I am a sucker for mech games; however there are other things to consider. Obviously there are a few flaws to look at. First off the non-Live game play (training mode) is both frustrating and boring. The story can be easily passed by with out a look back. Some of the missions would make you believe that your mech has some sort of speed associated with it when it comes to having you move to different places on the map. There where several missions that would advise you to move to a location to defend it or for the best firing positions but by the time you made it to the location you fail the mission. I understand this is Mech chess and not Armored Core reaction based Gundam Wing fighting, so I don’t understand the battle fields and starting locations for missions. On the lighter side the Live game play is fun although time consuming as your mechs are still really slow. The joy comes from having pilots that know there role and perform it, and upgrading and watching every ones favorite show Pimp my Mech (that Xzibit’s a riot). Although my patience only goes so far with customizing. I sure hope they come out with a game where all you do is paint things, maybe Extreme Paint by Numbers. This is not the casual gamers game.… Expand

This game is better than Halo2. The reviewers were looking for the nest Mech Warrior. This games is more like the Ghost Recon of giant robots. If giants robots were real, this is what they would be. This game has no lasers, sheild generator or flame throwers. But those don't exist now (except the flame thrower) or will be in the near future. This game is all modern-day weapon ramped up into a giant-robot-usuable form. Online in this game is a blast if you can find a squad (the Chromehounds version of Halo 2 clans) which is easy if you have any friends. I have to say the single player is not the greatest but you can get a better gamerscore; who can complain. The achievments probably look the coolest out of any 360 game right now; they are medals that you would see on a military person. This game is a must have for Live sence you can have 6 vs. 6. The online can fail if you have too many people or somebody is talking while the game goes into the next load screen. THIS GAME IS NOT MECHWARRIOR it is Ghost Recon and team work is necessary.… Expand

Great game, once the the servers and fixed the online mode will be perfect!

I just love the ADD idiots here. Do us all a favor and go continue to jizz-off to your Halo 2 Collector's Edifiton. Just because a game doesn't fit your style of gameplay, say ADD-bearable, doesn't mean it's a bad game. And having a completely one-sided view is also a great indication of your retardness. Please, get laid people.

Incredible Mech solo game. Lots of fun with challenges for all levels. Getting S on each level unlocks additional parts you will need when you go online. Online is like an entire new game. If you like Mechs (Hounds) but this game!

This is one of the most methodical games on the 360. Clearly not designed for the Halo-lovin' "Timmies" of the world. BTW, it is nice to play a game on Live without shrieking screaming kids. That said, Chromehounds is a great game for anyone who loves mech games!

The game is an absolute must-have for the Xbox 360. It will, without a doubt, consume your soul. Buy it. Play it. Love it.

Definately below average. I have never been so bored with a game and so frustrated with the clunky controls to the point of not even finishing more than one set of missions. The controls are sluggish and clunky, the mechs look good but the environs look like a high res PS2 game with constant pop-up and the missions are frustrating and leave you in the dark on what to do. It takes forever to get into an online match and when you do, it usually disconnects and you start over 10 times before finally getting into a match.....and once you do, it is boring and takes an hour to walk 3 miles yet your mech is supposedly walking at over 100 miles per hour. Biggest POS ever, and saying a lot considering the 360 is full of nothing but garbage so far.… Expand

Good graphics and fun to play like some would say but, How the heck do you play co-op on it?

This game feels like a hastily produced movie of the week they had to shoot in a dirty, drab former soviet republic to cut costs! The idiotic japanese obsession with gamers doing and redoing a level a billion times desperately trying to attain the elusive S rank comes right out of the drab 32-bit gaming days of 1996 and with the dded insult of "you dont get no parts till you get at least an A" makes me want to scribble out the "build your own hound" claim on the back of the box. Single player is once again in a new "Next Gen" title...infuriatingly an afterthought to the online neronimus war that was clearly the focus of the title. If youre a japanese gaming god with your silly blue hair and oval sunglasses...you would probably have not even botherd with this trash that I was about to errantly associate you with!… Expand

