Chrome Review

First-person shooters have become so ubiquitous that it's clearly getting difficult for them to stand out from the crowd. Since the release of Counter-Strike in 1999 the genre has exploded, with each new title trying desperately to add something innovative to the basic shoot 'em up gameplay that we all know and love, along with the requisite graphical improvements and multiplayer features.

Chrome takes on this challenge admirably, and while it's nothing revolutionary, it does give gamers some slick new toys to play with and some very impressive environments to play with them in.

Chrome is set in the distant future and, in the single-player campaign, you play a mercenary named Bolt Logan who bops around the Valkyria galaxy eliminating threats or pretty much anything else someone will pay you to eliminate. Wasting only a few minutes on that, I went looking for a server to join. The usual array of multiplayer modes are available, including capture the flag, deathmatch, and team deathmatch, with support for up to 32 players. If you're accustomed to standard PC FPS controls, you'll have no problem adapting to Chrome.

Vehicles
Given that Halo, Battlefield 1942, Unreal 2, and various other shooters now have player controlled vehicles, it's no big surprize that Chrome also has them. Along with a fairly standard 4-wheel buggy which bears an uncanny resemblance to a Halo warthog, there are speeder bikes, tanks, and mech walkers, but curiously, no aircraft. Depending on how you feel about air power in other games, this could be considered a good thing.

The available vehicles are nicely implemented, although the controls will come more easily to Battlefield players than Halo fans. As usual, several of the vehicles accommodate more than one player so your buddy can deliver ordnance while you navigate. My biggest complaint in this department is that, unlike Battlefield, you have to exit the vehicle and get back in to change positions, making it all but impossible to deploy a multi-position vehicle effectively by yourself.

Weapons
There is no shortage of weaponry to choose from in Chrome. The usual assortment of grenades, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and medipacks are all available, but there is a tight limit to how much you can carry. Instead of player classes, everyone has access to the full arsenal before they spawn and their role in battle is decided but what equipment they decide to take along.

Implants
You also get to wear high-tech implants which augment certain skills at a cost to your neural health.

For instance, implants can improve your accuracy or give you an armor bonus, but overusing them will damage your brain in such a way that you'll essentially black out for a few seconds, making you easy prey for enemy snipers. Though you can still be effective without them, they are fun to toy with, particularly if you play long enough to get comfortable with the weapons and the ways in which implants can enhance your strategy.

Graphics
The graphics in Chrome deserve credit, as they are as good as any you will see in a shooter right now, and then some. The game looks fabulous, right down to the reflective water, lens flares, dynamic skies, and lush vegetation. Better yet, Chrome performs well even without the use of "fogging," which is a common method of reducing the distance you can see in 3D games. The interior environments are a little bland, but most of the multiplayer maps are outdoor, so I barely noticed it.

There are a good variety of multiplayer maps that come with the game, and there is also a map editor included if you need more. Most of the maps I've played are reasonably balanced and thoughtfully layed out.

It may seem like a small thing, but you can't help noticing that all it takes to discourage spawn camping is an enclosed starting point with team doors on each of the four sides. Another nice touch is that you can't take a command point while sitting in the safety of a vehicle; someone has to get out and capture it on foot.

Bottom Line
This game could hold its own against the bulk of multiplayer shooters out there right now. Chrome has most of the cutting-edge features that one looks for in a good multiplayer FPS, and while the vehicles are not up to par with those in Battlefield 1942, I enjoyed it more than either Halo or Unreal 2 XMP. Unfortunately, there is one very serious drawback to multiplayer Chrome at this stage, and that is the lack of people to play with. Right now you'll find only a handful of servers to play on, and most of those are empty, making it a definite challenge at times to find a match with a respectable ping. Of course, that could quickly change if people get tired of waiting for Half-Life 2 to come out and give this game a try.

Chrome Screenshots