New Super Mario Bros., there is a very big problem. And that's what happened here. Hounds has alot of potential, but it seems like they tried to make the game almost an online-only affair....which is a shame because not all of us feel like playing on Xbox Live all the time. I would love to see some non-Live games come out that don't suck horribly. Unfortunately, the wait continues.
If you're looking for a game to play during the summer BS...er...drought...period, then maybe you should rent Chrome Hounds. However, I feel like I just got robbed at gunpoint for my $60 and would love to have it back. The bottom line: Rental? Meh...if you want...and you have Xbox Live. Purchase? Nah. There's just nothing here. It's a shell of what the game could have been...and that's sad. Sorry, but I'm just not impressed.