This game provides great fun for people who enjoy playing with slow moving behemoths that are mechs. From being able to customize and accomodate a specific class, the variety of weapons, chassis, and extras can be a whole game into oneself. Of course single play is only a warm up to online play, but it also helps you decide on a class for the war online. Pretty much in no other game are Classes so well defined and the strategy is highly dependant on what is on the battlefield. Gaging on previous reviews, it looks like only mere minutes were played, or just a quick observation from the terrible demo. Need not apply if you're looking for a run n gun game, or do not play well with others. Also a very close likeness to an actual MMO, do missions for money, and play PvP to win territory.… Expand

The one player game is severely lacking in depth and gameplay, but the online is where it makes up for it. The one player is only meant for unlocking weapons to play online, at least that is what I gather from it. The online is amazing many different game play modes and lots of tactics/squad play. Buy if you have xbox live, if not then you will be wasting your money.

Greatest game since Half-life 2. Although.. its not THAT good.. Most of all, the ability of being able to customize dragged me to get it. Graphics are awesome, especially in gun-cam, it almost look like your actually in it looking through the scope! With thermal vision, the worst sandstorm can be seen through. With night vision, the darkest night can be bright. Its awesome. Only thing lacking.. is single player.. customized single player battles where you could customize what mechs you want in your squad for computers, and randomized enemies, would be great. not just campaign. Its a whole new twist on MechAssault.… Expand

I agree that the single player isn't that great, but it still manages to be reasonably fun. Sure it gets kind of boring, but it focuses on realistic missions from a military perspective, which make things pretty interesting. I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, but I can imagine that it'll make this game completely worth it. ( I'll admit, I only bought this game because I found a new copy for only $20.) Other than that, this is pretty much the best mech game I've ever played. The graphix are some of the best I've seen on 360. The gameplay and controls are great and the customization system is awsome. Apart from the single player, Chromehounds is everything MechAssault should have been.… Expand

Great game if you have patience and your good at making friends online.

Doesn't seem like a "pick up and play" game. I rented this and didn't have the patience. It takes forever to get anywhere. I think my problem was that I wanted to build my own mech, but I couldn't get my hands on enough parts. I'll stick to the fast paced MechAssault games.

