Chromehounds
Added September 15th, 2006 by Chris Oder
Introduction:
If you’re here reading this, then you’re probably still on the fence about purchasing Chromehounds. You’ve already read the reviews that tell how slow the hounds are and how lame the single player is. What you haven’t read though is a review from a Hound pilot with 200+ deployments with over a million miles on his hangar full of hounds. If you keep picking this up at the local game store, carrying it around for a while, then slowly putting it back on the shelf, this is the review for you. I’m going to give you the dirt on one of the best mecha games I’ve played in a long time.
Gameplay:
We’ll start with the story mode because it’s basically an overblown tutorial. You’re the cliché mercenary fighting alongside military forces from the three major countries of Neromius (Morskoj, Tarakia, and Sal Kar) as they hurtle toward an impending war betwixt all three. The main focus of single player is two fold. First off, playing through story mode nets you some pretty decent parts for multiplayer. The other focus is learning about the role types (RT) that form the core strategic elements in Chromehounds.
RTs are stereotypes that outline the various functions a Hound can have. The Soldier RT is your basic grunt combatant with no real defining characteristics besides average mobility combined with average firepower. The niche the Sniper RT fits into is fairly obvious. Heavy Gunners are typically slow Hounds with big artillery style cannons. The Defender RT Hounds tend to be covered in weapons and armor. They usually sit back and baby-sit the HQ.
All of these RTs function well on their own but are useless without a way to communicate and coordinate actions with other squad mates. “Ha!” you think, “We’ll communicate via Xbox Live headsets!” Not so fast! When you start a mission with your squad you’ll be radio silent. Littered across each map in key areas are large antennas called COMBAS towers. When a Hound sits next to a tower for a few moments, it is activated for that team. This creates a circular Network Area (NA) that radiates in a small are around the COMBAS. All Hounds that are in an NA that was captured by their team can now speak to each other via headset. The NAs of the COMBAS tend to overlap and can be used to create an even larger area of communication for your squad. It’s a constant battle of information warfare between squads to keep as many of the COMBAS towers activated for their squad as possible. Making a tightly organized squad crumble because you take away their communication ability is a thing of beauty.
If you’re here reading this, then you’re probably still on the fence about purchasing Chromehounds. You’ve already read the reviews that tell how slow the hounds are and how lame the single player is. What you haven’t read though is a review from a Hound pilot with 200+ deployments with over a million miles on his hangar full of hounds. If you keep picking this up at the local game store, carrying it around for a while, then slowly putting it back on the shelf, this is the review for you. I’m going to give you the dirt on one of the best mecha games I’ve played in a long time.
Gameplay:
We’ll start with the story mode because it’s basically an overblown tutorial. You’re the cliché mercenary fighting alongside military forces from the three major countries of Neromius (Morskoj, Tarakia, and Sal Kar) as they hurtle toward an impending war betwixt all three. The main focus of single player is two fold. First off, playing through story mode nets you some pretty decent parts for multiplayer. The other focus is learning about the role types (RT) that form the core strategic elements in Chromehounds.
RTs are stereotypes that outline the various functions a Hound can have. The Soldier RT is your basic grunt combatant with no real defining characteristics besides average mobility combined with average firepower. The niche the Sniper RT fits into is fairly obvious. Heavy Gunners are typically slow Hounds with big artillery style cannons. The Defender RT Hounds tend to be covered in weapons and armor. They usually sit back and baby-sit the HQ.
All of these RTs function well on their own but are useless without a way to communicate and coordinate actions with other squad mates. “Ha!” you think, “We’ll communicate via Xbox Live headsets!” Not so fast! When you start a mission with your squad you’ll be radio silent. Littered across each map in key areas are large antennas called COMBAS towers. When a Hound sits next to a tower for a few moments, it is activated for that team. This creates a circular Network Area (NA) that radiates in a small are around the COMBAS. All Hounds that are in an NA that was captured by their team can now speak to each other via headset. The NAs of the COMBAS tend to overlap and can be used to create an even larger area of communication for your squad. It’s a constant battle of information warfare between squads to keep as many of the COMBAS towers activated for their squad as possible. Making a tightly organized squad crumble because you take away their communication ability is a thing of beauty.
This brings me to the last two RTs. Scouts are speedy hounds (yes you can make a speedy Hound, relatively speaking) that act as forward observers and assist with communications by securing COMBAS towers. Lastly there is the Tactics Commander (TC) RT. TCs mount a giant radar dish called an NA maker on their hounds that allows them to track any friendly and enemy units that are in the squads’ active NA. This makes them the brains of the squad. Along with acting as a fancy radar, the NA maker also functions as a portable COMBAS and can be used to spread the NA in areas the COMBAS might not reach.
