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Chromehounds has a story like many of the mech machine based titles out there—you are part of a country or faction trying to gain control, peace, and other goals in the world. The single player portion of the game centers on a very lacking, and dull story, where goals often get lost in its own self-indulgence. The main single-player campaign however, for all intensive purposes, only acts as a way of getting you versed in the inner most workings of the game, having an almost surprising reliability on the online component to the game. This of course makes it hard to recommend the game for someone without Xbox Live, but not only that the slow-pace of the game makes it hard to recommend the title to almost any kind of fan of the mech-themed action games.
The game is developed by From Software, one of the few companies from the east that has truly embraced the Xbox and now the Xbox 360 platform. Known for games such as Otogi and Otogi 2 on Xbox, they are even more known for their wildly popular Armored Core series on the PlayStation platforms. Also like Armored Core, the developers have brought their trademark customization to the title, allowing you to make a mech that has virtually anything you would want a mech to have, granted you stay within certain parameters. While the Armored Core series has been done to death, it isn’t a bad series, which is awkward, especially since Chromehounds really isn’t even as fun as that. It almost seems as if thought a lot of the entertainment value for Chromehounds was lost as From Software tried to westernize a lot of elements. Immediately when you play, the mechs, while can come in all shapes and sizes depending on how you build them, have a much more American-style mech presence. If you have played the Mech Warrior or Mech Assault series especially, these mechs will look very familiar to you.
When you begin the game, or each mission in the campaign the objectives are rolled around in a boring, yawn inducing story that most of us probably won’t care about. It has a similar style to Mech Assault in terms of navigation, with the right trigger as your primary fire, which can be rotated to different weapons, of varying calibers and abilities. Probably the most interesting thing about controlling and playing the game is how you shoot and fire. While you are in the regular third person view, you see at top a screen that shows what is shown in the cockpit, then you can zoom in, in a very realistic fashion to a first person view, which can shake quite a bit depending on if you are moving or not. When you go into the first-person view, there is normally a standard mid-range view to aim, but some mechs with the long-range sniper weapons have an automatic view which scopes out many more meters. Besides that, within combat you navigate via maps, radar, and information communicated to you by your squad.
The campaign of the game is rather drab, and nothing more than training exercise really. If not for the fact that some Achievements are built around it, and the extra mech parts you unlock, the mode would probably be completely useless. Useless in the sense that this game’s best feature; the ability to build a mech, isn’t even necessary in the first place to complete it. The campaign is divided into a few different sections, which are actually by class of mech, helping you get used to the different mech types. Overall it isn’t horrible, but it is still pretty boring, and can be completed in between eight-fifteen hours depending.
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