I have a best friend. Do you have a best friend? I'll just bet you do. One time my best friend recommended me this funny little game called Chromehounds. It was about robots shooting each other. "These robots, or HOUNDS, are super customizable, which should lead to interesting match-ups!" He said.
My best friend is an idiot.
Yes, building your own HOUND is by far the coolest thing I've seen in a 3rd person shooter so far. There are dozens of different legs/wheels, weapons, big weapons, frickin' huge weapons, cockpits etc. There's even an art designer, which lets you show your style to the world.
Once you get into actually playing the game however, it turns into one of the most sloppiest, boring, slow, stupid shooters I've ever had the misfortune to pick up.
Your mech is slow. Slow, slow, slow. Even the Scout class is unbelieveably slow. You will honestly spend more time pushing on the left joystick to move towards the battle then actually shooting other mechs and HOUNDS. The steering is awful, and I've twisted my HOUND into knots just trying to go around a corner more times then I care to count. I understand that there has to be a degree of realism, I mean, you aren't going anywhere too quickly in a 30-ton hunk of steel, but seriously...it goes past reasonable realism and becomes more unreal as a result.
EDIT: The core gameplay mechanics are better, but not by much. You run (a term I use very loosely) around in your tin can and use various weaponry to blow up other tin cans. Rinse and repeat. Repetitive, but the six classes and deep customization allow for some nice match-ups. However, missions are essentially nothing but racing to capture communication towers, then blowing up the enemies and possibly a base.
Also, each part of your mech has its own health meter. Basically, each different thing you bolt on can die off on its own. This is actually very nice, it's realistic, and makes perfect sense. A shot through the gatling gun isn't going to affect one's missle pods any, so keep them seperate. Sadly, the positives of customization and realism are bogged down by the plodding pace and general repetativeness. Also, the lack of supply bases leads to major frustration sometimes. You don't want to be facing a boss HOUND with just your tertiary machine gun and one point of health left before your HOUND goes up in a fireball, sending you on the express train to the next life. This is war. Soldiers need supplies. Where the fuck are your supplies, you will ask. Truly no man can say. It still pisses me off though.
END EDIT
The AI is pathetic. It cannot even recognize friendly fire. I once mixed up friendly and enemy forces, (which is easier then you'd think sadly) and I had to do the same mission over and over until I clicked in that I had been sniping my own guys for the past hour. The commander just kept saying "we're under fire!" Enemies won't even try to move out of the way of your bullets. I've walked up on tank formations and blew them to bits because the allies of the newly created hunk of scrap metal didn't clue in that evasive maneuveurs might just be a swell idea.
It's spotty too, in that sometimes bosses will be dumb as dirt, and cannon fodder baddies will blow your cockpit into bits with one lucky shot. This also combines with developer stupidity in that as a Scout, which isn't designed for fighting, you have to take out the HOUND equilvalent of The Black Knight from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This bozo never missed a shot. Oh yeah, and when I died, I had to pretty much start the mission over. This is where I stopped playing.
I haven't played multiplayer as I refuse to play any more of that bilge, but I can assume it's much like single player: Running around (slowly) and shooting. Also, from what I gleaned of my BF, it's almost like Risk. You attack a neighbouring map with your team, which is a faction in the Neronimus War, and you have to win to take that property. Eventually, you can storm the stronghold and take out that faction, eventually winning the war. This is a very nice change up to the old "Deathmatch, CTF, etc. etc" of other shooters. Bringing in your bitching HOUND from single player though...I can't see much fairness in that.
Going to my final complaint before I briefly hit the pluses: Why must the combat be so damn vague? I was ordered to take out an enemy base, but I had no idea what the base looked like. I lucked out and just blew up totally at random the HQ. Which BTW, took like five minutes of straight shooting. With missles, bombs and huge sniper rounds. Bo-ring.
To its credit, everything behind the scenes of the game is nice. The graphics are most excellent, the branching story lines of playing six classes are nice and the customization is nigh endless. It's a real shame all these pretty background things are overshadowed by the awful combat and AI making an ass of itself in front of these things.
My Recommendation: Avoid it. The broken core mechanics badly dampen the fun of just about everything else.
