If you haven't heard, Chromehounds is a mech combat game developed by From Software, a company who has also had its hand in a few Armored Core games. One of the things that made the Armored Core series so fun was the insane amounts of control the player had when customizing the mechs. If anything, it appears the level of control has been upped considerably in Chromehounds. Not only will you be able to choose from a huge array of different parts along a number of different categories--weapons, armor, cockpit, chassis, and so on--you'll have the ability to place each item on your mech in the exact spot you wish to see it. Want a mech with tank treads and six double-barreled machine guns on each shoulder? Go for it. How about a speedy hovercraft with twin howitzer cannons and a radar unit? Yep, you can do that too. You can even take that level of customization down to individual emblems, which you can design and place on different parts of your mech.
How you build out your mech is completely up to you, but the configuration of parts will determine what kind of "class" your mech belongs in. Instead of choosing to build a "sniper," for example, and being limited with the number of parts and weapons you can use, the parts you configure classifies your mech dynamically along the available categories--including soldier, defender, heavy gunner, tactics commander, and so on. As such, it's an easy and organic process to build hybrid mechs that dip into several categories at once.
Chromehounds' storyline and setting features a near-future alternate history, which posits that the Cold War never ended. Three superpowers--the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Asia Alliance--battle for control, and the massive mechs (or Hounds, as they're known in the game) are the tools with which they fight. The battle campaign will take place in a fictional version of Eastern Europe, and you'll play a mercenary whose services, and Hound, are available to the highest bidder. The single-player game will feature 44 story-based missions, including side missions that you can use to earn even more money with which to upgrade your Hound.
When it comes to combat, you can expect huge explosions, tracer fire galore, and plenty of destructible environments. In fact, from a visual standpoint, about the only thing that bugged us about Chromehounds was the buildings, which sank into the ground when destroyed, as opposed to breaking apart realistically. Still, that's a relatively minor quibble about a game that, for the most part, is running quite well. The game's HUD is user-friendly from the get-go, with an easily accessible overhead map and radar system. The game's picture-in-picture system is especially cool--showing you either a first- or third-person view of the action, depending on which current viewpoint you're using on the main screen. If you're in third-person on the main screen, the first-person view is perfect for shot-aiming; the third-person view is handy if you want a slightly wider look at the battles going on around you.
Though Chromehounds single-player game will be robust, it's the online multiplayer that will likely keep you coming back after the game is released. We got to watch a multiplayer match between two squads of From Software testers to get an idea for how the different Hound configurations play out. Perhaps the most important role in the field is that of tactics commander, whose role is similar to that of the field commander in games such as Battlefield 2. Using voice chat and the readily accessible map, the tactics commander can give orders to his squad to move them all around the playing field. Smart tactics commanders will make sure to build out their Hound with appropriate radar systems, which will give them a wider view of the map than your typical heavy gunner or defender. However, this doesn't mean a tactics commander is defenseless in the field--we watched several encounters during the match where one commander was more than a match for his opponent.
The variety of Hound configurations means that different mechs pose different problems during a battle. A slow-moving crawler mech is easy to target but is probably heavily armored and armed to the teeth, while the zippy hovercraft mechs we watched were impressive in their ability to dash toward a target, cause some mayhem, and then speed out of the line of fire before they drew too much fire. In all, teamwork and coordination seem as if they will count for a lot in Chromehounds' multiplayer matches, which can support up to six players on each side.
Beyond the more-traditional capture-the-flag and shootout modes in Chromehounds' multiplayer modes, one of the most anticipated online features is a persistent-world mode that will have you align yourself with a particular country and join battles in teams of six. As you win (or lose) matches, you will gain (or lose) territory for your particular country. Each time you log into this mode, you'll be able to see updates on which country's territory is growing or shrinking in the persistent online world; there will even be fun things such as elections to choose a country "leader" or online lotteries for exclusive Hound parts that will otherwise be unavailable. It sounds ambitious, but it also sounds like a lot of fun.
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