[360] CHROMEHOUNDS - GOOD NIGHT SWEET PRINCE

I would be interested in teaming up with people to blow shit up.

The graphics and the gameplay details so far seems amazing. Hopefully the finished product deliver. I'll put it on top of my Gamefly list and hope for positive reviews.

I also hope it's more sim than arcade. Hopefully there is a strategy in the mech design, where you target your weapon damage and what. The game play should be thoughtful and deliberate not finding the nearest mech, turboing to him and spamming right trigger.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Some interesting articles on Chromehounds from Teamxbox
http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox-36...romehounds/p1/
http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox-36...romehounds/p1/

It looks and sounds pretty exciting. Just hoping it doesnt disappoint.
Clan's are also limited to 20 players from what I've seen.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

My Chromehounds Demo Mini Review:

The demo is all english text and dialogue.

Out of all the mech games I've played, Chromehounds is the most similiar to MechWarrior. The movements of the Sniper and Front line hounds are pretty slow. It takes time to get where you are going but there is a real distinction between how each hound handles. The Sniper hound does a massive amount of long range damage but has a really long reload time on weapons. The weapons loadout is a large long range rifle, a medium range rifle and a low caliber machine gun. I imagime some scout mech with fast firing weapons at close range would completely own the sniper hound. The Front line hound is equipped with a short range rockets, short range shotgun and a medium ranged rifle. The front line hound walks up to foot soldiers, tanks, buildings and just razes them with sheer firepower. Artillery and sniping hounds seem to be the key in taking these bad boys down. So far, none of the weapons have lockon. It's all aiming/deflection shooting and takes a fair amount of skill to hit things that are not point blank. The game is not about turboing to the nearest hound and spamming right trigger. Positioning is pretty key and you have to pay attention to your weapon cooldown times. I've found myself constantly switching among the three weapons to maximize my firing time.

The quality of the single player missions are soso. Just enough voice acting and story to give you a reason to blow shit up. The mission design also does not seem very inspired - just a means of teaching you how to play each hound. Online play is what the singleplayer is trying to teach.

Where this game will be at is the hound design. You couldn't do any custom designs but scrolling through the 'borrowed' hound there are TONS of hardpoints. Each part has roughly 20 attributes which can let you build some interesting designs. It's not just picking a type of weapon but also factoring in the cooldown time and ammo capacities. It favors a pretty balanced design as I can imagine people will want to build an all shotgun mech or an all rifle mech that would just get their shit ruined.

Graphics: So-So. Not prominently next gen from what I've seen. Still easy on the eyes and the low poly count per model will probably allow for more objects overall on screen at once.

Sound: No comment yet. Doesn't pop out at you nor does it distract you. Seems to do the job, voice acting again doesn't annoy you but doesnt inspire you.

Gameplay: Pretty fun. It's nice to tear stuff up in a mech and requires some skill in the process. Most of my gameplay impressions are up on top.

Intangibles: Nice feel overall. This is a game I would like to definently play with an organized group of people. Would be fun to work out tactics, who builds what kind of hound, etc.

Going to remove Chomehounds from my gamefly queue and adding it to my pre-order list.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

haha was cruising around top360tag and noticed a few folks are already getting achievements for it.

For those here who want to play together, should we try and decide on a faction ahead of time? While haven't played any of the factions in detail, Tarakia is what I'd like to learn towards for even handed hound design.

Also makes it easier for us to play with what Fever is doing if we can't get any traction with a GFF based effort.

Also any idea on what preferred style everyone wants to play? I'm leaning towards Sniper or Defender but willing to play whatever works best for victory.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Just purchased the guide and slapped down my preorder for tommorow. Anyone else picking this up on launch day and want to try and get some multi going?

I was speaking idiomatically.

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Of the two I've tried though, I prefer the Sniper. However, I really wanna try the Commander. So let's see what each plays like first, eh?

Sounds good to me. To be really competitive in MP anyways people will have to spend sometime in singleplay racking up S ratings on all the missions.

I can post my impressions later but I am sure by tommorow all 283578387 internet gaming sites probably have some review or another. Did your friend at least download the demo Shin?

