Chromehounds Review (Xbox 360) By Graeme Lunn

3 / 10
19 Jul 2006 at 21:36

Review by: Graeme Lunn

Chromehounds – if you have read numerous reviews and seen the veritable array of glorious screenshots which have been available for your perusal via. magazines, reviews and websites; you may have actually been looking forward to this release with almost baited breath. However, using my nicely polished antique crystal ball – all that I can see in your future is a whole heap of disappointment coupled with a wallet which will be £40 - £50 lighter depending on where you purchase your software. Why?? Read on and find out.

Through the screenshots and teasers which have been made available to us for what seems like months now, you’d be forgiven if you were to expect an action packed explosion fest similar in feeling invoked by the rip roaring, heart pounding of the D-Day landings level of Call Of Duty 2 (only with mechs instead of humans – you know what I mean.) This ultimately will be what you have paid your money for, however you’d have better entertainment by sitting on a spiky bean bag watching gloss paint dry. I’ll be frank – it’s just dull. The mechs themselves look great, however I get the feeling months of development time was spent on them only for a lead designer to then say “oh, we’ve only 3 days left – we have no environment for the mechs to fight in!!! What are we going to do.” Getting the reply from the 16 year old tea boy/work experience guy “why don’t you just put in some bland scenery – worse even than that you’d see on the PS2??” Great idea, decides the lead designer, so that’s just what they do. Not that ALL the graphics are completely last gen but aside from pretty FMV Cut scenes and the rendering of the mechs themselves, the rest of he game environment is just plain dull.
The fact that the mechs look great isn’t enough to save this distinctly C-List title but doesn’t surprise me as it is FROM Software at the helm whom were in charge of the Armoured Core series and are literally making this game as a stat packed game made by mech-geeks for mech-geeks. However, this obviously doesn’t lead to mech-fulfilment!!
As far as the combat goes (ah yes, that all important action bit) – well quite frankly it’s a disappointment – there are 4 “shells” of mechs to choose from, from soldier to commander, and the missions are different according to which one you are. Fine, an attempt at varying the game – I appreciate that – trying to show innovation, however, the school report just reads “Must try harder”. You can fail missions as a commander for example, by your Hounds ignoring your last menu-tree-driven order and just turning tail and blowing up whatever they feel like – or by them blowing up when their chances of survival were almost 100%. Frustration-ville! A further thorn in the paw from the gameplay and action point of view is that there isn’t an option to have an aiming receptacle of some kind (even a dotted crosshair would do) in the standard view. Instead, should you have the need to be more accurate, you would have to switch to the first person view which will then provide you with a “periscope-style” crosshair. I know this may be picky but why should you have to!! If you pay premium prices for a title like this, in my view, you should expect a premium experience.
It is the speed that severely hampers any sense of enjoyment from Chromehounds. The mechs are just so “ploddy” that you and practically snapping your left analogue stick in a frustrated attempt to get the thing to move faster. I’ve even shouted at the thing on my plasma telly but believe me they are just slow. I would understand this if there were some kind of upgrade to speed up the mech, however, there isn’t – it’s meant to add to the realism apparently. Forgive me for being pedantic, but in Aliens when Ripley climbs into that loading bay mech to fight the pursuing alien, I don’t remember that thing moving like a fly in treacle! Saying that, I know that’s film, but it’s not as if I can go down the road to my local mech dealership to test out their top speed is it??
In summing this title up – it’s just poor. The games graphics are bland and not what we were promised at all. The gameplay would be ok, but it’s just too slow. You also have to plough through the one player campaign mode to accumulate all the upgrades to stand a chance against an adversary on Xbox live, however, (a) I don’t think I can bear the torture of playing the campaign mode through and (b) if its this slow on one player – there’s no way I’m even going to contemplate introducing lag into the equation.

In fact, in relation to my earlier school report analogy – forget “Must try harder”, Chromehounds, you’re expelled. Poor, Poor, title - hope it finds it's way to bargain buckets v.quickly. Am I bitter at having spent £40? Yep, but at least i can try to stop you doing the same.

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