Chromehounds Review

The idea was superb. Six players per side, each in a hound built for one job, a scout who carries the radio relay, a sniper who cannot see without him, a soldier who cannot advance without either. Communication range is a physical resource, so losing the commander unit means losing the map and the voice chat with it, and squads that coordinate beat squads that shoot. The Neroimus War ran as a persistent territory campaign where nations gained and lost ground across real weeks.

It was one of the most ambitious multiplayer structures anyone attempted on that hardware. All of it is gone. The servers closed in 2010, and what remains is a short single player campaign that exists to teach the roles and a set of skirmish maps. The machines are slow to the point of tedium without the tactical layer, the visuals were drab even then, and the parts economy is opaque. A great game you can no longer play.