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It's either pretty good, or boring as hell.

I am sure the vast majority of Halo 2 gamers thinks Final Fantasy 7 is slow and boring as hell. Like I said earlier, whether you like Chromehounds or not will depend if you are a part of the arcade or simulation camp.

If you like to just turbo to the nearest hound, spam right trigger and try and rack up 80 kills an hour, Chromehounds is not your game.

If you think that spending 3-4 minutes walking to an objective, planning out your attack strategy, testing out your lego design against someone else's lego design and reliance on teamwork to win, then Chromehounds might be your game.

One source says that the avg time for a match seems to be 15 minutes for 6 on 6. (No respawns)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well, having played through the Soldier RT campaign and 4/7ths of the Sniper RT, I can say that Chromehounds is a fun game to play.

Unfortunately, most Internet review sites seem to be giving Chromehounds a poor to average review. Also, from reading the guide and trying out a bit of the RT's many reviewers do not know what the hell they are talking about. You can play a level of Call of Duty 2 and get a feel for what the game will be rated. You can also play 60 minutes of Madden 06 and then be able to assign it an accurate score.

IGN gives it a 6.9/10 which is "passable".

Posting some of my favorite tidbits that I've seen.

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Instead of drawing players along through the single-player portions with engaging narrative and characters, the only motivation for players is achieving good mission scores to unlock Hound parts.

Yes, the Chromehounds tutorial mission plotlines have the complexity of a Dr. Seuss book. So does World of Warcraft questing. Quests serve to teach you how to play your class and hopefully advance to Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, etc. Chromehounds at it's heart is an online game meant to be played over XBox Live. They sooo were not trying to make CH Front Mission. And my motivation for S ranking is to be an ass beater.

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Regardless of single-player or multiplayer modes, Chromehounds has a few nagging issues, two of which stand out prominently. First, movement around the battlefield is excruciatingly slow.

How about the maps are big? If I see you on the radar, I can get to you in 20 seconds which is not bad. Again, you don't see stuff in Mech Warrior move at Sonic the Hedgehog speeds either. Sim style versus arcade style people.

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Second, the combat system in the game requires little skill to score a hit with missiles.

Try going against my hound built with Anti Missle defenses. But I bet he'd never played enough of the game to even know about the existence of such parts. That and missles are short to medium range and requires aiming to hit.

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The Heavy Gunner is the worst offender. Burdened with several arrays of long range cannons, it could barely distance itself from a crippled turtle.

Don't make/play a hound that is burdoned by huge gigantic cannons that requires heavy legs to support them then? Heavy Gunners are artilary hounds meant for long range suppression and bringing down stationary bases. You want a Scout who LOL's his way to your base and levels it?

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The same goes for Hounds and other lesser mechanized vehicles. When they're destroyed they simply disappear under a plume of fire and smoke. It's a far cry from the splintering, scattering, and spectacular mechanical dismemberment players would want to see. Aside from that the framerate is generally smooth both online and off, though chugs a bit when too many explosions clutter the screen. Though we played the game on multiple televisions, we couldn't seem to escape significant V-Sync issues, which cause horizontal lines to scan through and distort the HD image.

What a dumbass. You bitch that destroyed hounds don't leave flaming wreckage when you blow them up and then compliment how smooth the frame rate generally is? You then complain that when there are a lot of exposions around, the frame rate does drop a bit? So an additional 11 independently animated burning hulks would improve performance in this area?
I will ignore the last sentence as he lost all "technical" credibility with me.

Lamepro:

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If you've got a hankering for mech combat, Chromehounds is worth a rental, but only if you've already played the earlier, superior genre entries for the XBox, and can't wait for something better.

<sigh>

I don't know anyone who would get Chomehounds to play 7 * 6 tutorial missions and then shelve the game away.

Gamebrink

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Another problem is that most squads that I found online were only one to two people large as the process of joining a squad is a bit odd and not at all user friendly. So most all of the matches being fought are one on one and very few are the max of six on six. And while one on one matches are ok, the game is designed for team play and with the way things work I don’t see large amounts of squads with over six people online at the same time being the norm, especially if it doesn’t sell well.

