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> Results: Chrome SpecForce
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The year 2003 marked a breakpoint for the first person shooter market. It was clear that the Quake III and Unreal graphics engines had run out of extendibility, and several new engines were being announced in conjunction with new games. Valve was showing the now famous Source engine that powers Half-Life 2. Id Software was promoting the Doom III engine, and the CryTek engine featured in Far Cry was also raising eyebrows and dropping jaws. Lesser know European developer Techland demonstrated the Chrome Engine which powered a first person shooter named Chrome. The results were mixed. Since then Techland has continued polishing the gameplay and engine, and has come out with a sequel that follows the further adventures of Bolt Logan, called Chrome SpecForce.
Chrome SpecForce is a futuristic shooter that is highly reminiscent of the 1998 action game Rune in that it is a journey. You begin with one set of goals, things go terribly awry, and then you spend the rest of the game trying to figure out how to set things right. Unlike in Rune, there are missions along the way, but these merely serve to break up the ﾑone man against the world' flow that comes standard in many shooters. The impact they have is quite important, as they give the game personality and lend Logan a sense of purpose beyond himself. He is occasionally partnered by a pilot with sniper skills named Pointer. The duo get stranded on a planet and involved in an intergalactic conflict that threatens the very stability of the galaxy.  The gameplay is naturally based on the original Chrome, but has been refined and has elements similar to 2004's popular and acclaimed shooter Far Cry. Logan is part of a Special Forces unit with powered armor. The armor's useful features help you face difficult enemies across large open terrains. Optional vehicles add variety, and enemies that operate with intelligence rather than just as ﾑbullet sponges' are highlights of the involving single player campaign. Allies you meet along the way have fleshed out personalities and behaviors, behaving like inexperienced soldiers who follow your lead either to victory or peril. The multiplayer game in Chrome SpecForce is a robust and well implemented system that is hampered by a single thingﾗno one is playing. There are frenetic action modes, team modes, tactical modes and objective modes. Yet after attempting to find games across four days morning afternoon and evening (I assumed that more Europeans would play since Chrome was more popular there than elsewhere), I was never able to get together with more than two people in a match. This is a shame and is unlikely improve. So if you love multiplayer action, make sure your friends buy this also, otherwise the matches will be very lonely. Chrome SpecForce is a solid shooter that doesn't challenge the top games in the genre but has a couple of things that make it attractive to shooter fans looking for a new game. It also has reasonable hardware requirements and a budget price.  
When it comes to first person shooters, my baseline opinion is that they are intended for teens and above, so I start from a GamerDad Seal of 14+. Things that would change that to an Adult seal are not just the obvious blood, gore and dismemberment, but also extreme intensity, a sense of true peril, and loss of allies. Of course there are also the usual factors such as adult sexual content and language. First person shooters seldom have mitigating factors such as educational value that might be found in a role-playing or strategy game.
Chrome SpecForce is an intense shooter that has two major factors that earn it an Adult label. It's full of realistic bloody violence, and it is a constant struggle for survival. There might be occasional strong language, but frankly you are too busy struggling to find ammo and survive to notice. You make allies throughout the game, only to watch them get gunned down and then have to raid their corpse for important items to complete missions. Some of these deaths are scripted to happen no matter what you do, but they are not done in a cutscene and are troubling to watch, so you are often left lamenting ﾑif only I had been quicker or done more...' This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Chrome SpecForce |
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