Chrome Specforce (PC)

Chrome II?

In 2003 Chrome hit the gaming scene and really made waves in a lot of other countries, the English-speaking ones kind of ignored it and concentrated on other things for their FPS fix. But regardless Chrome hung on in there and wouldn’t go away; those people that played it found it was an engaging game with a pretty solid story and some good graphics. That was two years ago however.

Chrome: Specforce is more of a prequel than a sequel, comes in at a budget price and offers more of the same shooting action as the first game.

Story

We’re back in Bolt Logan’s boots and Mr. Logan is still part of the armed forces, plying his trade and shooting holes in people. The universe is a dangerous place and the Corporations rule everything with the power of their private armies and wads of cash, behind them.

Logan and his squad buddy Pointer are sent to destroy the labs of a rival Corp, and surprise there’s a complication. The base ship is destroyed and they’re left stranded on the planet of Estrella, soon to link up with freedom/resistance fighters battling LorGen.

Gameplay

Nothing has changed from the first game and C: SF pads along with the same gameplay mechanics from Chrome which were fairly solid. Run, shoot and drive various vehicles around the levels which are massive just like the first game. Employ a similar array of weapons and shoot holes in the bad guys.

C: SF retains the enhancements from the first game, cutting down on the number and the cool-factor quite a lot. Gone are the excellently designed eye-scope plus features and its replaced with a layer of adaptive armour, camo-field armour and a nod to ‘bullet time’ which we’ve seen in a load of other games. Its about time that developers really sorted out the cool tech and went a different route, nano-tech and enhancements are a throw-back from Deus Ex and Cyberpunk now.

The hacking mechanic (match the symbol-pairs) has been retained for doors and computers, which was a fun but sometimes frustrating little mini-game from the first instalment.

It’s not too hard to see why C: SF went from an add-on to a budget release though; nothing much has truly changed or added. The Inventory system remains the same as previous and introduces some thought to your FPS arsenal, since it works in the same way as say: Sacred where you have a limited amount of space and must choose your weapons carefully.