Yes, the Neroimus war can potentially be a bust if no one has the game. So as a reviewer who got the game hopefully a few days before the rest of us... what are the odds of you fielding a 6 on 6 match when all the people who have it are game reviewers? Also, how about people like me who want to play through the entire tutorial before I venture online?

TeamXbox's review is probably the most accurate as the author seems to of actually played the game, understands all of the game modes, the customization and the role types.

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FROM attacked Chromehounds in an interesting manner. They didn’t want to clutter it up with sim-like controls (the control set is very user friendly; almost pick-up-and-play), but the action is very simulation like, in terms of the battleground of the future. This is why role types are specific, and many of them plod along that some will consider “boring” speeds. Much of the fun of games such as Unreal, Quake, et. al is the exaggerated pace, so you can see why some gamers will despise a title like Chromehounds. But if you realize, and, as The Rock so plainly stated, “know your role”…Chromehounds is a diamond in the rough.


Clans, or groups of friends that understand battleground tactics will love that not all HOUNDS move at the same pace, that some are way more vulnerable than others, and that teamwork is not required, it’s essential. The single player action, although cheesy in some areas (story and transition), is a great primer for the delectable Neroimus War, with extensive opportunities to learn how to build HOUNDS for specific RT’s, and everything in between. Speaking of HOUND building, the Garage area of Chromehounds could be an entertaining, Erector-set game in and of itself. Both visual and performance mods are a the very top of all titles featuring Create-a anything.

However for reasons I explained earlier, the TeamXbox reviewer is off on this point:

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he biggest beef I have with the graphical portion of Chromehounds is the fact that these beautiful HOUND’s completely disappear after they have been terminated. The explosion and fire effects are spectacular, the particle fly to and fro’, yet these beast do a vanishing act when push comes to shove; what a let down.

I conceed that the audio sucks and the single player "story mode" is a glorified tutorial but other than that - Chromehounds owns.

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Really on Tarakia? I figure they would be #2. Morskoj with it's most powerful weapons I would think would be #1. Btw, if you are as good at CH as you are at Frogger I will be scared. I got my shit ruined in Frogger but doing ok on getting the S ranks so far.

FELIPE NO

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We gotta get better communication though, because one of those times Tony blew me up thinking I was an enemy.

LOL. We need a color/decal scheme to apply to our hounds.

Looks like Season 1 of the Neroimus war is over with Morskoj as the winner. Some Japanese squad put some serious beatdown with their week in advance. Morskoj has a slight lead over Tarakia with Sal-Kar being owned with 22% of territory.

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From what I've tried so far I'm really liking the Sniper, Soilder, and the Heavy Gunner. Yeah, I like the slow yet powerful types . I guess I'll try the other mech designs once I start buying/winning more parts.

Ugg I suck at Heavy Gunner. I get B rank on the tutorial. <sigh> Hopefully with some practice I can actually eyeball and hit something on a regular basis.

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Being squad-less sucks. Do you have room for one more? I'm still getting the hang of the gameplay here but if you don't need a newbie person in your squad I perfectly understand .

Ok, its back to the tutorials exciting story mode.

So far it's just me and Colonel. Plenty of room I am sure. Up to 20 per Squad.

I just completed all the tutorial missions so I am more than happy to share mission advice or any info. Hit S rank on all missions except for 3 Heavy Gunners.

General Tips:

1 - Assault Rifles (I think anyways) are the best weapons in the game. Pointblank - Distance shooting. Less than 1 second cooldown. Decent damage, almost instant hit and the shots don't obscure your vision.

2 - If you have trouble with getting S-Ranks on missions, design your own hound strictly around what you have to accomplish. A Soldier RT loaded down with assault rifles and rocket launchers can achieve the majority of the HG requirements. Another example is a Soldier can replace a Defender on some of the escort missions.

3 - Mobility is key. Lots of the missions involve keeping allies alive or preventing the enemy from reaching a certain point. Need a quick hound for those.