I've managed to log over 100 hours into Chromehounds. I believe that there's a certain breaking point for all games. To reach this breaking point you must play said game for X amount of hours. When you reach this point, you KNOW exactly how good the game is. Until then it's all speculation. So here's a review of Chromehounds from someone that's seen all it has to offer, good and bad. First off, I'd like to point out that I'm completely disregarding the single player missions. They were obviously tacked onto a game that was originally meant solely for Xbox live play. Chromehounds is a game where you build your own robotic war machine from scratch, and then battle with it on Xbox live. Every hound part has a plethora of stats, including health, energy usage, and weight. Legs play a role in determining how fast you go, and how heavy your hound can be. Faster leg models can't carry many parts, and are easily destroyed. Slower leg models carry more parts, and can take a beating. The generator determines how much of a power supply you have. Each part in the game requires a set amount of energy to run it. If your generator cannot supply enough power to your hound (or if it is destroyed in battle), then the overall performance of your hound will go down. Your cockpit determines how tough your hound is, and how many advanced computer chips you can add to your hound. Each part of a hound can be destroyed, but the hound will continue to operate until the cockpit is destroyed. Computer chips modify things such as speed, stability, and aiming. Lighter cockpits are easily destroyed, but can hold lots of computer chips. Heavier cockpits take a beating, but allow fewer computer modifications. Weapons range from Sniper Cannons to Anti-Hound Piles. Sniper weapons have a long range of attack, but reload slowly with low damage output. Anti-Hound Piles are extremely close range melee weapons that deal enormous damage. Shotguns, Rifles, Missiles, HEAT Rockets, and Cannons are mid-range weapons with fast reload times. Rocket pods fire off a cluster of rockets. They can be used to bombard a wide area, or to pummel an opponent up close. Artillery shells travel slowly in an arc towards their target. A direct hit with these weapons is devastating, and just being in the vicinity of a blast will damage your hound. Chromehounds has a wide variety of maps. Just about any environment on earth can be found in chromehounds. There's deserts, cities, arctic tundra, mountains, valleys etc. To communicate in chromehounds you have a set radio area. Wonder outside of this area, and you can no longer communicate with your squad-mates. There are radio towers located all over each map. You can expand your radio area by capturing these towers. Only one team can be in control of a certain radio tower at a time. Capturing enemy radio towers can shut down your opponent's communications, and expand your own radio area. If you want you can attach a radio tower onto your hound. It creates it's own radio area, and acts as a radar. You can see enemy, and friendly units within the range of your radio area, and the radio area of any radio towers that you control. Radio towers are extremely heavy though, and require a lot of power to run. Hounds equipped with a radio tower are essentially handicapped due to the sap in resources. There are three ways to win a game in Chromehounds. They are: Destroy all enemy hounds. Discover and destroy the enemy base. Be in control of the most radio towers when time runs out. Before you can destroy the enemy base you must find it. There are five potential enemy bases on most maps. Only one of them is the real deal. The rest are decoys. Once you have found an enemy base there are three ways to blow it up. The first and least effective way is to have your hounds fire upon it until it is destroyed. The second way is to direct artillery fire at it. Once artillery starts hitting the base it goes down rather quickly. The trick is to have the skill required to properly aim the artillery shells (more into that later). The third and most effective way is to run up to it with a speedy mech, and use close range melee weapons to bash it to pieces. This is known as Pile rushing, and generally destroys a base in about thirty seconds. The actual game states that there are six role-types in chromehounds. But in reality players will invent hound to their liking. Here is a quick sampling of some the hounds you will encounter online. The info gatherer: In chromehounds firepower is what matters the most. A team with too many support roles will often lose a match, due to the other team simply strong-arming them. Because of this many players choose to combine the Radar Mech, and the Scout mech into one. A scout's job is to attack the base, and capture radio towers. A Radar Mech's job is to monitor the enemy. A speedy scout mech with an extremely small radar dish can easily perform both jobs. The radio area starts out tiny, but grows bigger as more radio towers are taken by the speedy mech. You can use the radar dish to know where enemies are located, go around them, and pound the base into rubble. The close range combat mech: This type of mech is all about getting in your face, and blowing the crap out of you. It just needs to get close enough to hit you. These mechs range from speedy and weak, to slow and tough. These are the most common mechs in the game, and are the easiest to use. The long range fighter: This type of mech uses either Sniper Weapons, or Artillery fire (or both!) to attack the enemy from a distance. Artillery fire travels slowly, but can be devastating. Sniper fire travels fast but does mediocre damage. This type of mech can be highly effective on it's own, but it really shines when it teams up with a close range combat mech. The close range combat mech distracts, and stalls the enemy while the long range mech pummels it from afar. This form of teamwork makes hitting enemies much easier for the long range fighter, and gives the close range combat mech fire support. When you first go online with the game you will be prompted to join a squad. Until you do so you will not be able to participate in the Nerioumous War. The N. War is a war between three enemy nations. Each nation has it's own set of parts. It is recommended to visit all three nations to get every part in the game. Every nation has a number of players that are fighting for that nation. The nations fight for territory within the world. Each map is a different territory. Each win gives your country a set amount of capture points on that particular map. Enough capture points and you take a territory. Once you take a territory, you move onto the next territory until you reach the enemy Capitol. Once you take the enemy capital, all that nation's territory goes to your nation. The goal of the game is to be the last country standing, and conquer the world. A squad is a clan, or group of people that you play with. You can not be part of more than one squad at a time. Think of your squad as your basketball team. You go into every match with them, and must learn to work together in order to win. Every team-member has only one life. Once you're dead, you're dead for the rest of the match. So teamwork, and being careful is essential. Luckily it takes a good number of shots to bring a hound down. Think of it like destroying a vehicle in Halo 2. Some weapons get the job done in three shots, and some take a seemingly endless volley. It just depends on the weapon, and the toughness of the enemy hound. Ok so now that we know what the game is about I'll go into some of the positives, and negatives of the game. The positives: The game offers almost endless customization, with a mostly balanced system. The controls are easy to use. Playing against the computer in co-op mode is extremely fun. New parts are released every few weeks. The squad system ensures that you always team up with people that you are familiar with. No more random pickup games between strangers. Adding a speed modification chip solves the slow movement problem that most reviewers hate. The negatives: PvP matches of ten or more players will almost never connect. Humans will often employ a number of cheap tactics that defeats the game's promotion of teamwork. For example artillery shells can be attached to a fast moving chassis with devastating results. (Artillery shells should really only be usable by heavy slow AT-AT like mechs IMO.) When shooting an opponent with long range weapons the game lag can cause you to miss a lot (this only happens in PvP matches). The same nation seems to win almost every war. Sometimes you will be forced to pay money for some of the new parts. You cannot play online with friends that you brought over to your house. Unless you have multiple 360's at home and the right Internet setup, it's a single player game. The firing interface with artillery weapons is lacking a good rang-finding scope. As a result only the best players can use artillery from halfway across the map with any effect. Overall Chromehounds is a wonderfully deep, and addictive game, with a few minor setbacks. If the servers were to get fixed, and artillery shells nerfed the game would be an absolute must have. If you're a fan of mech games, or complexity you'll love Chromehounds. Update: The patch has made getting into human matches much easier. The game still lags with 6v6 people hardly get dropped. Score= 9.3… Expand