While you’ll learn about the six RTs in story mode, it’s not until you log onto Xbox Live that you really see how all the parts become a whole. Chromehounds multiplayer is a persistent war in which you choose a country to fight for and defend. The goal is to wipe out both the opposing nations’ capitals. This is accomplished by claiming territory on the war map for your country. Each flag on the map represents a territory with three to four areas to fight over. Each area has a certain number of occupation points that must be won to take over the area. For example, you are fighting for Sal Kar and you start a mission in an area worth 10,000 points in which Tarakia has five occupation points and Sal Kar has 9,995. If you win, you’ll obtain enough occupation points to capture the area for Sal Kar.
The multiplayer battle itself consists of two squads fighting it out over the area. There are three ways for a squad to win: eliminate the other team; destroy their HQ; or have the most COMBAS secured when the match timer runs out. Obviously, you’ll be fighting human squads for these points, but you can also fight the CPU instead. Fighting against humans garners more points than against the CPU, thus a lot of squads like to play co-op versus the CPU to test Hound builds and tactics. It’s a good mix of choices and helps.
Multiplayer is also where the majority of the Hound building takes place. Each nation has a vast selection of parts you can purchase with each nation’s parts having its own perks and flaws. Sal Kar parts tend to be lightweight but not very durable, Morskoj parts are heavy and armored but can really slow down a Hound, etc. You can switch factions between wars, so it’s best to bounce around a bit to build a varied selection of parts in your hangar. When you join a squad you’ll also have access to special parts that are available in a nightly lottery. These tend to be slightly better than the stock parts you can buy in the shop. There are also parts available through Xbox Live Marketplace some of which are free while others have a small MS points fee attached. With such a wide variety of parts available it’s rare to see anyone run similar hounds.
Chromehounds does have some technical issues however. A recent patch straightened out a good many of them but not all. Because of the way the squad lobby system works, players can sometimes be booted to a “ghost lobby”. You’re in a lobby all by yourself while your pals are all in a separate lobby. Dropping back to the title screen usually fixes the issue, but you may have to make some changes to your router to try to avoid the problem. You’ll also still run into the occasional lag disconnects which can cause squad mates to drop out of a mission entirely. Anybody who’s played online games for long though knows that these are fairly common issues. Except for the ghost lobby thing that is. That’s just annoying.
Graphics:
Mechs in high def! My prayers have been answered. Chromehounds sports some of the best looking mechs to ever grace a console system. Along with that you’ll also be treated to a spectacular lighting system. Night missions are intense as scout hounds fire off bright shimmering flares and explosions that blind anyone running night vision. The terrain however is only average for a next gen game. There is very little vegetation besides a few groups of trees here and there, and the towns and villages look more like models you’d use for table top gaming instead of real buildings. Overall though, it’s a great step forward visually for mech games.
While you’ll learn about the six RTs in story mode, it’s not until you log onto Xbox Live that you really see how all the parts become a whole. Chromehounds multiplayer is a persistent war in which you choose a country to fight for and defend. The goal is to wipe out both the opposing nations’ capitals. This is accomplished by claiming territory on the war map for your country. Each flag on the map represents a territory with three to four areas to fight over. Each area has a certain number of occupation points that must be won to take over the area. For example, you are fighting for Sal Kar and you start a mission in an area worth 10,000 points in which Tarakia has five occupation points and Sal Kar has 9,995. If you win, you’ll obtain enough occupation points to capture the area for Sal Kar.
The multiplayer battle itself consists of two squads fighting it out over the area. There are three ways for a squad to win: eliminate the other team; destroy their HQ; or have the most COMBAS secured when the match timer runs out. Obviously, you’ll be fighting human squads for these points, but you can also fight the CPU instead. Fighting against humans garners more points than against the CPU, thus a lot of squads like to play co-op versus the CPU to test Hound builds and tactics. It’s a good mix of choices and helps.
Multiplayer is also where the majority of the Hound building takes place. Each nation has a vast selection of parts you can purchase with each nation’s parts having its own perks and flaws. Sal Kar parts tend to be lightweight but not very durable, Morskoj parts are heavy and armored but can really slow down a Hound, etc. You can switch factions between wars, so it’s best to bounce around a bit to build a varied selection of parts in your hangar. When you join a squad you’ll also have access to special parts that are available in a nightly lottery. These tend to be slightly better than the stock parts you can buy in the shop. There are also parts available through Xbox Live Marketplace some of which are free while others have a small MS points fee attached. With such a wide variety of parts available it’s rare to see anyone run similar hounds.
Chromehounds does have some technical issues however. A recent patch straightened out a good many of them but not all. Because of the way the squad lobby system works, players can sometimes be booted to a “ghost lobby”. You’re in a lobby all by yourself while your pals are all in a separate lobby. Dropping back to the title screen usually fixes the issue, but you may have to make some changes to your router to try to avoid the problem. You’ll also still run into the occasional lag disconnects which can cause squad mates to drop out of a mission entirely. Anybody who’s played online games for long though knows that these are fairly common issues. Except for the ghost lobby thing that is. That’s just annoying.