Was wondering informally what RT everyone wanted to do if we could all get online. Maybe someone can prove me wrong but in general I don't like Heavy Gunners and Defenders. Tactics Commanders are pretty awesome but you'd want at least 4 or 5 people before you consider using it as a spot. A Tactics Commander/Scout hybrid would be completely gimped for fighting but would own the information department. They can run around and expand their own NA network.

You can create and store a couple of hound types but my current online one is configured as a Soldier RT type.

Speed 73
Weapons: Triple Morskjov RFZ-3 Assault Rifles w/ added ammo and RFZ double stacked rocket launcher.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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This game makes more tempted than any other 360 title to go out and buy one. I'm forcing myself to wait till the Wii and PS3 come out for the price drop. Not to mention that CH itself costs $120.

Microsoft vehemently denied that there will be a price drop this year for the XB360. The XB360 Premium Package at $400 is less than Sony's stripped down PS3 at $500. That and the Wii is in it's own corner with Gamecube strength hardware.

$120 US? Should be $50-60$.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Had a chat with Kairyu yesterday and he couldn't join our squad because of a two week wait since he went from Morskoj to Sal-Kar. Guess what ever faction we choose, need to stay constant for now until everyone can join up.
The Neroimus war season 2 seems pretty even now. Looks like its a Tarakia and SalKar alliance on Morskoj.

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Which is ok, I've gotten used to paying that much for games this last generation. But $120? $140? Thats where I have trouble justifying it.

If you saw my PS3 thread, Sony announced that games at the minimum will be $60US and potentially up to $99.

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That would be quite the pompous decision on their part. MS knows Sony's still in the game, no matter how much the PS3 will cost. Whether they feel the PS3's arrival warrants a price drop or not isn't the only point they're considering. It's also an easy way to sell a ton of additional consoles, which MS will greatly appreciate.

Not neccessairily due to arrogance that they won't drop the price. Remember that Microsoft is losing quite a bit on each console sold already. Even though M$ is a multi billion dollar corporation they still need to ship profitable products.

There's a complicated cost equation with factors into how many more consoles Microsoft would sell going from 400 to 350, how much additional loss they would take and whether a sale at this point would profit over the lifecycle of the 360.

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but me and (apparently) Tony are not very good at it, so if you wanna take along the huge guns, go for it. We can try out various strategies on the individual missions and such.

Oh it's not apparant.. I definently suck at Heavy Gunner. I hit S finally on all the HG missions but none of them were completed by using a HG model.

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Anyway, lastly, as for RTs, When I'm by myself I really pretty much have to use a Soldier or scout RT type to actually find and keep up with enemies, but when I was with Tony last I tried out this Commander/Sniper Hybrid that worked out pretty damn well actually. It has 3 machine guns, two sniper cannons and an N/A maker on a 4 legged chassis type. Slow but able to defend itself and particpate in battle and still give extremely helpful radar telemetry. If we start fielding 3 man or larger groups I'd like to use it more often.

Yeah, CS's Commander/Sniper was a pretty wicked design. The NA radar really helped us track stuff down.

I don't see much need for HG type unless it's maybe the final spot in a 6 man and you practically require a commander RT as a spotter. (The HG uses the grids to rain down fire on a semi accurate basis)

I love the Commander RT so much that we'd have to try to succeed with it even in 2 man situations. Any time another 2 man gets seperated, they are toast. I figure I move with you in the soldier RT and capture NA's around us. We spot anything, you open up with Sniper fire and if they close in I defend. If they run away I can chase them down as the biped has decent speed and you can always keep sniping. Not sure how to handle 2 Soldier RT's charging us together though.

Most amazing jew boots

Comeon peeps. Pick this game up. Need more squad mates to blow shit up with!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

New Chromehound parts are on Marketplace at rip off prices. Before anyone buys anything perhaps we can strategize.

I hear you can unlock a part, buy it in a store and then trade it to others.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I guess it's not THAT much. Don't want to cause you problems so I'll probly purchase them. Just riding the Major Nelson bitchfest.
Finally have a weekend to myself for some time so lets kick ass!

I was speaking idiomatically.