I guess this is not a game for everyone. This is a thinking mans game, where class and setup for each engagement matters.

Crazy customization and excellent graphics make the game.

Dont believe the negative hype. This game is for real. A must own for Xbox Live subscribers. Finally something fresh and fun online. One of the most innovative online experiences. The true meaning of Xbox Lives phrase "Jump In"!

This is an awesome game for fans of Armored Core. The depth in which the mechs can be designed/ assembled is comparable to that of the latest Armored Core. It is not a game for all. It is, in my opinion, closer to that of a simulator and so requires strategy and patience. Best experiences are with large team or large deathmatch games.

Superb multi-player. Mech customization is unbelievable and life-sucking. This game is a must-have.

excellent game. the lighting effects are gorgeous! the game play is addictive and ultimately satsifying. earning your uprgrades for a fully customized mech is akin to crack or nicotine. this game is everything that the mechassault games for the original xbox should have been. dig the physics on this bad-boy. xbox live is fun again!

This game was made for the 360. I'm glad I didn't listen to the low scores from so called "professional" sites. Superb game. Get it.

This game was horriable, slow moving mechs to action, can't tell friendlies for baddies, and a slow rate of fire, not one mech had a fast firing gun. Not even worth renting. Online was okay, but plagued with the same slow moving action.

Online or off this game is pure fun and fills a huge void in the 360 lineup. People complain that the Mech's are slow, this isn't a racing game. Do you really expect a 49 tonne Mech to move like a Greyhound? People complain about the landscape. It's 20 years post WWIII are you expecting shopping malls and maybe a theme park? The environment is stark and barren as it would be after a war of that magnatude. This is a thinking gamers game. A perfect blend of a shooter and RPG. If you want fast moving Mechs get Mechassault which is unrealistic and arcady. If you want lush environments get Far Cry Insticts Predator but if you're looking for a realistic Mech game that uses real time strategy look no further than Chromehounds.… Expand

3 points are enough to tell for 'some' graphics you may find in the game if you've got excess of money to buy such an abyssmal title and didn't knew how to spend it otherwise.

This is the best game for x-box live right now. Gameplay is silky smooth and very engaging. If you don't have x-box live, don't buy this game. The single player mode is little more than a trainer for live play.

This game is an amazing online experience for those like slow paced shooters, where you can use tactics the right way. The replay value is amazingly high, with a war goin on 24 hours a day, and a lot of regions to battle (attacking or deffending), taking cities or even capitols. One of the best parts is building your hound with thousands of parts to choose from, weapons, cpu systems, bases, legs, ckpits, shields, colors, emblems, etc. It's difficul to explain in words how big this game is, the game is really deep if you take it seriously. This is not the usual mech/arcade/shooter, this is about tactics and "realistic" mechs, wich in the game are more of an evolution of today battletanks. The single player campaing serve only as a tutorial for the whole multiplayer amazing experience.… Expand

Fairly good game if you like tactical gameplay and complete customization (as in no 2 mechs are exactly alike). Decent graphics, although not quite up to the standard of games like Elder Scrolls 4 and the like. Main complaint is the slow-paced nature, but that tends to come with the territory on a tactical shooter. Absolutely *do not buy* if you do not have Xbox Live as the offline campaign is a glorified tutorial, short and extremely boring.… Expand

I found Chromehounds a huge disappointment. The graphics were terrible and the gameplay wasn't much better. The Dreamcast could have done it!