Graphics:
Mechs in high def! My prayers have been answered. Chromehounds sports some of the best looking mechs to ever grace a console system. Along with that you’ll also be treated to a spectacular lighting system. Night missions are intense as scout hounds fire off bright shimmering flares and explosions that blind anyone running night vision. The terrain however is only average for a next gen game. There is very little vegetation besides a few groups of trees here and there, and the towns and villages look more like models you’d use for table top gaming instead of real buildings. Overall though, it’s a great step forward visually for mech games.
Audio:
The neatest audio trick in Chromehounds is the NA coverage. Having to manage the ability to speak to your teammates adds an entirely different strategy to the game. I can’t count the number of times I found myself barking out “Enemy Hounds in E6!” or some other combat related statement and no one heard me because I’d wandered past the edge of the NA. The rest of the games sound is only passable. Voice work in story mode is average, but can be skipped without really missing anything. The musical score is just a loop that plays on menu screens, in the build screens, and in the squad lobby. Needless to say, it gets old real fast. Luckily the music ends when you drop into a mission and the game redeems itself with above average sound effects. When a direct hit on my Hound from a heavy gunner makes the dog jump up from his nap, you know the sound effects are good.
Controls:
Piloting a Hound is relatively easy. The left analog stick determines which way your chassis goes while the right analog is used to aim. The bumpers select weapons groups and sub systems and the triggers fire and activate your selections. The Y button brings up the overhead map and the rest of the face buttons let you manipulate the map by zooming in and out, etc. It’s a fairly tight control scheme when piloting a treaded or legged Hound, but the hover and wheel chassis are a little tricky at first.
Replay:
What you get out of Chromehounds depends mostly on how you spend your time online. If you can’t find a squad that fits your schedule and play style than you’ll have a sixty dollar coaster on your hands. After a few games with some potential groups of XBL gamers I almost traded in Chromehounds in disgust. Luckily, I found a great squad and the game took on an entirely new life. From Software did a great job of spreading out the achievements so you’ll always be thinking "Ok, just one more battle before bedtime."
The neatest audio trick in Chromehounds is the NA coverage. Having to manage the ability to speak to your teammates adds an entirely different strategy to the game. I can’t count the number of times I found myself barking out “Enemy Hounds in E6!” or some other combat related statement and no one heard me because I’d wandered past the edge of the NA. The rest of the games sound is only passable. Voice work in story mode is average, but can be skipped without really missing anything. The musical score is just a loop that plays on menu screens, in the build screens, and in the squad lobby. Needless to say, it gets old real fast. Luckily the music ends when you drop into a mission and the game redeems itself with above average sound effects. When a direct hit on my Hound from a heavy gunner makes the dog jump up from his nap, you know the sound effects are good.
Controls:
Piloting a Hound is relatively easy. The left analog stick determines which way your chassis goes while the right analog is used to aim. The bumpers select weapons groups and sub systems and the triggers fire and activate your selections. The Y button brings up the overhead map and the rest of the face buttons let you manipulate the map by zooming in and out, etc. It’s a fairly tight control scheme when piloting a treaded or legged Hound, but the hover and wheel chassis are a little tricky at first.
Replay:
What you get out of Chromehounds depends mostly on how you spend your time online. If you can’t find a squad that fits your schedule and play style than you’ll have a sixty dollar coaster on your hands. After a few games with some potential groups of XBL gamers I almost traded in Chromehounds in disgust. Luckily, I found a great squad and the game took on an entirely new life. From Software did a great job of spreading out the achievements so you’ll always be thinking "Ok, just one more battle before bedtime."
Summary:
If you’re looking for a game with a solid single player or twitchy action shooting then you’re in the wrong place. Chromehounds is at its core a multiplayer experience with an emphasis on teamwork and tactics. The vast volume of parts makes the hounds infinitely customizable and there are even more downloadable parts on the way. There are still some network issues and glitches, but the recent patch straightened most of them out. Mecha fans should check this out for sure, and fans of online squad based shooters might also want to give it a try. I’ll be waiting for you on the battlefield newbie.
If you’re looking for a game with a solid single player or twitchy action shooting then you’re in the wrong place. Chromehounds is at its core a multiplayer experience with an emphasis on teamwork and tactics. The vast volume of parts makes the hounds infinitely customizable and there are even more downloadable parts on the way. There are still some network issues and glitches, but the recent patch straightened most of them out. Mecha fans should check this out for sure, and fans of online squad based shooters might also want to give it a try. I’ll be waiting for you on the battlefield newbie.