On a side note, as this is my third review, and 3rd is the charm, can I just get some feedback on how my reviews are going? I like writing them, and it'd be nice to make sure you guys enjoy reading the damn things.
My best friend is an idiot.
Yes, building your own HOUND is by far the coolest thing I've seen in a 3rd person shooter so far. There are dozens of different legs/wheels, weapons, big weapons, frickin' huge weapons, cockpits etc. There's even an art designer, which lets you show your style to the world.
Once you get into actually playing the game however, it turns into one of the most sloppiest, boring, slow, stupid shooters I've ever had the misfortune to pick up.
Your mech is slow. Slow, slow, slow. Even the Scout class is unbelieveably slow. You will honestly spend more time pushing on the left joystick to move towards the battle then actually shooting other mechs and HOUNDS. The steering is awful, and I've twisted my HOUND into knots just trying to go around a corner more times then I care to count. I understand that there has to be a degree of realism, I mean, you aren't going anywhere too quickly in a 30-ton hunk of steel, but seriously...it goes past reasonable realism and becomes more unreal as a result.
EDIT: The core gameplay mechanics are better, but not by much. You run (a term I use very loosely) around in your tin can and use various weaponry to blow up other tin cans. Rinse and repeat. Repetitive, but the six classes and deep customization allow for some nice match-ups. However, missions are essentially nothing but racing to capture communication towers, then blowing up the enemies and possibly a base.
Also, each part of your mech has its own health meter. Basically, each different thing you bolt on can die off on its own. This is actually very nice, it's realistic, and makes perfect sense. A shot through the gatling gun isn't going to affect one's missle pods any, so keep them seperate. Sadly, the positives of customization and realism are bogged down by the plodding pace and general repetativeness. Also, the lack of supply bases leads to major frustration sometimes. You don't want to be facing a boss HOUND with just your tertiary machine gun and one point of health left before your HOUND goes up in a fireball, sending you on the express train to the next life. This is war. Soldiers need supplies. Where the fuck are your supplies, you will ask. Truly no man can say. It still pisses me off though.
END EDIT
The AI is pathetic. It cannot even recognize friendly fire. I once mixed up friendly and enemy forces, (which is easier then you'd think sadly) and I had to do the same mission over and over until I clicked in that I had been sniping my own guys for the past hour. The commander just kept saying "we're under fire!" Enemies won't even try to move out of the way of your bullets. I've walked up on tank formations and blew them to bits because the allies of the newly created hunk of scrap metal didn't clue in that evasive maneuveurs might just be a swell idea.
It's spotty too, in that sometimes bosses will be dumb as dirt, and cannon fodder baddies will blow your cockpit into bits with one lucky shot. This also combines with developer stupidity in that as a Scout, which isn't designed for fighting, you have to take out the HOUND equilvalent of The Black Knight from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This bozo never missed a shot. Oh yeah, and when I died, I had to pretty much start the mission over. This is where I stopped playing.
I haven't played multiplayer as I refuse to play any more of that bilge, but I can assume it's much like single player: Running around (slowly) and shooting. Also, from what I gleaned of my BF, it's almost like Risk. You attack a neighbouring map with your team, which is a faction in the Neronimus War, and you have to win to take that property. Eventually, you can storm the stronghold and take out that faction, eventually winning the war. This is a very nice change up to the old "Deathmatch, CTF, etc. etc" of other shooters. Bringing in your bitching HOUND from single player though...I can't see much fairness in that.
Going to my final complaint before I briefly hit the pluses: Why must the combat be so damn vague? I was ordered to take out an enemy base, but I had no idea what the base looked like. I lucked out and just blew up totally at random the HQ. Which BTW, took like five minutes of straight shooting. With missles, bombs and huge sniper rounds. Bo-ring.
To its credit, everything behind the scenes of the game is nice. The graphics are most excellent, the branching story lines of playing six classes are nice and the customization is nigh endless. It's a real shame all these pretty background things are overshadowed by the awful combat and AI making an ass of itself in front of these things.
My Recommendation: Avoid it. The broken core mechanics badly dampen the fun of just about everything else.
On a side note, as this is my third review, and 3rd is the charm, can I just get some feedback on how my reviews are going? I like writing them, and it'd be nice to make sure you guys enjoy reading the damn things.
