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August 23, 2006 | 7:55 PM PST
by: Nicholas Martin
Great multi player games have been lacking for some time. Lord knows how long people have been playing GRAW, Call of Duty 2, and Battlefield 2 Modern Combat. Most people have agreed its time for something fresh and new. Well the time has come to put on some clothes, grab your wallet, and head to your local game store, as Chromehounds has hit the shelves.
Chromehounds was designed to set itself apart by being a mech simulation, while also throwing some arcade elements to spice up the game play. The game has a slower pace then other mech games on the consoles(eg. MechAssault). You won't be moving at ramming speed, or flying around with jet packs. You move at speeds a giant robot would go at; slow.
Granted, you won't be moving at a snails pace, unless of course you design your mech to move that slow. The great thing about Chromehounds, on top of the realism, is the mech creation and customization. Chromehounds allows you to create a mech entirely from scratch. All that you need to do is go into the garage and start to make it. Although, before you can start designing your own personalized war machine, you will need to complete some missions in the single player aspect of the game to be able to get parts.
The Lone Wolf
The mechs in Chromehounds are called "Hounds." The back story behind Chromehounds is that instead of the Cold War subsiding like it did in our time, it in fact continued due to a few new factors thrown into history. At the end of World War 2, a military weapon corporation known as Rafzakael was created. They created various prototype weapons(such as experimental two legged tanks). Rafzakael supplied the prototypes to various groups throughout history for live action tests. Add some other elements into the mix, and this effectively changed history. These events eventually led to the creation of three new nations being formed known as Sal Kar, Tarakia, and Morskoj.
Right from the get go, when you select the single player option, you will be thrown into a very basic "Basic Training." The training is pretty simple, as long as you listen to everything the instructor says. If you miss something, you are out of luck as he won't say anything twice, so pay attention. If you do happen to miss something, hit the Y Button to bring up your map, and follow the colored markers in the numerical order and attempt to wing it from there. The instructor does make the training situation a pain, since if you didn't read the review or anything about it some where else, you would not know about the map and the colored markers. Not knowing this can make the training a first bad taste to the game. Although once this short training scenario is over, you will be thrown into the single player menu.
The single player menu gives you a couple of options to choose from, including Story mode, where you play one of the games six story lines, and Free Play, where you play a mission you have already completed. There are six classes in the game, and each has its own story line, a training scenario to familiarize yourself with each of the classes, and six missions after that.
The classes are pretty varied, and well balanced. Soldier is the front line Hound which conducts attacks on the enemy. The Defender protects the other team members less capable of defending themselves. Sniper does what all snipers do, hit far away target with their rifles. Heavy Gunner is an artillery strike on legs, which is meant to attack long range targets with highly explosive rounds. Scout is a fast hound designed to give Intel on the enemy by going behind enemy lines and seeing what they are up too, while the Commander gives Intel on the enemy in your territory by using a radar dish that detects enemies. Once you choose a class to use in the single player, you will be put to work straight away.
During the single player you work for Rafzakael as a mercenary. The game takes place around the time the of the Neroimus War, which is the online aspect of the game. These missions can involve you attacking, defending, escorting, conducting recon and a few other types of objectives. While this all sounds great, the single player is horribly done.
First off, despite the name the game has very little story, if any. The story hardly ever comes into play except in about one or two missions. Its usually some drivel about how some guys are doing things and they should be stopped. Second, it is WAY too easy; enemies will go down in a few shots, while your hound can take several hundred to even get a scratch. Both of these combined make a very dull, and unexciting single player experience. Third, getting the highest ranking in a mission, which is "S", is so easy one could cry. Players should be able to get S on a majority of the missions on a first play through a storyline.. Fourth, it is short. Really, really short.. Each mission takes about ten minutes, meaning the single player is over in around six to seven hours.
But why should you play the single player if its so bad? Well for one you get achievements for beating every one of the story campaigns, and another for getting perfect on all the missions. Also, by getting a good rank on a mission, you will unlock more parts. The higher the rank, the more parts unlocked, so it might be a good idea to go and replay some of the missions to get parts you may need.
Releasing the grease monkey within
If you subjected yourself to that thing they call a story mode, that means you have some spare parts. When you sign onto Xbox Live for the first time, Chromehounds will give you the option to choose a free Hound they are giving you, for free(did I mention its free?). They will also give you a roll of cash to spend at your hearts content. Also, when signing on live, the game gives you the option to transfer your single player parts onto live, meaning you will have extra parts right from the get-go.
