Chrome

The Good
Hell, the graphics. The landscape is definitely the most beautiful looking thing I've seen since Unreal 2. I could kick back and just watch the trees sway, the birds fly by, the water reflections...well, until some jackass bad guy starts shooting at me.

The levels in this game are massive. REAL massive. You can spend a good hour in a single level without more than one loading screen, going from a massively large outdoor island that you probably won't get the chance to see all of, to an enormous and complex enemy installation that reaches the clouds in height and the depths of volcanic rock below the surface. It's really amazing.

Vehicles!

The inventory system is neat. You can't carry forty weapons at once -- you gotta make room for what you need.

The Bad
Pretty much everything about this game is medoicre at best. Bad guys are dumb as hell -- yet accurate as a bitch. The game can be pretty easy, what with medipaks every two feet, but it doesn't amount to much when you take a step forward and get instantly gunned down by some bad guy on the other side of the mountain that happened to spot you the second you came into view.

That's a real drawback to the awesome graphics. The enemy can see you through the tall grass and vegetation, but damned if you can see them, and there is no indicator as to where you're being hit from. The crappy sound doesn't help much either. Without a very good 3D sound, the gunshots coming from your speakers don't give you a very good idea where it's coming from. And your radar is almost completely useless half the time. Sure, it tells you there are bad guys nearby, but it doesn't tell you if they're above you or below you, which can make for some long and tedius base infiltration missions.

For the most part, the game is all about the quickload. The moment you come into view, you are fired upon with a good 95% chance of being hit. You can survive most of this, with the medipaks so plentiful, provided you can find cover within three seconds. Otherwise, it's reload...try again...try again...try again...try again until you find out where the hell you're being shot at from.

Voice overs are terrible, animation is bad, vehicle physics are nonexistant and ragdoll physics are whacky. You can shoot a guy with a pistol once and hell start doing backflips until the helium runs out and he hits the ground.

Weapons are not very exciting. You get your standard machine gun, rocket launcher, sub machine gun, pistol...bleh. You also get implants, but the default key settings makes them impractical or impossible to use...not that you'd even want to use them, as if you have one going for more than a few seconds you "short out" and that's just a pain in the butt.

The Bottom Line
The game could have had a lot more going for it if the enemies weren't so damned accurate and aware, or if they would have spent as much time working on physics as they had environment graphics.

Also the fact that Logan is voiced by the same guy who voiced Duke Nukem is unintentionally funny.

Later on in the game you get some new augmentations which really help, such as Max Payne-ish slow-mo action, which helps a great deal, and there are some more original levels, such as defending the colonists. The game does get better as you go on, but the beginning is much too slow and difficult and the fun factor climb is an effort. A multiple-ending scenario at the end does add much to this game.

All in all, it's not a terrible game, but upon seeing the awe-inspiring landscape, you may expect more than you'll receive.

The Good
Chrome is an open-ended action game with great graphics, huge levels, crisp textures and beautiful environments. It features loads of weapons, intelligent enemies, driveable vehicles (including a mech-like robot!) and end-boss fights that are plenty fun. When you shoot someone they die in an exaggerated but somewhat realistic rag doll effect. The physics of the vehicles is also good. The best part about this game, for me personally, is its gigantic and varied levels. I love when I get a large, free world to run around in and explore!

The Bad
The cut scenes are somewhat below average, but that's the only sign that this game was developed by a small polish team with no prior game experience. Oh, and some might say that your female counterpart in the game is a bit too much on the.. uhm.. "male fantasy"-side.

The Bottom Line
A game that resembles Halo but beats its competitor in every aspect. Chrome is a great first-try from polish developers Techland.