This is an awesome game. Online has to be one of the best experiences on Live for me. The Single player was ok, but was just like a tutorial for online play. Great game. Keep the Downloadable Content coming.

Story mode pretty freakin good, mutiplayer is awesome, may be better than armored core... no, DEFIANTLY better.

I personally love this game to death. The thing with this game is purely based on the player. You have to have a passion for mech games and team play to truly enjoy this game. Most people who shoot this game down point out slow game play and mediocre graphics, this is true, but does not bring down the game. To me graphics are about 5% important to me in a game, and I thought chromhounds delivered an very good online expierence which (believe it or not) got me a few new real life friends, the community with your squad (if they arnt your friends at first) is very strong and alot of time is spent with intelligent conversations and ideas. The campaign is nmo doubt boring, but i played it for only training and parts, the majority of time spent on Chromhounds was online. its the best online game i've ever played and truly a great game for all lovers of mech games. an easy 9.… Expand

For those who don't have Xbox Live, this game is a waste of money. But online it's a different story. It is fun to customize your own hound and give it your own color pattern and emblems for everyone else to see. Every hound is different. The achievements are fun to unlock and the graphics are good. It's not the fastest game though. The mechs are incredibly slow and the fights usually come down to aiming at far distances and whoever wins probably just built a better hound than you.… Expand

The 360 needed some titles to get it through the summer, and Chrome Hounds almost satisfies. i say almost, because it has some drawbacks that really take away from the game as a whole. first off: while the campaign is fun, it can become extremely frustrating. between trying to get the elusive S rank on all 37 missions, and the somewhat difficult objectives, the game has induced some controller throwing on my part. another reason to scream at the game is the friendly AI. the game finds it necesarry to rush all of your friendlies into battle at once, blocking your line of fire, and generally dying really fast (this can make it tough when one of your requirements is to keep your squad alive). this is most annoying when using area weapons (such as missles and other explosives) and sniping. finally, the Hounds move WAY too slow, which unfortunately makes some of the objectives rather difficult. but, the game is very fun, and the level of customization is amazing. think of it in terms of Armored Core marrying MechWarrior and having an offspring. that would be Chrome Hounds. the gameplay is soild and challenging, with plenty of stuff to keep you busy for at least 20-30 or so hours (depending on your skill level) while you hunt for all 176 parts to your Hound. i do have one question though: how the hell do you play the co-op mode? overall, 8.5 of 10… Expand

Yes this is was one of the most fun games I have played yet. I can definitely tell why some people would not like this game for obvious reason like the moving is really slow. Once you over come the boredom of walking the fights will be a blast. The only down side of the fights is that if your not a commander you cant tell which is the enemy and which is friendlies. Other then that and the repetitive and sometimes corny story line of "i don't trust you... now i do... thanks for the help and hears why i care" this game is worth the bucks.… Expand

I have to say that I love this game. Yes, the mechs are relatively slow, and yes, the single player campaign does leave a bit to be desired, but the persistent online war is the true heart of this game. Online, the game is a blast to play, especially with a few friends in a squad. Your main objective is to capture radio towers in the area to maintain communication with your squad. The more towers you capture, the bigger your area of communication (or N.A.) gets. If you are out of the N.A. you can't chat with your teammates, so squad communication and tactics are essential. The mech customization is unparalelled in its depth , only comparable to the likes of Forza Motorsport. The graphics and lighting effects are some of the best on the 360, especially during night-based battles. I only marked this game down a notch for it's lackluster single player campaign, but overall it is a must-buy for fans of giant mechs and/or customization.… Expand