When you get into the garage, you will be presented with your mech and some options, such as add, remove, change parts, add decals, shop, and a few other options. You can keep the hound the game gave you, or completely strip it down and start up new. It is really up to you to how you want your hound.
Chromehounds was designed to set itself apart by being a mech simulation, while also throwing some arcade elements to spice up the game play. The game has a slower pace then other mech games on the consoles(eg. MechAssault). You won't be moving at ramming speed, or flying around with jet packs. You move at speeds a giant robot would go at; slow.
Granted, you won't be moving at a snails pace, unless of course you design your mech to move that slow. The great thing about Chromehounds, on top of the realism, is the mech creation and customization. Chromehounds allows you to create a mech entirely from scratch. All that you need to do is go into the garage and start to make it. Although, before you can start designing your own personalized war machine, you will need to complete some missions in the single player aspect of the game to be able to get parts.
The Lone Wolf
The mechs in Chromehounds are called "Hounds." The back story behind Chromehounds is that instead of the Cold War subsiding like it did in our time, it in fact continued due to a few new factors thrown into history. At the end of World War 2, a military weapon corporation known as Rafzakael was created. They created various prototype weapons(such as experimental two legged tanks). Rafzakael supplied the prototypes to various groups throughout history for live action tests. Add some other elements into the mix, and this effectively changed history. These events eventually led to the creation of three new nations being formed known as Sal Kar, Tarakia, and Morskoj.
Right from the get go, when you select the single player option, you will be thrown into a very basic "Basic Training." The training is pretty simple, as long as you listen to everything the instructor says. If you miss something, you are out of luck as he won't say anything twice, so pay attention. If you do happen to miss something, hit the Y Button to bring up your map, and follow the colored markers in the numerical order and attempt to wing it from there. The instructor does make the training situation a pain, since if you didn't read the review or anything about it some where else, you would not know about the map and the colored markers. Not knowing this can make the training a first bad taste to the game. Although once this short training scenario is over, you will be thrown into the single player menu.
The single player menu gives you a couple of options to choose from, including Story mode, where you play one of the games six story lines, and Free Play, where you play a mission you have already completed. There are six classes in the game, and each has its own story line, a training scenario to familiarize yourself with each of the classes, and six missions after that.
The classes are pretty varied, and well balanced. Soldier is the front line Hound which conducts attacks on the enemy. The Defender protects the other team members less capable of defending themselves. Sniper does what all snipers do, hit far away target with their rifles. Heavy Gunner is an artillery strike on legs, which is meant to attack long range targets with highly explosive rounds. Scout is a fast hound designed to give Intel on the enemy by going behind enemy lines and seeing what they are up too, while the Commander gives Intel on the enemy in your territory by using a radar dish that detects enemies. Once you choose a class to use in the single player, you will be put to work straight away.
During the single player you work for Rafzakael as a mercenary. The game takes place around the time the of the Neroimus War, which is the online aspect of the game. These missions can involve you attacking, defending, escorting, conducting recon and a few other types of objectives. While this all sounds great, the single player is horribly done.
First off, despite the name the game has very little story, if any. The story hardly ever comes into play except in about one or two missions. Its usually some drivel about how some guys are doing things and they should be stopped. Second, it is WAY too easy; enemies will go down in a few shots, while your hound can take several hundred to even get a scratch. Both of these combined make a very dull, and unexciting single player experience. Third, getting the highest ranking in a mission, which is "S", is so easy one could cry. Players should be able to get S on a majority of the missions on a first play through a storyline.. Fourth, it is short. Really, really short.. Each mission takes about ten minutes, meaning the single player is over in around six to seven hours.
But why should you play the single player if its so bad? Well for one you get achievements for beating every one of the story campaigns, and another for getting perfect on all the missions. Also, by getting a good rank on a mission, you will unlock more parts. The higher the rank, the more parts unlocked, so it might be a good idea to go and replay some of the missions to get parts you may need.
Releasing the grease monkey within
If you subjected yourself to that thing they call a story mode, that means you have some spare parts. When you sign onto Xbox Live for the first time, Chromehounds will give you the option to choose a free Hound they are giving you, for free(did I mention its free?). They will also give you a roll of cash to spend at your hearts content. Also, when signing on live, the game gives you the option to transfer your single player parts onto live, meaning you will have extra parts right from the get-go.
When you get into the garage, you will be presented with your mech and some options, such as add, remove, change parts, add decals, shop, and a few other options. You can keep the hound the game gave you, or completely strip it down and start up new. It is really up to you to how you want your hound.
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February 8, 2010
