Chromehounds

Chromehounds is a mech combat simulation game where the player controls customizable mechs, called HOUNDs, from a third-person perspective. The game offers opportunities for strategic thinking, as there are sometime multiple objectives for each mission. Both the single player and online game modes occupy different points in the game's timeline: the Single Player "Offline" story mode chronicles events just prior to the outbreak of the Neroimus War, the game's central conflict, while the Xbox Live "Online" mode takes place during the actual war.

There are six different mech classes known as Role Types (RT) to choose from in Chromehounds. Each class of mech has its own set of unique missions in the single-player campaign mode. Several types of other mechs and vehicles can be found including real world vehicles such as the M1A1 Abrams, Leopard 1A5, T-72B1, and Merkava Mk.I main battle tanks.

Chromehounds takes place in an alternate history that diverges in 1945, with the founding of weapons manufacturer Rafzekael in the wake of World War II. In 1980, Rafzekael unveiled the first Advanced Combat Vehicle (ACV), a mech based on a stolen American design for a bipedal tank. ACV technology was distributed to the world's major powers in 1981 after a series of massive solar flares caused catastrophic disruptions to global infrastructure that resulted in violent geopolitical upheavals, and ACVs were rapidly developed into more powerful weapons called HOUNDs. By 1992, a trio of new countries emerge in the Neroimus region on the southeast coast of the Black Sea: the Democratic Republic of Tarakia, the Republic of Morskoj, and the Kingdom of Sal Kar.

The player is the Mercenary, who is recruited by Rafzekael's mercenary division in 2000 and learns the ropes of HOUND piloting from Edgardo Gilardino, a legendary veteran who helped forge Rafzekael mercenaries' reputation as the best of the best. In 2003, the Mercenary's unit is deployed to the Neroimus region as local tensions soar due to internal instabilities and a series of skirmishes along the three countries' shared borders. Over the course of their deployment, portrayed across six sequential campaigns in which the Mercenary advances through different HOUND roles, the border dispute intensifies and the Mercenary realizes that the deteriorating situation in Neroimus is being orchestrated by an unknown third party. The Mercenary also encounters two members of Cerberus Squad, a legendary three-man HOUND unit known for its powerful weapons and ruthless tactics.

The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Most gaming critics complimented the game's online play and customization options, but criticized it for having a poor story, average graphics, and slow-paced gameplay. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 33 out of 40, while Famitsu X360 gave it a score of one nine, two eights, and one seven for a total of 32 out of 40.

Maxim gave it a score of four stars out of five, saying, "Not unlike when you used to select frilly ensembles for your little sister's Barbie collection (when no one was looking), Chromehounds lets you play big, bad burly man." Detroit Free Press gave it three stars out of four and said that it "will suck you into its wartime world if you let it. And once you've adjusted to the game's quirks and interface, you'll find it very enjoyable." However, USA Today gave it a score of six-and-a-half stars out of ten, calling it "a war worth avoiding.