In addition to your weapons, the game gives you the chance to man stationary turrets and pilot vehicles.  If the look of the assault rifle didn't tip you off to the fact that Halo provided some inspiration to the developers of Chrome, then the vehicles certainly will.  The control scheme while piloting a vehicle is identical to that in Halo, which is not a problem since it works well.  You'll get to pilot several vehicles including a speeder bike ala Return of the Jedi and a buggy with a mounted machine gun that bears more than a passing resemblance to Halo's warthog.  You’ll have the opportunity to drive five different vehicles in all, including a mech walker, but it’s the speeder bike that will provide the most thrilling right once you get the hang of controlling it.

Some of the expansive outdoor levels include weather effects.

Chrome provides you with a set of ability boosters in the form of cybernetic implants. When activated they provide you with advantages such as a zoomed targeting view which turns your weapon into a poor man’s sniper rifle. Other implants will help you to run faster or steady your aim. None of the implants provide you with enough of an advantage to make a big difference on missions and they suffer from a major problem that makes them almost unusable on a regular basis. When enabled the implants draw power from your body at a very fast rate, giving you literally seconds to make use of their capabilities. If you let them overload (which can be easy to do when you are distracted by a firefight), you’ll suffer a brownout that will dim the screen, slow your actions, and cost you a bit of health.

Chrome features large levels that provide a lot of territory to explore. While this gives you a good feeling of freedom and makes the locations more realistic, there’s a lot of empty space where nothing happens. I spent more time walking in Chrome than in any other game in recent memory. There are also a lot of cutscenes – before missions, during missions, after missions… – so you’ll spend a lot of your gameplay time watching movies in addition to all the walking. The cutscenes can’t be bypassed so you’ll be forced to watch them again if you neglect to save your game after watching one and subsequently meeting your untimely end.  The cutscenes also take over at some points that would have made exciting sequences to play instead. For example, early in the game you get the chance to make your escape on one of the speeder bikes. However, as soon as you get the bike through the fortress’ front gate and are about to enter some woods the game switches to a cutscene and the next thing you know you are boarding a ship to make your escape. I’m sure that most gamers would have much rather had the chance to take the controls and weave through the trees themselves.

Chrome has enough going for it in terms of graphics and gameplay to make it a better than average shooter. The developers also deserve kudos for trying to add some unique elements to the gameplay. However, several aspects of the game fall a bit short and prevent it from being counted among the year’s top first person shooters.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 74%.  First person shooter fans should definitely give Chrome a look.

System Requirements:  Pentium IV 1.5; 512 MB RAM;  64 MB Video RAM; 8x CD-ROM;  1.7 GB Hard Drive Space;  Mouse.

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