Well its summer time, otherwise known to us as the “Dry Season” for new game releases. Last week in the shadow of Prey, a great little game called Chromehounds was released. Chromehounds could be one of those games many people miss, and that is a shame.
Chromehounds is a Mech based shooter, that takes place after a fictional WW III.
In the wake of this war three nations (the US, Middle East, and Russia) are fighting for control of the Global stage.
Chromehounds consists of two modes of play.
The single player mode in Chromehounds has you playing the role of a mercenary for each of the three factions. During the single player campaigns you will gain experience in piloting different types of Hounds.
Hounds are broken up into 6 Different classes or Role Types (RT). The RT’s consist of Soldier, Sniper, Scout, Heavy Gunner, Defender, and Commander.
As you complete missions in single player, you are awarded with parts based on your performance. These parts can be used to add firepower, mobility, systems, energy output, etc to your Hound.
Truth be told the single player portion of Chromehounds feels like a long tutorial. However since each RT has a different purpose, its a great way to get a feel for what suites your play style.
If you want to be more focused on close quarters combat, the piloting a Soldier or Defender Hound is a good choice. If your more adept to strategy, then you may want to consider becoming a Field Commander or a Scout. Punishing enemies from a far more your style? Then consider becoming a Sniper or Heavy Gunner.
The different RT’s give Chromehounds a great feeling of diversity, and help you think in the mindset of a Squad.
The single player missions themselves, are your standard fare. Assault, Escort (not many so don’t worry) Capture communication towers etc.
Depending on how well you perform in each mission you will receive new parts for your Hounds.
There are a total of 167 different parts, you can obtain. All of these parts can be used to build custom Hounds, and the only limitation you have to deal with is how much weight your platform(Bi-Ped/Quad-Ped, Tread, Wheels, Hover) can carry.
It is very easy to spend hours building different types of Hounds. The building and customization of new Hounds, is one of the coolest mechanics in this game (more on why in a moment).
All in all the single player, portion of Chromehounds is average at best. Depending on your play style you can finish it all in about 10 hours. However, everything you have obtained in the single player campaign can be moved to where you will use it most…Online.
The online modes in Chromehounds shine! If there was depth lacking in single player it is more than made up for here.
For starters, all the parts you acquired during the single player missions are available in your online Hanger (Garage). You can also buy new parts online (in game) that you may not be able to acquire in single player.
In the hanger, as in single player you can build almost any type of hound you want. In the online modes the ability to build, adds variety to the RT you have chosen, and lends to some unpredictability in your opponents. I have seen some very “evil” weapons configurations, and you have to adapt to them quickly.
There are two modes in online play. First there is Free Play. Free play consists of your standard fare (CTF, Death Match, Base assaults). The Free play is a lot of fun, and will give you good experience playing against different types of Hounds, piloted by Humans. All of his training, and Hound customisation, leads to the games greatest mode…WAR!
The main multi-player mode in Chromehounds, is the persistent Online War between the three factions. Players need to create a squad of friends, before you can participate (min 2 : max 20 players). Your squad aligns its self with one of the three nations (I Pilot for Tarakia), and from here you begin your match to capture territory, and ultimately take a rival factions capital city.
Once you have a squad, you see why the single player training is useful. Squads need to have varied RT’s in order to come out on top in Battle. A Squads Field Commander, is responsible for monitoring troop movements, and directing the battle. Scouts, Need to run out to capture COMBAS towers (if you don’t control Com towers you can not communicate with your squad). Heavy Gunners and Snipers supply suppressing, and cover fire for the Soldiers. There is so much Strategy going on in one 6 v 6 match its almost staggering.
Each month the WAR re-sets, and if you want you can switch to a different nation (not sure how good an idea that is but its possible).
A neat side note, when Chromehounds launched it showed up in the UK first. A Majority of UK players aligned with other nations and not Tarakia. On the xbox forums, players pleaded for squads to join the side of Tarakia, and join we did. In one week the ranks grew, and we began to take back our capital! It was just cool to see the tide of war change.
The graphics in Chrome hounds are good, each Hound you build is extremely detailed, but this detail comes at a cost. The surrounding terrain is a little stale, and buildings have a made out of cardboard feel to them, but grass trees, snow, all look great and react to your Hounds movements.
The controls are solid, and responsive. Depending on the type of hound you build it will move in relation to is size. If you build a Heavy Gunner Hound, your going to crawl around the battle field (4 howitzers will do that to you).
If you like Mech combat games Chromehounds is a title you need in your libary. If you want to play an great original multi-player game Chromehounds is your game.

Update: Today there was some cool news related to Chromehounds.
On Majornelson.com a Free parts pack was put on the Xbox Live Marketplace the pack consists of:
Light arms x 02
Heavy arms x 01
Assist parts x 01
This was a “thank you” to the Chromehounds players for putting up with the server issues at launch.